Discourse and Defiance Under Nazi Occupation: Guernsey, Channel Islands, 1940-1945 (62 page)

Yet, despite the proclamations and speeches, Guernsey could not be truly free until the surrender papers were signed and the British troops came ashore. We now know that Hüffmeier was disinclined to surrender, even following orders from the remnants of the German High Command to do so. On May 8 at 2:00 p.m., Hüffmeier sent his envoy, on board a heavily armed minesweeper, to meet with the HMS
Bulldog
, which had been dispatched to effect the surrender of the Channel Islands. This envoy, Kapitanleutnant Armin Zimmermann, was a comic-opera expression of the strutting Nazi prig, and film of his boarding shows him making an exaggerated Nazi salute. Zimmermann had no authorization to sign the surrender and came to arrange terms of an armistice. Told bluntly that there would only be an unconditional surrender, Zimmermann returned to the minesweeper after haughtily suggesting that the
Bulldog
could be taken as hostile and fired upon. It is rather satisfying to note that Zimmermann ended up getting his backside dunked as he sat in the dinghy on the return trip to the minesweeper. Ultimately, the minesweeper returned at midnight—its guns now unmanned—with Generalmajor Heine, who had Hüffmeier's written authorization to sign the unconditional surrender. The signing took place at 7:15
A.M.
, on May 9, and after four years and ten months the Occupation was over.
¹¹³

Thus, on May 9, 1945, the day to be celebrated each year in the Islands as Liberation Day, the British troops arrived. Winnie went with the crowds through the festooned streets to see the British troops, the crowd bursting forth with “God Save the King” as the flag was unfurled. Winnie was struck by the ruddy faces and solid frames of the soldiers, in such stark contrast to the “grey and yellow” faces and skeletal physique of the Islanders: “I had forgotten that people could look like that.” It was joy unmarred by any concerns but the appreciation for being free, and many had tears in their eyes while watching the scene unfold.
¹¹⁴
It was best summed up by Dorothy Higgs's small display of the triumph of survival when she wrote, “We are alive and well and
BRITISH
again!!!”
¹¹⁵

AND THE VAGARIES OF TIME AND MEMORY

There have been many years to try and sort out the Occupation experience since the heady days of Liberation, but certain factors seem to intervene and make understanding difficult. In reading some of the most recent accounts, including those from British journalism, one sticking point has been the lack of Guernsey civilian retaliation against the German forces or known collaborators, fraternizers, or profiteers. One issue concerns our sense of what constitutes retaliation. Where were the photographs of women with shaved heads clutching their German-fathered babies and fleeing from angry, taunting mobs? Where were signs of overt retaliation, such as swastikas painted on buildings, pointing out businesses and individuals known to have collaborated or fraternized? Did this mean, as some imply, that the Guernsey Islanders were all collaborators/fraternizers or perfectly comfortable with those who were? Does it mean, as others imply, that John Leale's speech on May 23 lulled a sheeplike populace into acceptance that all decisions made by their leaders during the Occupation were uniformly sound?

It is clear from the diaries that prior to Liberation, many had fantasies of extracting some measure of satisfaction from punishing the Germans and those who collaborated. These vary in intensity based on the personality of the writer, but there were signs that things could get ugly in some quarters. It was deprivation that sparked much of the desire for revenge. Rev. Ord reported the great excitement caused by the notice found affixed to Admiral Hüffmeier's door in February 1945:

Who stole our
BREAD?
Who stole our
MEAT?
Who stole our
BUTTER?
Who is drinking our
CHILDREN'S MILK?
YOU!!
WE WILL REMEMBER
!
¹¹⁶

Kitty Bachmann heard this same account and believed that the notice was contrived by some enterprising “outraged parents.” The Germans apparently took the threat seriously and doubled the guard at the Grange Lodge.
¹¹⁷

