The Channel Islands At War

by Peter King

  This incident shows Coutanche's earlier statement in his memoirs that he agreed with von Schmettow that there must be no social contact of any kind between them was untrue. Like Hathaway, Coutanche was willing to mix on social terms with the occupiers. Von Aufsess' diary is revealing because he was keen to show how well he and other Germans had got on with the Islanders or rather the well-off Islanders. In December 1944, for example, von Aufsess asked Coutanche, Carey and his sister-in-law to lunch at the Royal Hotel, when Coutanche had gone over to Guernsey to receive the first Red Cross food ship to arrive in the Islands. Von Aufsess described it as 'an excellent meal', while Julia Tremayne was lamenting in her diary a few days later, 'how the Germans can let us starve and their own troops as well, beats me'. When von Aufsess had tea with the Coutanches in January 1945 he found the atmosphere 'pleasantly informal and stimulating'.

  There can be no doubt that such pleasantness on the Germans' part was part of an agreed policy, and even someone like von Aufsess, who was a genuinely civilized man, was a cog in the machine of the Reich. He saw 'our personal contacts over the years' as being valuable in the task of administering the Islands because, 'such a strong bond of personal liking and understanding [was formed] that all questions that might have led to difficulties were quickly cleared up.' He spoke of the velvet glove which had 'served them well', and saw his task as building golden bridges in plenty.

  This policy was not only administratively valuable, but enabled the Germans to enjoy life. Von Schmettow lived in Government House, and Schumacher and his successors at Linden Court, waited on by the former servants. Von Aufsess who lived at White Lodge commented when he moved to Linden Court that he had spent three years 'happy time' in his former house. The officers had their own soldatenheims and special clubs. As late as April 1945 when an Island official called to see him at Langford House, von Aufsess could write that sitting on the smooth lawn, 'with the wisteria, tulips and fruit trees in blossom all around it was difficult to imagine the war,' and this at a time when Islanders were tearing down trees in the main streets for firewood, and there were no fruit or vegetables for them.

  Although German officers enjoyed almost halcyon conditions in their private lives and relations with the Island rulers this was only the background to the serious business of day-to-day military occupation, particularly after the decisions in 1941 to reinforce the garrison, and build the fortifications. There was plenty of hard work involved in carrying out these orders, and many practices and war games were necessary to test the defences. The arrival in June 1941 of 319 Division to replace 216 Division troops, was followed in October by the arrival of their divisional commander, Major-General Erich Müller, who outranked von Schmettow and, while he was in the Islands until September 1943, became the inselkommandant in his own right. To avoid any clash with von Schmettow, it was decided to establish divisional headquarters near the signals headquarters in Guernsey although this brought a heavier burden of troops to the poorer of the two main Islands. The command complex was based on a house called La Corbinerie off the Oberlands Road where command bunkers were built for the infantry and artillery commanders with drawbridges and camouflage defences, barracks and hospital facilities. Muller was a short, bucolic looking bachelor of irascible temper. Because he was primarily a field commander, Muller had little to do with administration, and made little impression before he left for the Russian front. Von Schmettow then regained full command and shifted his headquarters to the bunkers on Guernsey.

  Alderney was the most heavily fortified of the Islands, and took slightly longer to bring into the command structure. Elements of 89 Division on the Island remained under the command of Cherbourg until December 1941. In July that year, Captain Carl Hoffmann arrived to take command, although he did not retain office for long because it was decided the Island should be under the command of a lieutenant-colonel. However, he remained at headquarters to give advice. In 1945 Hoffmann was interrogated at the London Cage, and then interned. According to some sources he was offered for trial to the Russians on the dubious grounds that all Alderney prisoners had been Russians, and it was therefore their responsibility to act on crimes against their nationals. It was said, and has been repeated, since that Hoffmann was publicly executed at Kiev in late

  1945, although Solomon Steckoll who looked at over three thousand 'Carl Hoffmanns' in German records has argued that he was released from a British POW camp in April 1948 and died at Hamelin in March 1974.

