‘Loathsome people’: British informers in the Nazi-occupied Channel Islands

ABSTRACT

For those who have speculated about the behaviour of the British people under Nazi rule, the Channel Islands have sometimes been used as a proxy, from which evidence can be selected to hypothesise about a Nazi-occupied Britain. In the area of collaboration, in particular, the historiography of the Channel Islands has been a victim of this flawed Anglo-centric approach. Looking at the evidence for the Channel Islands in their own right, this article looks at informing, as one of the most damaging and better-documented forms of collaboration, and asks: what kind of people were informers, what were their motives, and were they an integral part of a self-policing Nazi terror state? How did British Intelligence respond to informers on both professional and personal levels, and with what success did they investigate collaboration after the liberation of the Islands in May 1945? And how has the problematic evidence for informing, and by extension all collaboration, impacted perceptions of the Channel Islands under occupation?

KEYWORDS:

• Jersey
• Guernsey
• occupation
• Nazi
• informer
• MI5
• MI19
• GFP

Acknowledgments

Thanks are due to the staff of the archives of the Imperial War Museum, Jersey Archive, and Guernsey Archive. I would also like to thank Helen Fry for her comments on a first draft of the paper, and Alan Judge, historian of the Intelligence Corps.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

¹ For the development of this debate, and rebuttal of the ‘dictatorship by consent’, see: Richard Evans, “Coercion and Consent in Nazi Germany,” Proceedings of the British Academy 151 (2007): 53–81.

² Robert Gellately, Backing Hitler: Consent and Coercion in Nazi Germany (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007); The Gestapo and German Society: Enforcing Racial Policy, 1933–1945 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990); Claire Hall, “An Army of Spies? The Gestapo Spy Network 1933–1945,” Journal of Contemporary History 44, no. 2 (2009): 247–265.

³ “The rats who revelled in the Nazi rule,” The People, June 27 1965.

⁴ Madeleine Bunting, The Model Occupation: The Channel Islands under German Rule, 1940–1945 (London: Harper Collins, 1995); Madeleine Bunting, “Our part in the Holocaust,” The Guardian, 23 January 2004; Angus Calder, The People’s War (London: Jonathan Cape, 1969), 411–413; Norman Longmate, If Britain Had Fallen: The Real Nazi Occupation Plans (London: Arrow Books, 1975); “Facing Nazis, Upper Lips Were Not Always Stiff,” New York Times, 6 May 1995; Dominic Lawson, “Nazi rule in the British Isles isn’t an alternative reality: it happened here,” Sunday Times, 19 February 2017.

⁵ Gilly Carr, Paul Sanders and Louise Willmot, Protest, Defiance and Resistance in the Channel Islands (London: Bloomsbury, 2014). For the historiography of the Occupation see: Paul Sanders, The British Channel Islands under German Occupation 1940–1945 (Jersey: Jersey Heritage Trust, 2005), xv-xviii; Carr, Sanders and Willmot, Protest, Defiance and Resistance, 3–11.

⁶ Sanders, The British Channel Islands, 57–98.

⁷ Sheila Fitzpatrick (ed.), Accusatory Practices: Denunciation in Modern European History, 1789–1989 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997); Inge Marszolek and Olaf Stieglitz, eds., Denunciation in the 20th Century: Between Comparatistic and Interdisciplinarity: Historical Social Research 26, No. 2/3 (2001); Claire Hall, “An Army of Spies? The Gestapo Spy Network 1933–1945,” Journal of Contemporary History 44, no. 2 (2009): 247–265.

⁸ Letters of denunciation in the Channel Islands are discussed in: Graham Smyth, “Denunciation in the German-Occupied Channel Islands, 1940–1945,” Journal of British Studies 59 (2020): 291–314.

⁹ Sentences and Prosecutions by the Field Command and Troop Courts, 1940–1945, D/Z/H6/1-9, JA (Jersey Archive); Analysis of some of the case files of the three German Courts, 1944–45, D/Z/H9/2, JA.

¹⁰ Robert Winter, Die geheime Feldpolizei (Wolfenbüttel: Melchior, 2013), 67–82; 90–105.

¹¹ Ibid., 17–18.

¹² “History of the GFP in the Channel Islands,” Private Papers of Captain JR Dening, JRD.09, D-13409, IWM; ibid., “Geheime Feld Polizei (Secret Field Police) Guernsey”.

¹³ Gilly Carr, Nazi Prisons in the British Isles. Political Prisoners during the German Occupation of Jersey and Guernsey 1940–1945 (Barnsley: Pen and Sword, 2020), 49–51; 163–174.

¹⁴ “History of the GFP in the Channel Islands,” Private Papers of Captain JR Dening, JRD.09, D-13409, IWM.