Bert Williams had plenty of ideas for the appropriate postwar penalties to be assessed against profiteers and others who shirked their patriotic duty in various ways. In March, he was hoping that some type of “super tax” would be affixed to the “local bloodsuckers which will leave them penniless after the war.”
¹¹⁸
His ire was particularly raised by those charging exorbitant amounts for the cigarettes he still craved but could not get. His anger was aimed at a shop owner who, just days before Liberation, was selling cigarettes at 7 marks each. “He should be shot at sight. He is a real blood sucker & no mistake,” fumed Bert, who was completely out of “smokes” and “dreading tomorrow with nothing to smoke. Good thing when this damn war is over.”
¹¹⁹

There is something comical about this anger expended specifically on those standing between Bert and his smokes, particularly considering how much real deprivation he had suffered during the past year from hunger and cold. But his deeper wrath and desire for retaliation extended to any growers or other Guernseymen who sold to or fraternized with
the Germans in any way. And he shared a common desire with other Islanders when he maintained, “I hope all the Guernsey quislings will be rounded up after the war & either deported or branded.”
¹²⁰
With such indications of a desire for retaliation after the Occupation ended, why were there no ugly scenes or violent attacks when Guernsey had the opportunity at Liberation?

Multiple factors seemed to dampen this need in the Island. The first factors, of course, were simply the personalities and moral values of individuals. After Liberation, reports reached the Island that Jersey girls had been tarred and feathered. Further accounts said that they were tied to railings and their names written on walls with swastikas painted over them. Ken was aghast at such “hooligan like actions” and prayed that Vera, whom he knew to have “perhaps fraternised too freely with the troops,” would not suffer such a fate. He did not believe that Guernsey Islanders would take part in such actions, particularly against girls that they knew, despite strong feelings about such fraternization.
¹²¹
It may be that such rumors from Jersey, many highly exaggerated in the telling, cooled the ardor of those who might lead such retaliation. Violent actions, so satisfying in imagination, seem simply ugly and mob-like when actually carried out. As to attacking the Germans, Rev. Ord held fast to his belief that it was counter to British nature “to hate for long” regardless of the extent of the provocation.
¹²²

Then again, the change from being captives to being free was so sudden that it was enervating mentally and physically. The most common metaphor for feelings right after Liberation was that of waking from a “nightmare of fear.” Ord described the streets of St. Peter Port as filled with “citizens whose expression was that of people awaking from a long nightmare sleep to find themselves in a world of reality unbeset by evil dreams.”
¹²³
This concept was echoed by Dorothy Higgs, who described the “five years of dreadful isolation” as the nightmare that now seemed to disappear into unreality “now that we are alive and awake again.”
¹²⁴

A somewhat different idea of the end of the nightmare and the beautiful dream that took its place appears in many of the accounts. Bert Williams described it as “We are all going about in a dream as yet but it is a fine dream.” He returned to the dream concept repeatedly as he described each new taste of unaccustomed food: a particularly fine trifle with prunes and cream, the first taste of an orange after five years.
¹²⁵
Repeatedly for many days after May 9th, similar words were evoked by Bert and by Bill Warry to capture the feeling: “We still can't realize that we are free”; “We haven't realized that we are free as yet.”
¹²⁶
And universally, the Islanders found that they had lost their appetites. Some assumed this effect was caused by all of the excitement, and others that it was the sight of all the unaccustomed food, or the fact that their stomachs had “shrunk to pygmy proportions.”
¹²⁷

With all of these mental and physical dislocations, it is not surprising that retaliation was not foremost in Islanders' minds. But I believe these are minor factors in Guernsey's response to the end of Occupation. More important was their orientation towards the future and their understanding of appropriate ways to settle old scores. This sense of the excitement of a new and fresh future started before the war ended. During the final spring, even as Bill Warry was contemplating just how hungry he was and how much he would spend for even a mouthful of food, he added, “but we know the war will soon be over, then we will be living in a new world.”
¹²⁸
This feeling grew stronger after Liberation. Ken found that reading about their liberation in the English newspapers and listening to wireless accounts of the events “seemed to galvanise one into a new life instead of the dull monotony of the past years.”
¹²⁹

And before the final prayer that closes his diary, Rev. Ord turned to this same theme:

And so, with the khaki tide welling ever stronger across our beaches; with the dark night of restriction and repression behind us; and with emotions we know not how to control, we look forward with confidence to the future.
¹³⁰

This image of a dark night behind them and the beckoning of a beautiful new day of freedom ahead captures well the general feeling of Guernsey at Liberation.

