by Peter King
The reaction of the police to their new role was noticed by Edward Chapman, when the order came for police and prison warders to show the same respect for German ranks as they did for English ones. 'They were for the most part, ex-soldiers of the 1914-18 war, and bitterly resented this humiliation. At the beginning all of them took their medals off their tunics, but later, as an act of resistance, they replaced them. I remember a fine old chap called Bill Carrier, an ex-professional footballer who ... barely concealed his contempt for the Germans. When they came on a visit he would dourly touch his cap to their commander and only just obey their orders. But as soon as the Nazi had turned his back he would wink at us, and give the V-sign.'
The courts were organized differently on the two main Islands with Alderney and Sark being subordinated to Guernsey Royal Court in the matter of appeals. In Guernsey there were the Full Royal Court which dealt with civil and criminal cases, and the Ordinary Court for civil matters which heard appeals from the Magistrates' Court concerning minor criminal matters. In Jersey the Royal Court, called 'the Superior Number', dealt with civil and criminal matters, and acted as a court of appeal from the Inferior Number. For criminal matters there was an Assize Court and for petty cases, a Police Court. In St Helier the Royal Court House was in Royal Square, and in St Peter Port it was situated in Manor Street.
The Germans created their own network of courts for offences they deemed triable by them. In any police state, particularly one under military rule, the destination of cases and form of trial were determined in the end by the arbitrary decision of the commandant. In some cases before the commandant's Court defence lawyers were permitted; in others they were excluded. The commandant's Court consisted of a
military judge assisted by two officers, a prosecuting counsel, and an interpreter. When Germans and civilians were involved in a case this was tried in the commandant's Court. Additionally each of the services had its own court for purely military offences, and crimes by members of the Organization Todt whose officials and workers were tried in the particular military court belonging to the branch of the services they were working for at the time of the offence. Consequently Todt officials and workers received severe sentences.
Occupation meant a rapid rise in prison population. The Island penal system was antiquated and small, and even before the occupation long-term prisoners were dispatched to Winchester Prison. According to Ramsey at least 4,000 custodial sentences were passed during the occupation, and this produced an impossible burden for the existing system. Edward Chapman was imprisoned until October 1941 in the old jail in Patriotic Street, St Helier, which only had accommodation for 60 prisoners. As the severity of the occupation increased so did the prison population, and by January 1945 von Aufsess was commenting that 'fines and gaol sentences continue to rise at a fantastic rate'. To meet the problem in St Helier the Chelsea Hotel was taken over and its hundred rooms converted into a holding prison by cutting slits in bedroom doors, and fastening barbed-wire over the windows.
In Guernsey the jail was in St James Street, and a similar holding prison was created at Birnham Court in Queens Road. As early as September 1942, the prison was so full that people had to wait to serve their sentences until there was a vacant cell. Two Sark lads who stole hens from the postmistress were sent to Guernsey, but could not be imprisoned due to shortage of accommodation. Inevitably, as shortages affected the Islands both food and heating were in small supply. In Alderney both military and civilian prisoners were confined at the Court House prison in New Street, and in cases involving less than three months, summary justice was carried out by the military court. Prisoners were housed three to a cell and on average two-thirds of the inmates were German military; the rest were civilians or Todt workers engaged on the fortifications.
Confusion was created for ordinary people by the number of different police forces. Apart from SS guards in Sylt Camp on Alderney Himmler's police forces do not seem to have reached the Islands unless a few of them were called in for special occasions such as the commando raid on Sark. In October 1940 Feldgendarmerie 131 for military policing, and Feldpolizei 312 for civilian policing arrived on the Islands, and after a temporary withdrawal were fully established on orders from St Germain in June 1941 and warned not to show "unnecessary mildness'. The Feldpolizei offices were at Silvertide, Havre de Pas, in St Helicr, the Albion Hotel, Queen's Road, St Peter Port, and the Jubilee Old People's Home in St Anne on Alderney.
