Hitler's Island Madness

June the 28 1940 German aircraft screamed down on the harbour of st. Peter ponds in the Channel Islands [Applause] strafing the dockside they killed 33 civilians children and they then fire upon an ambulance racing to help the wounded before turning out to sea and attacking of the local lifeboat this was the Nazi version of shock and awe when the German air force returned days later 150 square miles of were occupied without a shot being fired the Channel Islands were the first and only British territory to fall to the incredible pace of Hitler's blitzkrieg and so began the bizarre story of Hitler's Island madness Hitler's extraordinary obsession with the only British territory he captured was to turn the Channel Islands into the most fortified place on earth [Music] because of that obsession these tiny islands saw such towering figures as man batten Churchill and Stalin arguing over their fate but as the Battle of Britain raged in the skies over England it became apparent to even the most fanatical Nazi that the blitzkrieg had been stopped [Applause] Hitler opened a second front in the east towards Russia and in the West attack gave way to defense today as the birds soar above the sea walls few visitors realize that they are actually flying above tank defenses built by slave laborers who toiled under the brutal yoke of the Third Reich it nearly never happened on July the 2nd in 1940 Churchill wrote to his personal chief of staff suggesting a night raid upon the islands almost immediately and newly formed commandos undertook their first operation it was a fiasco the Navy all but missed the island half the launches were left behind or lost the enemy could not be found and when the raiding party started to swim back to their escort they were found to be some non swimmers they were left behind to face certain imprisonment there is no question that the Fuhrer was always worried that the British would like their Islands back if only for the propaganda value nor did he underestimate the propaganda value of German troops filmed cheerfully mingling with British citizens Hitler was immensely proud of his only British conquest and he was determined that this latest part of the Reich should not be recaptured he argued that the islands had strategic importance and that they were his laboratory for anglo-german relations he issued a stream of orders for the defense of the islands all beaches were to be mined all open areas set with obstacles at least 200 strong points were to be set up on both Guernsey and Jersey then in June 1941 German forces flooded eastwards across Europe to begin the assault on Russia Operation Barbarossa bizarrely in the midst of planning Barbarossa the biggest invasion in history Hitler took time out to worry about the Channel Islands not satisfied with progress there he launched yet more orders and a crash building program was begun but Allied sniping raids on the coast of Europe were increasingly successful the protection of fortress Europe became a priority [Music] Hitler's response was to create the Atlantic Wall at over three thousand 125 miles long stretching from Norway to the Spanish borders the vast range of structures and defenses the immense volume of concrete the sheer scale of the workforce combined to make it unique amongst 20th century military defenses as general hand Speidel recorded in his memoirs the pas-de-calais and the Channel Islands were to be made the mightiest fortresses in an eight year plan this was the will of Hitler the Channel Islands became a unique point in this unique line as German soldier Jack chapel aus key found when he was billeted there I found that Jersey was one of the most beautiful islands I ever have seen when I got back two girls a more part of the cases we had built I always wondered look at all that cement was being used the idea of the fortifications was effectively to combine all of the resources available so anti-aircraft guns anti-tank guns beach landing defenses artillery and in here anti-aircraft defense and therefore control those through a series of bunkers to effectively make us Hitler orders the Channel Islands impregnable [Music] today few people realize how far back the history of the islands fortification extends [Music] the Germans however did they left behind in Guernsey's royal court an extraordinary manuscript the fest on Guernsey it details everything the German forces learnt about the military history of the island and its previous fortifications and how they set about using them for their own ends no matter how old they were there are some little ramparts and ditches on promontories along the south coast which could be nearly thick in date basically things get bigger and better as time goes on so then through the the Bronze Age and the Iron Age there are more fortifications developed where we're standing Vale Castle was fortified for the first time probably around eight or seven hundred BC early in the Iron Age but the fortification of the islands really began when King John lost Normandy in 1204 island leaders chose to pledge allegiance to the English sovereign to the fury of the French as the islands commanded the sea routes to those parts of southern France still held by the king they suddenly assumed an immense strategic importance the first French attack came a mere 10 years later when a pirate called Eustace the monk attempted to capture Guernsey it was the start of centuries of invasion threat and fortification most of the time they were defending themselves against the French just occasionally the French actually managed to take over small bits