The Nazi occupation of the Channel Islands

Living with the enemy

The World Today
2 minute READ

On May 8, 1945, VE Day dawned and the war in Europe was over. It wasn’t quite over, however. The German occupation was still in force on the Channel Islands and they were to be the last part of the Nazi Reich to be liberated the next day. This was the kind of odd anomaly that characterized much of the islands’ experience of the Second World War. They were the only part of Britain to be occupied; they were the most intensively fortified part of the Western Front and hosted the heaviest concentration of German soldiers.

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