  Hoffmann was less guilty of presiding over atrocities on Alderney than his successors, Lieutenant-Colonels Zuske and Schwalm. It was under Zuske that recorded deaths of Todt prisoners reached their height in the winter of 1942-3. When it became obvious the Allies might include the Islands in their invasion plans Schwalm issued a chilling order stating that 'the concentration camp prisoners will immediately be collected in Sylt Camp and kept under the strictest supervision by SS guard personnel. Attempts at breakout or escape will be rendered impossible. In no circumstances will prisoners be allowed to fall into the hands of the enemy.' The camp commander, Braun, was to act in accordance with orders direct from Himmler.

  Subservience to the military increased early in 1944 when the civil commander's authority was reduced from Feld - to Platz - commander, and the military commanders of the three Islands - von Schmettow, Heine, and Schwalm were made Festungs - commanders. D-Day was followed by the complete isolation of the Islands as a result of the successive captures of Cherbourg, Granville, and St Malo. They became fortresses under siege with civilians imprisoned inside subject to the laws of war. This produced severer policies and changes in personnel which left the Islands under the rule of a dedicated group of Nazis determined to hold out at the very least to the end of 1945. Then the Islands were stripped for action by the removal of the Todt organization and concentration camp inmates, reinforced by naval units and personnel, and required to play an operational role on the flank of the battle for Normandy. German submarines were repaired, and naval craft escaped to the Islands from French ports. The military were involved in offensive action to help the Island of Cezembre hold out, and in attack on Granville.

  Under attack, fearing invasion, and furious at Allied victory in Normandy which cut them off, the mood of the German occupiers changed, and even von Schmettow had to realize that he was first and foremost a soldier at war. In July 1944, another event occurred which made the Nazi officers more determined to be savage if necessary to ensure that the Islands held out. The Bomb Plot to kill Hitler by officers and aristocrats failed, and it was well known that some in the Island administration like von Aufsess had relatives involved on the fringes of this conspiracy. Von Aufsess told Duret Aubin, the Jersey attorney-general, that he wished the plot had succeeded, and then pledged him to secrecy.

  As soon as D-Day took place the Fortress policy began to operate, and Coutanche was given a proclamation by Heine, the fortress commander, setting the new scene in stark perspective: 'I expect the population of Jersey to keep its head, to remain calm, and to refrain from any acts of sabotage and from hostile acts against the German forces, even should the fighting spread to Jersey. At the first signs of unrest or trouble I will close the streets to every [sic] traffic and will secure hostages. Attacks against the German forces will be punished by death.'

  On the day of invasion German troops appeared in full battle order, and Berlin Radio incorrectly announced British parachutists had landed. The artillery roared into action against Allied planes. Guards were placed on all essential strong points, the telephone service closed, schools shut, and all social gatherings were forbidden. Mrs Cortvriend noticed Germans looking worried for the first time. By coincidence, von Schmettow had been summoned to a mainland divisional commanders conference at Rennes on 4 June, and was in Granville on the way back as air raids on the Islands began. However, he came across in a boat through the raids and landed on 7 June.

  Von Schmettow was loyal to his supreme commander, and sent a wireless message to Berlin decl
aring that, 'The three Island fortresses conscious of their strength and following the example of other fortresses, will faithfully hold out to the last. With this in mind we salute the Führer and the Fatherland'. When the Americans made two half-hearted attempts on 9 and 22 September to start negotiations for surrender by reopening the cable to France, and then by direct parley with a major from Eisenhower's headquarters, von Schmettow abruptly rejected them, worried that his own position was under threat. Until June 1944 control had been exercised by the military government in St Germain, but clearly war prevented this administrative system from operating. On 25 October 1944 control was invested in Marinegruppe West under the command of Admiral Krancke who from the comparative comfort of Bad Schwalbach and under orders from Admiral Dfinitz was to insist on the no-surrender policy which would involve the Islanders and German troops in months of prolonged suffering.