There were three other police forces on the Islands: units of military intelligence whose main job was to report on the loyalty of the garrison, and who were commanded towards the end by Major Gebbhardt; an auxiliary police, the Hilfspolizei, called in during 1944 to help enforce food regulations and Hafenpolizei, or customs police in the harbour areas.
The Wehrmacht could make arrests itself when it caught anyone in a criminal act. or behaving suspiciously, and even civilian staff on the Kommandantur who were not in uniform received military training, and carried pistols.
For hundreds, if not thousands, of Islanders occupation brought experience like that of Frank Stroobant nearly caught dealing in black market cigarettes. A friend offered him cigarettes which he bought and then sold off to his friends. One afternoon an unknown Guernseyman came in and asked for some for one of the Todt workers. Stroobant sold him two packets, and before long a Todt worker and a Feldpolizei turned up and carted Stroobant and his assistant, Harry Ferguson, off to the police station where they were separated, interrogated, and imprisoned in overcrowded cells. He found himself spending two nights on a straw mattress with two blankets. During the day he was paraded before various possible dealers and asked to pick out who sold him the cigarettes, and then in front of three men who were asked if he had ever bought anything from them. His premises were closely searched. Then without comment he was released.
The functioning of the German police forces cannot be properly studied because of a lack of records and this prevents any full assessment of German brutality or Island collaboration. As for the Kommandantur records, fewer than a dozen files survived in Jersey. In Guernsey several hundred remained, but many of the more interesting files on Jews or criminal activities are not among them. Those few documents located by Solomon Stekoll at the Yad Washem Holocaust Archive in Jerusalem bearing on Guernsey administration, or among War Office papers relating to MI9 reports, are therefore of particular interest. These show co-operation and collaboration to have been widespread; full Feldpolizei records would no doubt have revealed the real extent of prosecutions, and details of informers. The disappearance of these records impedes the historian today: then, it prevented prosecutions of quislings and Germans alike, and both groups had much to gain by their disappearance.
Farmers were particularly affected by regulations designed to stop them keeping back produce for the black market or themselves, particularly meat, milk, potatoes and poultry. In Maugham's view fines in the civil courts were very high, and he cites a number of examples. Money values have changed out of all recognition, but it is a good idea to keep in mind that in those days a working man's wages were usually between £2 and £3 a week. On the same day in August 1943, one farmer was fined £6 for not registering pigs, and another fined £100 for filling in a potato return incorrectly. For neglecting to register three calves a farmer was fined £85, while failing to declare five pigs led to a fine of £200. A farmer who killed a horse for its meat was fined £500. Such fines fell on farmers already forced to distort their production under German orders, unable to export their traditional crops, and in many cases having had to give land for fortifications.
Fishermen were subjected to severe laws because their boats were the vehicles for escape, and resistance work. From the start, fishermen were restricted to a mile from shore, and two when they were escorted. In September 1940 came the first total ban on fishing, and when it was lifted all boats had to leave from the main harbours, and were only allowed to land at specified points. They were not allowed out in misty or poor we
ather, although later the Germans were to force them out into seas sown with mines. In August 1943 there was a second total ban, and after this bonds were introduced which had to be placed with the harbour police for both boats and their crews. No one was allowed to crew who had relatives in England or was unmarried. Boats had to be painted in bright colours for easy identification. Such regulations destroyed men's livelihoods, and the confiscation of boats and tackle was ruinous.
Ordinary folk were affected by a curfew from eleven at night until six in the morning. Blackout regulations were enforced, and with the failure of gas and electricity towards the end of the war night must have held fresh terrors. Every time there was minor sabotage or landings by British forces curfews were tightened, and at one point Sark Islanders were confined to their houses 12 hours out of the 24. In March 1944 breaking the curfew was made punishable by death. The curfew made for all kinds of difficulty and misery. Confined to cold and lightless houses there was little to do but retire to bed. Those who had business at night like some workers or doctors took their lives in their hands, and for elderly, ill or pregnant people without telephones the ban on movement could well be dangerous.
