The Channel Islands.
A picturesque group of rocky isles between Great Britain and France.
For the residents of these islands, life is usually sleepy - making them a popular vacation
destination.
But in 1940, they would be anything but calm and relaxing.
Because Nazi Germany had conquered France and the United Kingdom was next in their sights
- and the Channel Islands were in the way.
The small population and lack of military hardware meant defending the islands would
be impossible - and the UK had no resources to spare in the middle of the war.
They quickly demilitarized the island and evacuated as many civilians as they could
while the German forces bore down.
While a significant percentage left, the majority of the major islands of Jersey and Guernsey
chose to stay - and faced an indefinite Nazi occupation.
But Adolf Hitler had bigger plans for the island than a new source of slave labor.
The Wehrmacht took over the Channel Islands on June 30th, 1940, and were quickly unimpressed
by the island’s defenses.
The islands weren’t a common staging ground for war, and the Nazis weren’t expecting
to spend much time there.
They planned to quickly move on to conquering the United Kingdom mainland.
But Hitler’s ambition got the better of him.
Britain didn’t go down to air assault nearly as easily as they expected, and rising tensions
with Russia meant Hitler was more worried about war on the Eastern front than proceeding
on to London.
And suddenly, the Channel Islands looked a lot more significant.
After looking at maps of the islands, Hitler called additional forces to the small outposts.
He announced a massive construction project that would take the Channel Islands from a
footnote in the war to one of the Nazi regime’s most fortified outposts.
The Organization Todt, Hitler’s civilian infrastructure organization, was brought to
the island with the mission of providing labor and building over two hundred military facilities,
bunkers, and casemates on each of the larger islands.
They would need a lot of manpower.
And Hitler, of course, had a favorite way of getting manpower.
While the Channel Islands occupation hadn’t initially been as brutal as the occupation
of France and other nations Hitler conquered - save for the Jews of the islands, who were
quickly deported - that would soon change.
Hitler needed labor, and the remaining citizens of the islands would be conscripted.
As the islands weren’t seen as a priority initially and were being blockaded by the
allies for much of the war, resources were slim, and conditions would get worse over
the course of the war.
While there was some resistance on the islands, the residents were so outnumbered by armed
occupiers that it never had much of a chance.
And soon, the Channel Islands would be completely transformed.
The Nazis used a system called Regelbau, or Standard Build, to mass-produce bunkers that
could withstand enemy attacks.
Built from over two hundred standardized armor parts, they could be assembled much faster
than other constructs after being built in German factories.
Almost like the world’s largest Lego set, if they could withstand aerial assaults.
There were three primary types of designs - temporary ones in the field made out of
timber and soil with a concrete ceiling, reinforced models with a meter-strong concrete ceiling,
and permanent facilities with two-meter thick concrete ceilings and walls.
Hitler approved the plan - and one of the biggest construction projects in WW2 history
began.
Soon the Channel Islands were met with a throng of workers coming to begin construction.
Some were civilian workers and military members in non-combat positions, but many were taken
from the Nazi labor camps around Europe and from military detainees, along with the native
Channel Island populations.
Supplies were brought in, particularly cement, steel, and timber, and work camps were built
to keep the workforce in a centralized location - and to keep them from escaping.
By the end of 1942, the Channel Islands had become a massive military fortress.
Sites would be excavated using manual labor, often using explosives to speed things up.
As soon as this was done, the construction experts would come in and direct the labor,
carefully assembling sites according to the exact specifications of the plans.
There were several types of facilities, each designed for a specific purpose - and to make
it near-impossible for any allied forces to dislodge the Nazi occupation.
The first line of defense - artillery.
For those visiting the Channel Islands today, one of the most impressive landmarks is Batterie
Mirus, a massive artillery position, With massive range-finding towers and four barrels,
its powerful guns could shoot a stunning thirty-two miles with lightweight shells or almost twenty
miles with heavier anti-armor shells - making them able to gun down enemy forces long before
they could set foot on the island.
The powerhouse artillery position would be joined by ten coastal artillery batteries
on Guernsey alone, surrounded by bunkers that would contain spare ammunition.
But they were prepared for dangers coming from all directions - including above.
The islands were also filled with longer-range guns designed for taking out aircraft, with
some able to shoot as far as 7,500 meters.
Six island anti-aircraft batteries were set up, equipped with radar and searchlights.
The Nazis wanted a clear line of sight and fire, so they looked for wide open locations
- including a converted golf course.
The radars and command bunkers for the anti-aircraft barriers were fortified, with around a hundred
and seventy-five total positions - and just in case anyone got through, the island had
been littered with explosive-rigged obstacles to get planes when they landed.
But if any enemy forces got through, the Nazis were prepared.
If the Allies got to the beach, they would be met by countless casemates designed for
close-range assaults.
While the small bunkers would be hard to penetrate, any soldiers approaching them would be met
with multiple soldiers’ worth of heavy fire.