  The storm petrel heralding this change was Vice-Admiral Friedrich Hüffmeier, naval commander in the Channel Isles region, who arrived on 30 June to replace von Helldorf as von Schmettow's chief of staff in view of the increased naval role in affairs. Hüffmeier was the former commander of the Scharnhorst, and in spite of his avuncular appearance he was a ruthless Kriegsmarine Nazi determined to hold the Islands at all costs, and deeply suspicious of the existing generals whom he saw as being too close to the Island rulers. At the end of July his first report to Krancke stressed that nothing was being done to strengthen the Islands for a long siege by bringing in more supplies or evacuating the civilian population. Von Schmettow was certainly pessimistic because by this time the blockade was cutting mail supplies, and an order for long-range planes to supply the Islands could not be carried out. Von Aufsess noted that, "the first long term report on the besieged fortress has been drawn up. We can hold out until the end of December. After that famine is inevitable.' Indeed another estimate said that only 45 days supply was left.

  Hüffmeier had three solutions: cut supplies to troops; cut supplies to Islanders; then cut-off all supplies to Islanders and force their evacuation or supply by the British or their mass starvation on the Islands. Keitel, Jodl, Donitz and Krancke supported these severe proposals, and after a second report from Hüffmeier spoke of defeatist talk in the garrison.

  OKW acted on 18 September and Keitel issued a directive cutting civilian rations to a minimum, saying that if supplies still proved inadequate the civilians would be abgeschoben, i.e. pushed over the British, a vague phrase whose purpose was made clear in a further clause stating that: 'An Order will follow for the complete stopping of rations to the civilian population, and for measures to inform the British government that this has been done.'

  Next day the Swiss protecting power was informed of the German plan to withdraw supplies and a long-drawn-out battle to persuade Churchill to send relief began with tragic consequences for the starving Islanders. The policy naturally won the strong backing of Nazis on the Islands so that Heine could warn that all private stocks might be confiscated on Jersey by military necessity. Von Aufsess was shocked by a document circulated by someone in Military Intelligence saying that, 'the civilian population following a brief ultimatum to Great Britain, should be abandoned to starvation straight away. They should be rounded up in camps, where they would be cut off from any further food supplies.'

  Von Schmettow knew he was being watched by military intelligence, and he decided to make it clear to the Island governments that he backed a tough policy. This he did in a letter to Coutanche in Jersey on 25 September, also sent to Carey on Guernsey on 23 October when the bailiffs complained about decreasing food supplies, and dared to warn von Schmettow he might be held accountable after the war for unnecessary restrictions on supplies. 'The necessities of war", said von Schmettow, 'cannot be disregarded'. They were now cut-off and i can no longer provide for the civilian population'. Even if things came to the worst, he said, and a calamitous situation arose for the population 'this would not in any way alter the case', and Britain would be to blame in the first place as the besieging force. Coutanche's and Carey's fond belief that they were dealing with civilized men vanished, and von Schmettow made this very plain ending, 'I must also abstain from personal conversation' following criticisms made of German policy. A non-fraternization order for all troops soon followed.

  In his 1945 New Year message von Schmettow told the troops they had a hard year ahead of them, and there would have to be more sacrifices. The Inselkommandant had done all he could to use the forces at his disposal offensively to help the Normandy front, and the Kriegsmarine. During the siege of St Malo von Schmettow sent the hospital ship Bordeaux to the besieged city on 7 August escorted by two other vessels, and brought off some 600 wounded as well as about 90 unwounded troops. The Commander in St Malo was able to order vessels to leave for the Channel Islands and nine did so. He was determined to hold out in the fortress of St Servan, and ordered troops on the Island of Cezembre under the command of Obit. Seuss to fight to the finish. Requests for help reached the communications bunker on Guernsey, and von Schmettow despatched two ships with supplies. One boat returned, but the other one went aground in the night, and was sunk by the Americans off Cezembre next day.

  This action enabled Seuss to reject an American offer of surrender, and the men had to stay there two nights while the Island was bombarded by the USAAF. A vessel with ammunition was then sent from St Helier and the men from the second boat taken off together with wounded, and 22 unwounded Italians. Nightly visits were tried to help sustain the tiny garrison who were subjected to bombardment by a French battleship, the dropping of napalm bombs, and aircraft rocket strikes. Hüffmeier ordered the Bordeaux out a second time, but it was captured and taken to Portland. Hüffmeier radioed not to surrender, but bad weather prevented the next relieving force and on 2 September the garrison surrendered 15 days after the fall of St Malo and a siege which cost the Germans 300 casualties.