Molly Finigan recalled an instance when a simple regulation caused much distress. All weapons except souvenirs had to be handed in, but some Islanders wanted to keep their sporting guns. Her grandfather kept his prize rifle while handing in another one. A year or so later the house was searched by the Feldpolizei, but they failed to find the gun hidden in a barrel of sawdust. Great anger was expressed by Molly's parents because her grandfather had exposed them all to arrest, but they did not dare to hand it in, and had to endure extreme worn' during future house searches. A search for weapons had been ordered in Guernsey in March 1941, and Carey issued a typical order begging people to search 'every nook and corner'.
Wartime life in Britain was also closely regulated, but in the case of the Channel Islands, the orders and restrictions were almost entirely for the benefit of the enemy, and therefore doubly irksome. Among these regulations were those forbidding attack on or criticism of their forces, receiving information from anywhere except the censored press, helping escapers or Allied POWs, damaging German property, playing the National Anthem, using cars for private purposes, travelling between the Islands, moving in prohibited areas particularly on the coast, violating food regulations, concealing any of a wide range of commandeered goods, and foraging for fuel. By the last year of occupation there were so many rules that von Aufsess commented, 'soon there will be nothing left we can forbid to the people except to live', and every diary kept during the occupation reflects a sense of oppression produced by the police presence. In July 1941 Mrs Tremayne said, 'it is just one year since wc were made prisoners', and she often referred to life in the Island 'prison'.
The majority of German punishments were financial, but interrogation in itself was a punishment in cases where violence was used. Individuals certainly suffered personal violence during the judicial process. Hubert Lanyon who distributed copies of an underground journal called GUNS was beaten up at the Feldpolizei headquarters in St Peter Port, losing two teeth in the process. Charles Machon, concerned in the production of the journal, suffered from ulcers, but he was denied his special diet during interrogation even though his mother brought it to the gates. He was interviewed in an overcoat in an overheated room, and then flung into a cold cell. People were taken for interrogation on the least suspicion, and released without explanation. In January 1942 Julia Tremayne reported that a Mr Baird had been taken off Sark: "We don't know exactly what for.' He was an American but used to report at German headquarters every week. It appears he said in one of his Red Cross messages that there were two or three hundred troops in Sark, so we think that must be the reason. He has asked the Vicar to take charge of his house as he never expects to get home again.'
Sometimes special groups were rounded up for questioning. In June 1944 retired officers living in Jersey were taken from their beds in the middle of the night to the Feldgendarmerie headquarters and asked simplistic questions before being released with no explanation given.
Few Islanders escaped a frequent feature of Feldpolizei activity - the random search of private houses. Sark was particularly prone to house searches because of the two Commando raids and the murder of a German doctor in April 1942. His batman was closely questioned by the Feldgendarmerie, and fled into hiding. Several weeks later his body was found at the bottom of a well with a note saying he did not commit the crime, but had been driven to kill himself because he was suspected. It later turned out that the real culprit was a soldier who had been refused a medical certificate, and wanted to avoid Russian service. The Germans then dug up the body, and had it reburied in the military cemetery on Guernsey. The crime unleashed the Feldpolizei on the Island, and on the day of its discovery Mrs Tremayne's house was searched early in the morning. For ten days all Sark men had to report twice a day at the Kommandantur including old men and invalids. When it was rumoured that the batman was not guilty, Mrs Tremayne dreaded what would happen next. 'We are daily expecting another search of our houses, they are looking for a mallet or a certain kind of stick that was used, a gold watch and a missing wallet or any other clue. Norah says "Mother, will you burn that diary you are writing before they search again", but mother says "no, not on your life" ... So I have found a safe cubby hole where even she cannot find it, and as shooting seems to be the penalty for most things I must make my cubby hole very safe.'
Mrs Cortvriend described a house search on Guernsey which filled her with fear because of her diary, their wireless and a camera, followed a few days later by a second search.
Wartime brought rationing and shortages to everyone in the British Isles, including the Channel Islands, but with different results. In Britain rationing helped to produce a fairer society, bring decent food to all for the first time in history, and improve the quality of people's diet. Yet even under such favourable circumstances there was a black market.