noticeably castle cornet for a few years in the 14th century when in 1778 France declared allegiance with the American colonists in their struggle with the British the Islanders made fortunes attacking French shipping the French weren't pleased it was time to invest in some serious fortification and over a dozen coastal towers were built to command likely invasion sites around the coast they were originally 50 loophole towers of which I think it's now 12 are left they were all built slightly before the true Martello towers so they were built in the late 18th century they could take a small number of men with the loopholes obviously for musket fire by 1804 it was decided to build a further three fortifications this time modeled on the Martello tower that were being built across the south coast of England the islands had now become fortresses [Music] all military planners look at the terrain with the same eye the defensive positions the high ground the fields of fire the killing fields and the German forces in 1940 they saw Guernsey no differently to the local defenders before them so then you get a whole new wave of fortification but basically on the same sites some of the smaller gun batteries around the coast when they were in a useful position site where you got a particularly good view they were refortified in the Second World War they were used again indeed the German engineers paid a great compliment to the military engineers of earlier times announcing that not only were the fortifications in the best possible strategic positions but that they were so well built they only needed the addition of a reinforced concrete roof to make them suitable for the needs of 20th century warfare castle corner is I suppose the sort of premier fortification on the island and that is one example of a place where the Germans obviously felt they could make considerable new civic they poured huge quantities of concrete into the Citadel into the the higher part of the castle for sums and very well protected bunkers in there and around most of the gun batteries that that are around the edge of the castle there is concrete that they were refortified but could they stop Britain getting her Islands back we can get a unique insight into the fortifications thanks to the German military's obsession for record-keeping and one particular document festung Guernsey many historians believe that the festival was created for Hitler's birthday it was certainly designed to reassure every battery commander was asked to report his operational capability standing orders and battle plan these records were then collated and presented to the Commandant as festung Guernsey the documents have remained spread across the island archives for over 60 years but now reassembled and translated for the first time they reveal the immense scale of the islands defenses they are the key which unlocks the secrets of the fortifications the beauty of the book and it's carefully crafted pages obscures the deadly intent of the structures and the brutality of the regime that built them [Music] that task was given to the organisation Todt organisation Todt was formed from the workforce which had been constructing the autobahns under the control of Fritz Todt initially a civilian agency it went in a matter of months from organizing a workforce of volunteers into directing an enormous slave labor organization been swathi was one such slave laborer back home before I was sent out Chris we became out of work and labour office scientist on to be transported to normally landed in Norway with the train and at the boat waiting for a cigar currency they know existence this rare archive film shows forced labor contingents comprised of men from across Europe Russians mingle with Spaniards poles with French checked with Belgians Jews with political prisoners there were 27 different nationalities represented during the occupation it didn't much matter where you were formed this wasn't a good place to be they said that they were working for the Germans in their own country and they were told that they were sketching this line because they were going to work in another place instead of that they were taken to the port brought two girls in the clothes that they were wearing and no way of telling their people where they'd gone or what had happened to them and of course they lived under terrible conditions organization thoughts they did the work and of course we had nothing to do with them but every time when they start to something they almost one of the lesser self what's going up there now the men were dressed in the clothes in which they had been conscripted and no new clothing was issued so they were soon reduced to rags one day Sunday morning going to church my brother and I reached the top of Brock Road and there is this long line of shackled prisoners they were absolutely living corpses walking down to the road from there thought so many died so many of these limbs have to work harder to take in the server they have machines for night but then I was explained yeah you have to move these machines from the mainland till then sawdust as was easier for them to get these men over here and make them work that way the slave laborers were brought in from their Phillips and we brought in huge numbers on open carriages and whatever the lever and they were brought in on this railway and they were dropped off where consuption is being made for the bunkers we had two or three and on peril that these poor men they were very Russian and they were in it's awful Commission lady their day consisted of heavy manual labor in 12 hours a day for