  Just before Christmas a number of Germans managed to escape from their POW camp near Granville, and in an American patrol boat reached St Helier with details of the harbour and the American positions. A model of the port was constructed and a raid in force planned by von Schmettow and Hüffmeier. It was scheduled for the night of 6/7 February but had to be called off, and so by the time it did take place on the night of 8/9 March Hüffmeier was able to claim the credit. The ships used were six mine-sweepers, three artillery carriers, two landing-craft, three MTBs, and a tug, and 600 men were involved.

  Five ships took up positions to hold off relieving forces, and two mine-sweepers entered the harbour under the covering fire of three others. Meanwhile, MTBs landed assault parties of engineers to destroy installations, naval ratings to place charges on moored ships, Luftwaffe men to immobilize the anti-aircraft guns, a party of 12 to destroy the radar station, and a prize party. A force of infantry created a diversionary attack on the Hotel des Bains to cover these forces. The Germans controlled the port for an hour and a half in spite of American attacks. Moored ships had their mechanisms smashed, and port installations were demolished. A British coaster, the Eskwood, was towed out, but found to contain few supplies. Only the attack on the radar station failed. Prisoners were taken, including a party of Americans in their pyjamas from the Hotel des Bains. Attempts by naval forces to stop the raid failed with an American submarine chaser and possibly another vessel being sunk. On their way back the force put out of action a signal station on the Chausey Islands, and returned in triumph having lost one dead and five wounded and but one ship. They had taken 30 prisoners and released 55 Germans. Donitz convinced Hitler that it was all Hüffmeier's doing, and Hüffmeier replied that he could hold the Islands for a year, and planned a second raid in April.

  In spite of von Schmettow's efforts, Hüffmeier continued to undermine him in his reports, and at last in February 1945 orders came that von Schmettow was to retire on health grounds. Changes in personnel then took place. Hüffmeier took Major-General Dini as his chief of staff, and, as he clearly could not command 319
Division, Major-General Rudolf Wulf was flown in from the Russian front. Heine was promoted to Major-General and became Hüffmeier's right-hand man. The Platzkommandantur was also shaken up. Heider was replaced by Captain von

  Cleve, and Captain Reich took over in Guernsey. The task of these dedicated Nazis was formidable since the German army was going to pieces as it starved slowly to death. Soldiers died trying to get sea-birds eggs on the cliffs or poisoned themselves eating hemlock. Sedition in the forces had to be severely repressed, and this led to attacks on Hüffmeier and Wulf by troops maddened with despair and hunger.

  Hüffmeier and his colleagues were determined to deal with those officers they believed wanted to surrender. By now von Aufsess was terrified he would be arrested, and had planned his escape from Jersey. He wrote later that he had identity documents as a French labourer, bearing his photograph and duly stamped by his own office. His fellow conspirators were young local people, two men and a girl whose sailing boat lay in Gorey Harbour. With his help they fitted it up with two outboard motors, a supply of petrol and a week's rations.

  Von Cleve was suspicious of von Helldorf and von Aufscss, and said they should be shot. Von Helldorf was placed under house arrest, and on 28 April he was banished to the Island of Herm. Von Aufsess was then transferred to Guernsey on 14 April disrupting his escape plans, and he remained desperately worried to the end of the occupation.

  Having squashed discontent in the administration, Hüffmeier set out to restore the garrison's morale with the issue of 30 pages of new standing orders. Drilling began again, and proper guards were mounted outside German headquarters buildings. When he doubted the loyalty of Russian troops he sent them to Alderney and Sark, and on Alderney there was a court martial in April 1945 after which two soldiers were executed. The Islanders were also cowed by severe orders ending with one issued on 3 May which stated that: 'The German authorities are determined to maintain and have the power to enforce the maintenance of law and order until the end of the occupation. There must therefore be no public marches, assemblies or demonstrations. Those who transgress this order will be most severely dealt with ...'