Discourse and Defiance Under Nazi Occupation: Guernsey, Channel Islands, 1940-1945 (8 page)

Despite the speculation and the evening broadcast, some would not receive definitive news of the Occupation until Monday morning. Winifred Harvey was told by her Hungarian housemaid, Rosa, who announced “with rosy cheeks, eyes and mouth round with excitement, “The Germans are here!” Rosa Toth was one of the many Hungarian, Rumanian, German, Swiss, or Italian girls serving as domestic help in the Island, largely because British girls eschewed domestic service at the time. Winnie actually had a second Hungarian girl, Maria Szabo, who served as her cook.
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Rosa, and presumably many others, of these girls were intensely excited at the arrival of young German soldiers, anticipating that they would find allies, and perhaps romance, among their ranks. Part of this anticipation was the desire for a reversal of fortunes where the servants would become the mistresses under the new order. Rosa, for example, wanted Winifred Harvey to evacuate to England, and planned to remain in the Island and take up residence in Winnie's house. Rosa and most of these girls refused to evacuate, fearing being interned in England, with many hoping that the Germans might give them free passage back to their homelands.
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In any case, this would be the way Winnie heard the momentous news that morning, and having confirmed the truth by way of the milkman, stoically thought, “Well…I had best get dressed.”
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Equally practical was Dorothy Higgs, who awakened Monday morning believing she heard the telephone. But when the operator told her that they were not “expecting any more trunk calls,” then Dorothy “knew that was that.” She even felt a certain “relief to know the sword had fallen and we no longer had to sit shivering under it.”
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And that seems to have been a widespread feeling: a desire to have the agony of uncertainty and waiting at an end. So, with great trepidation, the Islanders prepared to face whatever would come next.

THE VELVET GLOVE

Despite going to bed on Sunday night “with heavy hearts dreading the consequence of the German invasion,”
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the Guernsey population awoke on Monday morning to news that somewhat assuaged their deepest fears. Special editions of both Island newspapers, the
Evening Press
and the
Star
, had been published overnight and delivered free to every household. The front page was given over to a listing of the initial “Orders of the Commandant of the German Forces in Occupation of the Island of Guernsey,”
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the details of which were greeted with cautious optimism. Wirelesses would still be allowed, there was no move (despite many rumors that circulated to the contrary) to close churches and chapels, time would move forward by an hour, and the private use of cars was to cease.
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Considering the treatment of Europe under occupation and the horrors of the initial air raid, the orders seemed “very lenient in the circumstances.”
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Yet, the second of the eleven orders did not escape notice: “We will respect the population in Guernsey, but, should anyone attempt to cause the least trouble, serious measures will be taken and the town will be bombed.”
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The direct threat of a repeat bombing, combined with an order that begged the question of what “the least trouble” actually meant, caused Dorothy Higgs to tartly observe, “So, I rather think we shall behave exactly as they wish!”
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Some of these initial orders led to the unconscious human comedy that would shadow more important events throughout the Occupation. The Germans lessened the opportunity for armed resistance with Order Six, requiring that all weapons “except souvenirs” had to be turned in to the Royal Hotel by noon of that very day, along with all ammunition. Jack Sauvary took the bus into St. Peter Port, only to find hundreds already in front of the Royal carrying all sorts of swords, bayonets, and all variety of guns, including the muzzle-loading type. Seeing the different interpretations put on the term “weapon,” Jack handed in his old revolvers, all three tied neatly together. The German officer took them, looked them over, and simply said, “Curios I suppose, oh you can take them back.”
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Winifred Harvey topped Jack in her caution by cutting off the points of the hog-spears hanging decoratively in the hall. These she packed up with some ancient swords and sent in by way of “old Roberts,” one of her part-time gardeners. Again, the German officer handed this unusual collection appeared flummoxed, exclaiming, “These are souvenirs, we don't want these,” whereupon the faithful Roberts brought them all back home again.
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There were many reasons for the restraint of the occupier's hand and a “velvet glove” treatment of the populace during these initial weeks and months. Other occupying forces have started with a belief that the least effort and most effective control lay in a benign policy couched in mutual respect. This would be the initial approach taken, for example, by the Northern forces in the occupied South of the American Civil War, where most officers in charge “eschewed mass arrests and mandatory loyalty oaths in favor of a ‘rosewater’ policy of leniency and suasion.”
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For the German occupiers of Guernsey, three basic factors made an easing into the Occupation the obvious choice: a misperception of Guernsey history, a strategic sense of the value of the Channel Islands, and the personalities of those initially in command.

First, there was some confusion in the German mind over the pedigree of Channel Islanders and whether they considered themselves British, French, or something wholly independent, a confusion that was only amplified by the Channel Islands' position as Crown dependencies. This status means that the Channel Islands are part of the British Isles but not the United
Kingdom and owe allegiance to the monarch rather than Westminster.
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Hitler reportedly chose to view the Islanders as French and therefore likely to greet the invading German armies as “liberators,” a common fantasy it would seem for occupying forces.
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The Germans' original notions of flowers thrown at their feet by a liberated people were short-lived, and their propaganda based on that theme was mere fabrication.
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However, the lingering effects of confusion over the Guernsey constitution and national loyalties did lead to some apparent oddities during the Occupation. For example, singing of the national anthem was banned unless special permission was granted, yet prayers for the royal family, viewed by the Germans as wholly separate from Churchill and Parliament, were permitted during church services.
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In actuality, this policy was a more accurate reflection of Guernsey's special nature as a British Crown dependency.