seven days a week with a daily lunch break of around 15 minutes and one Sunday afternoon off among after school leaves to go down down to the coast and walk around and see these men there's a nicer on the line or working to the shuttering on the bunkers and putting these masses of concrete into these quite huge holes in the ground and they must have been very very difficult for these poor people generally the camp come on this were pastors plays speaking it didn't take him long to build it they said it took him a few Wishon the old bunker was finished but they have so many men they know they had a number of foreign laborers they imported women and they were under the command of the organisation Todt more as everybody knows who built these bunkers that built the seawall and built underground hospital near nameless arbitrary beatings were a daily experience with sand filled hose pipes being a favorite tool of many guards a darker part about 10,000 organisation Todt slated for light workers which were very early treated some of them might believe or even doctors you know and some of her conscientious objectors nobody would hate you if you dismiss a soldier he was wasn't places like dick and Trebek trenches the only way you could a do that let's do the job I will do anything to you if you do to jump little if you did you'd be in for hardened but the real violence was a combination of back-breaking work wholly inadequate accommodation and sanitary conditions and a deficient diet the full research you could live in but not good heavy work really that diet consisted of half a liter of coffees substitute for breakfast a half liter of watery cabbage soup for lunch and soup again on the return to camp in the evening we had slave workers the billeted quite near us and I saw quite a lot of them one the two of them used to come to my house hoping that I could get them food but unfortunately I couldn't give them very much I remember one a pole it for instance and he was desperate for food I did I gave him potatoes because I had plenty of those but otherwise I was able to help them very little you scratch this message again because they didn't supply or anything at all are they the malnutrition that resulted from this negligence led to men dying from eating poisonous berries as they tried to supplement their diet the following workers in Guernsey had a very very rough time and I think that's what frightened dust sure and more than anything because they had two three camps that these two passed in front of our house to go to work on the tunnels and the bunkers they were building and they were a pitiful sight very very pitiful even in death there was no dignity the first thing that happened when one of the laborers died was that he was stripped naked by his workmates desperate for anything they could get their death certificates recorded time and time again that they were possessed of no effects whatever [Music] some local men also worked for the ot although there were alternative non-military jobs the OT paid double and presented a much better opportunity for pilfering and small acts of sabotage one enterprising Islander worked for two years driving officers between the construction sites in August 1943 he escaped to England the information he handed to British intelligence stunned them as men and concrete poured into the Channel Islands offices in the Nazi High Command began to refer to Hitler's insult on his island madness the earthworks constructed during the early days of the occupation began to give way to more permanent fortifications these massive concrete constructions followed the simple principles laid down for the entire Atlantic wall every port was to be rendered inaccessible to the enemy defensive power should be concentrated as far forward as possible all batteries were to be roofed with ferro-cement everything was based on the principle that the final struggle would be fought by the infantry every possible technique was used to speed up construction the continuous pour method was effectively to have a hopper one end putting in the raw ingredients the cement the sound and the aggregate and the mixing motors and continuously mixing those you find them down water shoots to pour as far as they could normally about two meters thick to about ten feet in one continuous report to help the construction of the bunker they would shutter the sides of the walls you can see here the the shuttering marks where the wood was laid up against the walls for when they were bored and internally for added strength they had a metal frame inside to strengthen the bunker it's far easier to build a wooden frame and put steel reinforcing in it before the concrete than it is to actually get people to lay blocks it makes you look a lot stronger as well from a construction point of view and of course makes it watertight and everything else so from a construction point of view it's much easier it's much cheaper as well because you haven't got the labor costs hitting the pass the order saying that the construction of turning Guernsey into a fortress had to be completed within 14 months so they had to construct an awful lot of bunkers in a very quick period of time well it was policeman I basically hate it was four walls of cement just a table with this see you there and so fortunate and you would sit there and wait for a call or had to make a call whatever came up or a tower say over we almost had to get out of there it was that you know you feel but when you are in a bunker so close together to each other we feel kind of isolated from the outside world we're always happy that this is