The machine guns within were equipped with searchlights for nighttime fire.
But the defenses were just as strong as the offensive posts.
Barbed wire and minefields made it dangerous to cross the islands.
Trenches made it hazardous and hard to navigate.
These would usually lead to heavy fire zones, funneling the invading soldiers right into
the line of fire.
The twelve Strongpoint areas around Guernsey protected most of the critical points, with
resistance nests around the island providing simpler defenses.
But the strongest island defenses may have been hidden from sight.
To the untrained eye, much of Guernsey would seem to be unspoiled green.
But this was often camouflage - with paint and straw being used to resemble grass and
natural stones being built into concrete.
And under many of these camouflaged positions would be a massive network of tunnels that
spanned much of the islands.
Built over two years, fourteen full tunnels were completed while others were started but
never finished.
They would allow Nazi personnel and their workers to navigate from one position to another
away from enemy eyes.
And for the most important facilities on the island, secrecy was key.
Leadership and technical support were housed in underground bunkers, as well as the infrastructure
that was needed to keep the massive Nazi war machine on the island running.
Radar units were the top target for allied bombers, and were usually disguised with the
crew working in underground bunkers.
While the transformation of the Channel Islands was very visible, much of its most powerful
tools were hidden.
The Channel Islands megafortress designed by Adolf Hitler seemed indestructible - but
there was one thing they hadn’t counted on.
As the years went on, resistance to the occupation grew, and Nazi oppression increased.
Resisters were sent abroad to Nazi prisons, with some dying.
The British government made several attempts to liberate the islands, but raids had to
be called off due to heavy fire, weather conditions, or resources being needed elsewhere.
In 1944, the Allied forces launched the D-Day landings and liberated Normandy - but decided
to pass by the Channel Islands because it would take far more resources than they had
to take on the German fortifications.
But it had another consequences.
Almost all the Channel Islands’ food supplies went through Nazi-occupied France - and that
pipeline had just been cut off.
The Channel Islands were starving.
Negotiations began for the Channel Islands’ fate, with the Germans initially making an
offer to the British to release all civilians besides military-age men.
Winston Churchill was unimpressed, telling them “Let ‘em starve.
They can rot at their leisure”.
The tide of the war was turning, and the Allies only wanted one thing - unconditional surrender.
The Germans refused to discuss it, and it would be several long months in December of
1944 until a Red Cross ship was finally able to bring food and medical supplies.
But the end was only months away.
May 8th, 1945 saw the Germans surrender, and only days later Allied forces arrived across
the Channel Islands and the German soldiers laid down their weapons.
And slowly but surely, the population that fled the occupied islands began to return
- and were shocked at how their little islands had been transformed.
The Nazi forces were gone, but the islands were still dotted with their massive military
infrastructure.
And in the years to come, it would define the islands in some unique ways.
What was the ultimate purpose of Hitler’s island megafortress?
The Germans put an enormous amount of effort into defending a small group of islands, but
it amounted to very little.
They were able to hold the islands, but never mounted any successful attacks on Britain
from there.
They were never conquered, but nearly starved to death as soon as they were cut off.
Was it just another elaborate project of the madman who met his end inside a German bunker
- or was it intended as something else?
Some suspect it may have been a place Hitler planned to hide if he got out of Germany in
time.
A group of Channel Island residents were determined to answer those questions.
It was 1961 when the Channel Islands Occupation Society was formed.
A group of volunteers dedicated to investigating and managing the history of the German occupation,
they took over management of many of the German sites from the British military and publish
an annual newsletter sharing stories from the era.
Based in both Jersey and Guernsey, they are most people’s entry point into this little-known
part of World War 2 history.
But they’re not the only way to learn about it.
Today, one of the Channel Islands’ biggest industries is tourism.
The islands are open to visitors, and most of the most famous Nazi bunkers have been
cleaned out of anything dangerous and are open to tourists.
Historian Dan Snow put out a documentary as he traveled the length of Guernsey, visiting
Hitler’s island fortress and sharing tales of the Second World War.
A German Occupation Museum stands in Les Houards, offering a look into artifacts and communications
from the occupation era.
His whole trip consisted of a six-day itinerary - much of which can be covered by daring visitors.
But not all the secrets of the Nazi occupation have been uncovered yet.
It was early 2020 when Snow’s documentary crew explored a bunker that had only recently
been uncovered and renovated.
It was even filled with the original bunks for the soldiers stationed there, and the
walls were painted with murals from the men who lived underground.
There were places reserved for pictures of high-ranking German officials, including Hitler
himself.
Even today, over seventy years since the war, Hitler’s island megafortress continues to
give up its secrets.
While the occupation lasted only five years, the fortress was built to last - and historians
of the war will likely be making new discoveries for decades to come.
Check out “Did Hitler REALLY Escape to Argentina” for another look at a possible Nazi plan for
the end of the war, or check out this video instead.