Rationing in the Channel Islands was not part of welfare reforms, but a way of distributing ever declining resources of every commodity of daily life: food, fuel, and clothing and it is only to be expected that a more extensive black market than that in Britain would operate. In the Islands health suffered instead of improving: hospitals were short of basic supplies, and the most vulnerable in the community, the children and the old, were particularly hard hit by privation and starvation. Average daily calorie intake was down to 1,700 by 1944. The desire of Islanders to frustrate the regulations was borne out of necessity as well as a search for profit, and it would be absurd to blame them for benefiting from the black market. As Maugham wrote: 'I have no hesitation in saying that, in Jersey, the black market proved a boon and a blessing to large numbers of people, many of whom I am well assured, would not be alive today had it not been for the additional nourishment and strength which they derived from ... their only channel of supply.'
A farmer who slaughtered a beast illegally, or kept back part of his crop, could help his own family, sell directly to those who could afford to pay, or sell to a wholesaler through whom ordinary Islanders could make their purchases. The Island courts and the Feldpolizei tried to prevent the operation of a black market, by prosecuting firstly possible suppliers for breaches of regulations, and secondly those involved in actual transactions. Prosecutions rose steadily: in Guernsey, for example, from 40 in 1942 to over a hundred in 1944, but with only limited success.
Unfortunately, there were other sides to black market activity. Large profits were made by some people out of the necessity of others. Some black market dealers were prepared to steal to acquire goods for sale to the public cither from German or Island stores. In one case, when two youths were arrested for stealing tinned goods and whisky from the Jersey food control commission, one of them was said to have a bank balance of over £800 (perhaps £8,000 today), although he was only sixteen. Others hoarded goods in order to force the price up and take advantage of pe
ople's misfortune. One day von Aufsess was taken by the Feldgendarmerie, 'into a room piled to the ceiling with black market goods found in the possession of a French doctor here. I was furious. A basket of huge hams, a ton of salted beef, boxes full of flour, a hundredweight of potato flour, sugar, oats by the sack, and in addition twenty hundred weights of potatoes.'
The German presence added a further dimension to black market activity. In some cases items plundered by Germans were sold to Islanders. The Germans bought goods cheaply in France and sold them dearly in the Islands, and the Organization Todt followed the example of the Wehrmacht. In von Aufsess' view, 'the troops engage far too much in black marketeering and wangling of supplies'. Transactions of this kind between Islanders and Germans were illegal under Trading with the Enemy Acts, and some attempt was made after the war by levying War Profits Taxes to punish some of those involved. Sadly von Aufsess' indignation was not matched by his own conduct. He dined at black market restaurants, and at Christmas 1944 was well supplied by a black market dealer. Lieutenant Wetzstein.
'The main black market', said Cruickshank, 'was run by greedy and unscrupulous Islanders for their own profit and the benefit of other greedy and unscrupulous Islanders'. There seems little doubt that the Island rulers best placed to bend regulations or lay their hands on goods were among the chief offenders, providing once again a good reason why they were not anxious after 1945 to call for prosecutions. Von Aufsess commented that in Jersey, i fear that many States officials do not. in their position, set the example they should. Current rumour credits them, with the exception of Duret Aubin, of generally dabbling in the black market, and taking advantage of their privileged position.' Von Aufsess had recently been visited by one of the suspects. Jurat M., and 'viewing his well-nourished appearance I surmised he must have a well-stocked larder'. Inevitably some public officials took their cue from their superiors, as a case involving no less than 18 Guernsey policemen and a civilian arrested in March 1942 showed. Led by a police sergeant, the men robbed German stores of a wide variety of commodities including tinned meat, sausages, butter, lard, grain and logs. The Feldpolizei treated them roughly during interrogation, beating them severely, and they were tried before the commandant's court. After being sentenced to terms between four weeks and four and a half years, the accused were then indicted before the Royal Court presided over by Carey who had harsh words for the offenders saying 'I am filled with shame. It is revolting to think how you have abused your position. I cannot imagine what all the foreigners in the Island ... think of you.'