left up over square joints and edges focus stresses and weaken the structure to counter this the leading edges of the walls were rounded off internal walls were not rounded and were considerably thinner however even the simplest bunker conformed to an internal layout designed to thwart the enemy anyone entering a bunker would be required to make an immediate 90-degree turn into a small room this acted as a gas lock before the main entrance to the interior attackers could not simply blow in the main door but had to fight their way through a series of rooms and corridors all sealed by armored doors that isolated the interior the intention was that a bunker that had been penetrated by the enemy could continue to fight larger structures had a machine gun post covering the entrance preventing an attacking force from reaching the door in the event of capture there was a narrow escape tunnel that led to a covered ladder at the rear of the bunker these were sealed with a steel door and two brig partitions which had to be demolished to allow escape all the bunkers are constructed of a standard design normally the corners are radius to deflect any falling shells from artillery or aerial bombardment they would incorporate their own electricity their own generators their own air filtration systems normally you have at least one main entrance in most of the larger bunkers you have two entrances the doors inside were all constructed and recessed to make sure that they could withstand the blast they were also built to be impervious to gas attack gas wasn't used during World War two it was during World War one and that was a great fear for most of the troops inside the bunkers so they have to have the filtration systems to remove the gas and make sure that the bunkers could be over pressured to keep all the gas elements that might used against them out so we only had one enters of this these steps there they are kept open on aside the bomb was dropped and this close up and I never seen it up since that was all room for the navigation here you can see all these cables are still there here was the exchange the telephone exchange which you could call any battery on the island most of the fortifications in the Atlantic Wall are of similar design however the Channel Islands are the only place with these enormous observation towers normally built with only two observation slots those in the Channel Islands had an average of five slots reflecting the massive amount of artillery on the islands as each one was dedicated to an individual batteries fire control of course the guns could be controlled by radar as well but it's much better to be able to see your target then you can try and get out your fire so one tower would not be used on its own they would use two towers and they would range fine from those towers to the actual target and then from that what they could do is work out the precise location the German artillery was normally very accurate and very fast pinnacle of this artillery madness was the battery mirus in Guernsey [Music] Ronald major saw the construction of this huge battery and described it in his diary as the Israelites toiling in ancient Egypt under the taskmasters of ramses ii with the brown shirt it overseers controlling a workforce of some 2,000 excavating the pits the whole valley swarm with and from a distance they resembled pants working on their kingdom the construction of the battery held up work all over the island consuming 47 thousand cubic meters of concrete creating stalls and quarters for the 72 men required for each gun well here we are in merest gunsight number one as you can see it's quite overgrown these days it's been left to the ravages of time really originally this site would have housed the 30 point 5 centimeter or 12 inch Russian guns which were offer a first world war Russian dreadnought the vessel was scrapped before the Second World War and the guns shipped to Norway a part of the scrap line those guns when the Germans overrun Norway were captured in harbour on a ship called the lien and they were destined to be installed on the Atlantic Wall what ended up happening was there was a shortage of heavy artillery when these four 12-inch guns turned up they decided to install them here on Guernsey so it's part of a battery of four guns the individual sites had a crew of about 68 men for the gun and three officers to oversee the gunnery but actually the entire site with all the electricity and all the ancillary there was over four hundred and eighty men just to run this one artillery battery it was the heaviest artillery battery on the Channel Islands and strategically important because it cut off the Bay of Somalia by effectively reducing the shipping lanes so that nobody could go in between the Channel Islands and France [Music] the guns of the mirus battery could fire a shell over 32 miles big Bertha's we used to call her and she used to go off the whole hotels to shake she was a massive gun but if you can imagine these sites and the actual battery housed its own water it had its own electricity it had its own radar it had its own flat protection and inside every single gun position it had its own telecommunications it had its own heating its own hot water showers ablution blocks all the air handling conditions and everything else so that should the battery come under gas attack it could be just simply closed down and you can have the whole battery running just through the filters on the ventilation system running through and these weren't the only subterranean structures the German underground hospital in Guernsey is the largest tunnel