Others were concentrated on the work ahead to reclaim the physical Island, now with mined beaches and barbed wire, and to restore their reputation as suppliers of fresh produce for Britain. This last concern was enough to inspire Frank Higgs, silent throughout Dorothy's account, to weigh in. He described the difficulties of the “poor old growers” and the greenhouses now “riddled with falling shrapnel, unpainted and unrepaired.” But despite losing their livelihood, “we've helped to feed our people,” and that would have to do as compensation. With this nod to the past, all of Frank's thoughts were to the immediate future: “However, we are still alive and kicking, and it's off hats to the Tommies, and off coats to the work of reconstruction.”
¹³¹

Of course, all was not sweet forgiveness of the misdeeds of collaborators and fraternizers; the Islanders simply found ways to get their own back more in keeping with the subtlety they had displayed throughout the Occupation. It is Bert Williams who provides some insight into these methods. One pleasure was in seeing the change in fortune of the Germans, forced to stay and clean up the Island before being sent to POW camps. Bert described them in the common phrase of the time as “working like blacks packing up…also taking down the barbed wire along the coal quay and White Rock.” He fairly crows when watching the officers taken away, writing in all caps, “
THE GERMAN ADMIRAL WAS MARCHED FROM THE CROWN HOTEL TO THE WHITE ROCK UNDER ESCORT
.”
¹³²
It was highly enjoyable to watch the German officers and soldiers down at the harbor being searched by the British Tommies, who served in the Islanders' minds as their surrogates. “What a come down,” wrote Bill Warry with deep satisfaction.
¹³³

The moves against civilian fraternizers were largely a matter of lateral surveillance and public shaming. Bert described how, at the big celebration at Candie Garden on May 19, with 2,500 in attendance and British soldiers sitting in on the piano and drums, “all the girls who have run after the Germans were there.” It was intensely irritating to see those civilians who had cozied up to the Germans now trying to do the same with the British Tommies. Bert was clear about the Islander response: “A lot of Guernsey people are being told where they get off owing to their dealings with the Germans and the girls who have had babies for Germans are being pointed out to the British Tommies. These people are in for a hot time well they deserve it.”
¹³⁴

Some official moves were made to lessen the profiteering of those running the black market or selling voluntarily to the Germans. Near the end of May, the banks were crowded with people trying to change their old £1 Guernsey notes, which they had to accomplish by June 2. Just as with an early exchange of German marks, it was a move to strip the black-marketeers of at least some of their “ill-gotten wealth.”
¹³⁵
But it would be the court of public opinion, rather than an actual court of law, where common fraternizers and low-level collaborators would be tried. Their sentence would be in changed interpersonal relationships, subtle retaliations, and in the perfect knowledge of their neighbors, and themselves, of how poorly they had acquitted themselves during the time of testing.

There would be ample time for backlash during the immediate postwar period. The Guernsey Islanders, like the rest of the British nation, would be catapulted from wartime deprivation to the difficulties of what has been called “Austerity Britain.”
¹³⁶
There would not be the plenty and rosy days anticipated, but years of struggle. Although this story of the postwar years is beyond the frame of this study and really deserves a complete examination in itself, some aspects are worth noting. England sought a change in government more in keeping with the new decisions that now were needed. In July 1945, a general election defeated Winston Churchill, to whom they owed so much and who was stunned by this massive swing in public confidence, and put in place the Labour Party under Clement Attlee. The Channel Islands also were eager to shift to a different form of government, and the Controlling Committee came in for close scrutiny. The wait and worry over the return of deportees, and the tendering of Occupation honors to some, including a knighthood for Victor Carey, led to some hard feelings and bitterness in certain quarters. Although there were exceptions, the honors seemed to go to men in high places, and singling out some by necessity meant neglecting others.