The Channel Islands At War (20 page)

Brave Harbour seen from Fort Albert. The
Xaver Dorsch
and other vessels were damaged by gales and air attack in this harbour where John Matthew's Sark party were to carry out salvage work

Todt workers in Guernsey being fed a
t a camp. These were among those
employed on the Mirus battery at Le Frie Baton

E
ntrance to Sylt
camp opened in August 1942 and closed in July 1944. It was run from March 1943 by the SS, and the scene of considerable numbers of deaths and of starvation and torture

The remaining foundations of Norderney camp destroyed by the Germans in July 1944. Under Karl Tietz. Adam Adler, and Heinrich Evers, this camp saw brutal killings and torture by Organization Todt

and he thought their lovemaking 'simple, effortless and swift'. Chapman saw Jersey women getting on well with the Germans, but it was equally true of Guernsey or Sark where women, "have the soldiers in their houses in the evening and the soldiers take the children for rides in their cars'.

According to Maugham there was a particular problem with billeted troops in some houses 'where the family included girls and young women, the conduct of the Germans, at times, was odious. Any attempt to restrain them by force was the immediate signal for the drawing of a revolver or a bayonet, and was almost certain to be followed by some trumped up charge.' There is no direct evidence of Maugham's rather frightening picture. When Germans were billeted in his own house all he noticed was that they 'tried to make friends with our maids'.

One MI9 report said girls 'of all classes' were involved with the Germans, but it was not until the publication of von Aufsess' diary that the extent of good relations between officers and Island girls became clear. Officers from the armed forces, the Feldpolizei and the Todt organization were able to find girlfriends. Throughout von Aufsess's diary, which covers 1944 and 1945, the worst years of the occupation, he referred to girls he knew including 'gay, pert Ella', Lucienne, who 'has a great crush on me', and Elaine who he met with her mother, and who he said was very much in love with him. At one point he referred to Heider's girlfriend who was "the sheltered only daughter of wealthy pare
nts', and elsewhere to von Hell
dorf's affair with a servant girl. He described parties with French and Island girls when 'the firelight lit up our flushed and happy faces'.

Other members of the German hierarchy also had their girlfriends. It was alleged that one girl was mistress of the Feldpolizei chief, Inspector Bohde, and lived with him at Havre de Pas, and that another girl had a child by a member of the Feldpolizci. On
Alderney
several officers set up
house with French whores. Zuske
lived with a woman from Evreux called 'Marianne' and one of his staff offi
cers with another woman called Paulette
'. Sturm, the Feldpolizei chief on Alderney, lived with a woman who left the Island to bear his child and then returned to him. Other women were less lucky. An officer brought his girlfriend to the Limes Nursing Home on Jersey one evening desperately ill after a failed abortion. Her life was saved.

Von Aufsess' diary bears out the MI9 report that said the girls continued their fraternization even when liberation was o
n the cards. In April 1945 Heide
r and von Aufsess were transferred from Jersey to Guernsey, but they soon found a 'pair of saucy, common young things' for whom they gave a party only a fortnight before liberation when they were all in 'rollicking good humour', and worse the wear for drink. Heider slept with one of the girls,
and the other came to von Aufse
ss' room and 'made such overtures to sexual intercourse as I have never before experienced'. He did not say whether or not he succumbed to this temptation.

If the majority of these cases did no actual harm, it might perhaps be argued that there is little to condemn in what happened. But there were grim consequences: abortions, illegitimate births and venereal disease affected considerable numbers of people. In September 1944, Doctor Symons on Guernsey reported medical conditions in the hospitals were so bad that they were becoming 'medical sick houses'. Drugs were in short supply, as were all essentials like catgut for sutures or surgical spirit. Overworked doctors and overburdened health facilities had to cope with the consequences of fraternization at the expense of ordinary patients.

Venereal disease was widespread on the main Islands. On Alderney in 1942 40 women among Island workers were found to be suffering because the VD epidemic on the Island had spread from French whores to the civilians, and it was necessary to ban women workers from the Island. Even then some managed to remain 'who are no better than they should be' according to a MI9 report. This report went on to discuss Jersey where 'From his hospital experience [the] informant knew of many advanced cases of disease ... It was not unusual for the General Hospital to have as many as fifteen women under treatment every week, some cases being slight but some serious.'

So widespread was VD, said another report, that it might constitute 'a further menace to our forces' when they liberated the Islands. By the middle of 1942 some 80 cases were reported in Guernsey alone, and the situation had become so serious that a joint meeting was held
between von Oettingen of the Fe
ldkommandantur and Sherwill. It was agreed to make contracting the disease a criminal offence subject to a £100 fine and imprisonment. There was even discussion about setting up an isolation unit for cases on the Island of Herm. In October an order signed by Symons and his German counterpart appeared stating that: "Sexual relations either with the German soldiers or with civilians are strictly forbidden during the next three months. In case of non-compliance with this order severe punishment by the Occupying authorities is to be expected even if no infection takes place.' Those with the illness were brutally despatched to the Russian Front, and Doctor Lewis treated an Austrian doctor, and an Italian conscript who came to him for help to save them from this fate.

There was a rise in abortions and doctors charged two guineas more for babies born to a putative German father than to an Island one. Exaggerated figures for illegitimate births in the Channel Islands circulated during the war, and even though these proved untrue the actual figures were alarming enough on Islands with a population of 66,000 and in days when bastardy and bearing a child outside wedlock were regarded overwhelmingly as immoral. Even allowing for some activity on the part of Island men, published figures show increases from 5.1 to 11 per cent on Jersey and from 5.4 to 21.8 on Guernsey in the percentage of live births recorded as illegitimate during the war years. Of 539 recorded illegitimate births a substantial number were of German origin, and this figure takes no account of births at home or in nursing homes. Nor are figures for abortions available as they were illegal.

One reason for the French women and the involvement of Island women with Germans was that it was not until 1942 that the network of brothels were set up in St Peter Port, St Helier, and St Anne. Their presence gave rise to much ribald amusement at the queues of waiting customers, and at the demand of the Germans for the prostitutes to receive the same food allowance as heavy workers on the Islands. There was also a dispute involving the Island doctors who the Germans were anxious to recruit for medical inspection of inmates and customers at the brothels. The overworked doctors were ordered by the Controlling Committee to inspect the brothels twice a week but in the end the Germans nominated their own doctors for this job.