complex in the islands 1.75 miles of tunnel covering 75 thousand square feet [Music] the product of 60,000 tons of rock mined over three and a half years but the fortifications didn't just consist of massive building works Guernsey is only twenty four point five square miles in total but the Germans planted an extraordinary 72 thousand mines in 115 minefields and there was more much of the coast line featured mined underwater obstacles on the cliffs 518 improvised mines and over 1,000 roll bombs were used generally the minefields were placed in areas which were blind spots which couldn't be effectively covered by artillery fire and also internally large open areas of an crest common was a an example of an area which was laid with lots of anti-personnel mines on what are called Ronald's fingers which effectively are large poles in the ground they have a charge actually up a pole which are connected by wires so should airborne troops land they were land on the wires detonate the mines and effectively you would decimate the landing army and obviously the cliffs on the south coast as they learned from the commando raids could easily be climbed and assaulted by normal troops so of course they were lots pantry personnel mines there in total there was nearly 70,000 mines laid the minefields were very well laid out so that the Germans could actually lift them up and move them and they did that quite often so some of the early mines are in the roads and in the footpaths and cliff paths and later on the war you find them actually positioned more strategically nearly 10% of all the concrete for the Atlantic Wall was now in the Channel Islands over half a million tons of concrete was poured a quarter of a million tons of rock excavated anti-tank walls lined the beaches and gun emplacements rose above all the key sites [Music] the scale of the fortifications meant that by early 1944 the Channel Islands had received 11 heavy batteries with 38 guns while 600 miles of Normandy coastline had no more than 37 guns in total tactically Guernsey was the most important Island as the HQ it had the heavier military imprint by 1942 there were over 15,000 soldiers nearly one for every civilian the Germans had their exercises they practiced in case there was an invasion and we used to see them hidden in in trees or in hedges and they had all their uniforms on a camouflage uniform and they had bits of twigs and that in their head headgear and they obviously practiced with blanks wooden tops bullets and they left quite a lot behind and we used to collect these myself and my friends it was the most heavily garrisoned outpost of german-occupied Europe mother British came over quite often name and because they'd come up the rustle between him and Bordeaux then and all the guns would let fire from the castle and from upper the Vale meal the festival fire plan of a st. Peter Port shows exactly how difficult it would have been for an invading British force to take the town it didn't bother as they were just firing and we just hope to god they'd miss you know they've chucked down one of their own planes once and every they were all you know Araya Rai Rai and then it took them as one of their own so that we've got this fun within st. Peter Port obviously you had a artillery blockade on the harbor itself so within the harbour you have a blocking battery of 75 millimeter and ten pounds which one strong in buggies [Music] they are then supported by the reserved companies which the harbor defense company above the town area you've got 10 centimeter guns as a flanking battery for the harbor defense the 21 centimeter maza batteries they were 12 guns that were installed in the centre of Guernsey and they had very high elevation and they could lay down their fire on st. Peter board should it come under attack the infantry were there to support Harbor defenses but also to support any airborne attack the fire plan for VARs on bay shows that the open beaches would not have been any easier Farzana obviously because of its very wide open sandy beaches was protected by strong points the main strong point obviously being fought for mate where they have the 10.5 guns to support the headland there those in turn were supported by four point seven anti-tank guns so if you like the 10.5 are intended to open up on any landing craft coming into the bay and then once the troops vehicles have landed onto the beach then the four point seven guns which are effectively checks the back in anti-tank guns you use in either anti-personnel role firing shrapnel or firing direct target projectiles to take out any vehicles that were able to be loaded on beaches there's also the minefields as well behind that you've got machine guns you've got flamethrowers you have a support company as well which are trundling round and self-propelled guns [Music] they are supported in two with eight centimeter mortar batteries which were mobile and could be to any location they had a fallback defense as well it's a very flat marshy area predominantly the Germans did flood back so that they could prevent airborne forces landing there but on the Holly Ridge behind there was a whole defensive line put in place so that you could move the mortise and then either up from the beaches to a fallback position or you could bring reserve companies up to support and lay down fire on the beach area but certainly the west coast was deemed to be probably the largest threat for any Seaborn looming [Music] gun positions were cited to allow fire to be directed in two directions and at the shore to allow the beach to be on fill added usually it was possible to