There also seem to have been confused notions of the actual strategic value of the Channel Islands. Certainly the propaganda value of occupying a corner of British territory was clear to the German hierarchy. Whether the Channel Islands could serve as a launching point for the invasion of the British mainland is questionable, considering that they are located so close to western France. Any attack by sea or air would have been more logical coming directly across the narrowest portion of the English Channel and launched from the northernmost part of France. It is instructive that some of the troops coming ashore, perhaps having been told that an invasion was imminent, believed that they had reached the Isle of Wight or mainland Britain itself.
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It was more important for German self-protection to prevent the British from retaking these Islands, so close to German-occupied France, that would then be available as Britain's own invasion launch point. But the true strategic nature of the Islands and the need for a benign advent to the Occupation may have hinged on the rejected July 19, 1940, peace proposal that Hitler made to Britain. As Knowles Smith claims, this proposal surely had some effect on the early Occupation, for “the invader would naturally wish to demonstrate to the British people that they were not cruel barbarians, but a highly civilised and superior race, well able to rule fairly.”
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Plans for this attempted rapprochement were combined with a reported respect that the Germans felt for the British as cultural equals. Many historians have reported the instructions given by his superior to Count von Schmettow, when he was placed in command over the Channel Islands at the end of September 1940, to “remember that it is English territory you are going to, not defeated France.”
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Confusion over the nature of the Channel Islands and strategic concerns were both instrumental in setting the tone for the earliest days of Occupation. Yet the interplay between the personalities of Ambrose Sherwill and Major Dr. Albrecht Lanz may be the most salient reason for a display of the velvet glove. As the first commandant of the Guernsey Occupation, Lanz brought a scholarly mindset to his position and appears to have formed a strong regard for his opposite number in the Guernsey government. Sherwill was a decorated war veteran of World War I, wounded nine times in combat. On his first meeting with Lanz, Sherwill brought his medals for gallantry in action and placed them on the table before the commandant. Noting that his days as a soldier were behind him, Sherwill said, “I bitterly regret that I am one no longer but there isn't a rifle in the island. Now I realise that I must obey orders.”
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This gesture, realistic but with an edge of defiance, appealed to Lanz and forged an early respect between the two men.

Apparently Lanz had a sense of how to handle large groups of people, assuring them that their concerns were considered and their input taken seriously. He appointed one of his
officers, Dr. Maass, to serve as an official liaison with the Island population. Kitty Bachmann described how Dr. Maass kept “fixed hours each day during which Islanders may call on him for advice, on any of the problems arising from the Occupation.”
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He seems to have been successful in defusing a number of situations, and received strong positive reviews for the brief time that he held this position. Although not speaking from personal experience, Winifred Harvey reported that Dr. Maass was “a charming person, I hear.”
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What is apparent from all accounts is that the replacement of Dr. Maass in August and Dr. Lanz in late September was widely viewed as a bleak omen for the future. Kitty Bachmann announced on August 10 the first shift in German control: “The Chief-of-Staff, Dr. Maas [
sic
], has been replaced. We can hardly expect a change for the better; for, by all accounts, Dr. Maas was always approachable and, at times, even conciliatory.”
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The anxiety felt by Islanders over the removal of Maass and Lanz was not misplaced. Although the true shift in occupier/occupied relationship would not come until early the next spring, only to worsen notably the following year, events of the fall of 1940 served as prelude to still darker times to come. These earliest changes at the top signaled an end to the artificial honeymoon of the first months of Occupation.

THE PANOPTICAL PRISON

Dorothy Higgs could say, with justice, that the residents of Guernsey felt “the iron hand very little” in the early days. She chalked up as “mainly unimportant things” such restrictions as cycling single file and “needing to be careful about phoning.” These were all, in Higgs's view, “just policy and not compulsion.”
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I would like to put a different frame on these early orders and the way they may have operated both by chance and by design. These orders basically fell into two groups: censorship of communication and restraint of allowable actions. They were accompanied by a very visible presence of the triumphant German forces, and by what Guernseymen viewed as attempts at “Germanization” of their Island home.

By instituting control by continuing surveillance and the restriction of civilian actions, the German command established an occupation based on “panopticism.” This term, coined by Michel Foucault, is a metaphoric play on Jeremy Bentham's eighteenth-century design for a model prison. Bentham's Panopticon was designed with a central tower, having windows facing a ring of cells. Each cell had a large window facing the tower and a small window on the opposite wall, allowing the cell to be flooded by crosslight. Thus, each prisoner was clearly visible, while unable to see the observer in the tower. Walls between the cells prevented contact between prisoners, and so the cells functioned like “so many small theatres, in which each actor is alone, perfectly individualized and constantly visible.”
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Because the prisoners were never sure when they were being watched, they assumed a constant observer, supplying in their own minds a guard who may or may not have been actually present. As Foucault succinctly put it, “Visibility is a trap,”
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and it was their continuous visibility that allowed control of the prisoners. Shackles and locks were secondary, for the prisoner knew that his every move was being monitored, and only his compliance with regulations could prevent punishment.

Ideally, in the German view, the Island of Guernsey would have to function as a prison without bars, which is the true promise of the Panopticon. There certainly seemed to be enough troops in Guernsey to aid in the necessary surveillance. On July 29, 1940, a census by
the States of Guernsey had recorded that there were 23,981 Islanders still in residence.
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The number of German soldiers in the Island varied, but there were approximately 15,000 soldiers in Guernsey at the peak of the Occupation during the spring of 1942.
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Yet, even with the massive presence of German troops, something more would be needed to achieve a panoptical effect. The answer lay in the establishment of a sense of constant surveillance that can be seen in the early orders of the German occupiers.