The British Isles have only been successfully invaded and occupied once since 1066: the German occupation of the Channel Islands from 1940-1945. This book commemorates both a defining period in the history of the islands and an important, but neglected aspect of contemporary British history. The book is the result of an exhaustive collecting effort in archives across Europe, some as far as the former Soviet bloc. In unparalleled depth, this fascinating book goes to the very essence of the occupation, recasting old questions and providing many new answers. It describes and analyses the issues of collaboration, resistance, survival culture and relations between Germans and islanders. In addition it provides a novel approach to the fate of the slave and forced workers brought to the islands to work on the fortifications. Also the circumstances of the Islands' Jews, some of whom were deported to concentration camps, are explored. For the first time, this book also presents an in-depth account of British post-war policy towards island collaboration and of the divergences of war memory in the Channel Islands and Britain. The source of profound misunderstanding, this has overshadowed the relationship over the past sixty years.
Paul Sanders is an Anglo-German historian and an associate professor at the ESC Bourgogne in Dijon, France. He studied history and business administration in Regensburg, Berlin, Paris and Helsinki. In 2000 he completed his PhD thesis on the black market in Nazi-occupied Western Europe at Cambridge University. He later worked for the Central Registry of Information on Looted Cultural Property 1933-1945 and taught at Oxford University. In 2004 he was commissioned to write a new history of the German occupation of the Channel Islands. A special copy of this book was presented to HM the Queen in 2005. As a result of a two year sojourn in the former Soviet Union his research focus has shifted to Western engagement with Russia. He is a fellow of the Royal Historical Society in London.
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