establish a zone of crossfire with at least one more strong point despite a steady supply of intelligence about the scale of the fortifications Mountbatten was still keen to recapture the islands and proposed Operation constellation which would have seen 5,000 troops invade all Denis alone amazingly Stalin was a supporter of the Mountbatten plan but only as the beginning of a second front in Europe in August 1942 the Allies had launched a speculated raid at diem and the French coast 6,100 British Canadian and American troops staged a one-day assault designed to draw German troops from the Eastern Front it was a disaster there were four thousand Allied casualties and almost 1,500 Canadians were taken prisoner perhaps mindful of the ill-fated Dieppe raid wiser heads prevailed and Operation constellation was never put into action but while constellation was quietly dropped another much bigger bolder plan was moving [Music] by 1944 Guernsey was the most fortified place on earth but many German officers were unconvinced of the islands strategic value as general Speidel recalled no airfields were built although these islands could only be important as aircraft carriers but Hitler's Island madness showed no signs of abating on one occasion the Fuhrer flew into a rage shouting I am the greatest builder of fortifications of all time I built the west wall I built the Atlantic Wall but while there began to be dissenting voices only one man dared to challenge the Fuhrer directly Field Marshal Rommel was in charge of the Atlantic wall project and with resisting the invasion that he knew was only a matter of time although he no longer thought that the war could be won he saw a strong Atlantic wall as a valuable negotiating tool Rommels experience of defeat in Tunisia had shown him that mobility would be lost to Allied air superiority he knew he needed a defending force in place to destroy the enemy before they could get off the beaches as Allied air attack stepped up on Calais the most logical invasions there was also increased activity over Normandy Rommel demanded that the bulk of the divisions in Brittany and the Channel Islands should be withdrawn and brought to the Normandy front he was convinced that the beaches of Normandy were an obvious and under defended landing site but he never got the resources he wanted he was quoted as saying that the last person to close Hitler's door had the decision finally after rejecting a written demand from Rommel Hitler forbade any further mention of the Channel Island garrison the ordinary soldiers under no illusions as to their fate had nicknamed themselves the Canada Division as they reckoned they were sure to go into Canadian prisoner of war camps then on June the 6th 1944 Islanders woke to the sound of thousands of aircraft overhead now cross and we from my bedroom window could see the flashes going on in France initially euphoric at the prospect of liberation from four years of Nazi domination the Islanders soon learned that the D of d-day stood for disappointment as the Allied forces swept past them and into mainland Europe and the island has endured the harshest winter of the entire occupation well we thought we thought the war was nearly over nobody's gonna bother now about a radio so we all went to the house where the radio was to listen to the landings and then of course we thought the world was going to be over and it wasn't so I had to hide his radio again the next time we went there's some the end of the war Churchill by now fully informed as to the extent of the islands fortifications knew exactly how hard they would be to recapture and the massive loss of life that would occur one member of force 135 the groups specifically charged with liberating the islands was desperate to get into action until he chanced upon a plan of the islands fortifications on his commanding officers desk he declared himself a lot less keen after that instead Churchill resolved to leave the islands alone secure in the knowledge that the 35,000 German soldiers there would play no part in the coming battles the garrison surrendered without striking a blow they were sent to Canada just as they had predicted [Applause] it may have been a bloodless battle but the truth remains that at least 500 and perhaps many more lost their lives during the fortification of the islands but why had the islands being so massively fortified in reality the scale of the fortifications far outweighed the strategic importance of the islands many believe that the Channel Islands were to have been a holiday destination for senior Nazis a few have even suggested that they were to be offshore death camps for the cleansing of a conquered Britain the more likely truth is that Hitler was obsessed with the only British territory he conquered [Music] what is beyond doubt is that his in Solvang his island madness made the Channel Islands the most fortified place on earth and wasted enough men and materials to create a [ __ ] in the Atlantic wall that helped to turn the tide of war can you imagine all this material let's put in these just killed and get killed well but is the faith of the soldier killed wouldn't forget killed [Music] you

Channel: bubbasuper8

Views: 408,812

Keywords: Guernsey, Occupation, World War 2, documentary, Liberation Day, Channel Islands, Nazi Britain, Fleeing the Reich, Stolen by Hitler, Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, Chris Denton, Jane Morgan, Martin Morgan, Louise Fletcher, Jessica Nash, Atlantic Wall, Festung Guernsey

Id: jtgzh6_czNQ

Length: 47min 54sec (2874 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 28 2018