¹⁵ Analysis of some of the case files of the three German Courts, 1944–45, D/Z/H9/2, JA.

¹⁶ Hall, “An Army of Spies?”: 248–255.

¹⁷ Julie Chassin, “La Délation sous L’Occupation dans le Calvados,” Annales de Normandie 54, no. 1 (2004): 77–103; 78.

¹⁸ “History of the G.F.P.in the Channel Islands,” Private Papers of Captain JR Dening, JRD.09, D-13409, IWM.

¹⁹ Joe Mière, Never to be Forgotten (Jersey: Channel Island Publishing, 2004), 241–244.

²⁰ Martin Doherty, Nazi Radio Propaganda. Lord Haw-Haw and British Public Opinion in the Second World War (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2000), 21–22.

²¹ In 1942 and 1943 Hitler personally ordered that some 2,200 UK-born Island residents be deported to internment camps in Germany, in retaliation for the deportation from Iran in 1941 of 500 Germans: Charles Cruickshank, The German Occupation of the Channel Islands (Stroud: Sutton Publishing Limited, 2004), 219–246.

²² Copy of letter of Hauptmann Risse to FK 515, “The Reverend F.G. Waterbury,” 16 September 1942 KV 4/78, TNA.

²³ Sanders, The British Channel Islands, 252–253.

²⁴ Doyle was one of a dozen informers named by GFP officers in their post-liberation interrogations by Captain Dening of MI5: “Geheime Feldpolizei (Secret Field Police) Guernsey,” Private Papers of Captain JR Dening, JRD.09, D-13409, IWM; Carr, Sanders and Willmot, Protest, Defiance and Resistance, 76–83.

²⁵ William Bell, I Beg to Report: Policing in Guernsey during the German Occupation (Guernsey: Guernsey Press, 1995), 355.

²⁶ “Confiscation of Radio Sets, Statement by Feldwebel Einert of the GFP, Guernsey,” 20 May 1945 Private Papers of Captain JR Dening, JRD.09, D-13409, IWM.

²⁷ “John Frederick Dyball,” 30 July 1945 KV 4/78, TNA.

²⁸ MI19(RPS) report 2480, 2 November 1944 WO/208/3742, TNA.

²⁹ “Confiscation of Radio Sets, Statement by Feldwebel Einert of the GFP, Guernsey,” 20 May 1945 Private Papers of Captain JR Dening, JRD.09, D-13409, IWM.

³⁰ Carr, Sanders and Willmot, Protest, Defiance and Resistance, 217–218.

³¹ Analysis of some of the case files of the three German Courts, 1944–45, D/Z/H9/2, JA.

³² Leslie Sinel, The German Occupation of Jersey: a Diary of Events from June 1940 to June 1945 (Jersey: Villette Publishing, 1995), 155, entry for 20 July 1943.

³³ MI19(RPS) report 2458, 10 October 1944 WO/208/3741, TNA. Baudains allegedly informed on five radio-listeners in one day: “Interview with Joe Berry,” Material concerning the German Occupation of the Channel Islands, D 5750, IWM.

³⁴ Mière, Never to be Forgotten, 247–250.

³⁵ Twenty-one islanders died in continental concentration camps and prisons: Paul Sanders, The Ultimate Sacrifice, 3rd ed. (Jersey: Jersey Heritage Trust, 2018).

³⁶ Analysis of some of the case files of the three German Courts, 1944–45, D/Z/H9/2, JA.

³⁷ Edward Le Quesne, The Occupation of Jersey Day by Day. The Personal Diary of Deputy Edward Le Quesne (Jersey: La Haule Books, 1999), 243, entry for 28 July 1944.

³⁸ Analysis of some of the case files of the three German Courts, 1944–45, D/Z/H9/2, JA.

³⁹ Prosecution and sentence of a local policeman, 14 November 1944 B/A/W50/180, JA.

⁴⁰ Letter from Platzkommandant Major Haider to Alexander Coutanche, Bailiff of Jersey, 26 October 1944 B/A/W50/176, JA.

⁴¹ Statements by and about Lingshaw can be found in the Home Office and Criminal Court records related to his prosecution in 1946: HO/45/25,792, TNA; CRIM/1/1759, TNA.

⁴² Mière, Never to be Forgotten, 240–241.

⁴³ Peter Hassall, “Night and Fog Prisoners” (1997), unpublished typescript, L/F/155/1, JA.

⁴⁴ Analysis of some of the case files of the three German Courts, 1944–45, D/Z/H9/2, JA. The file also notes a Jerseyman, a friend of a GFP officer, who informed on his own brother.

⁴⁵ Bell, I Beg to Report, 291; Jersey Evening Post, 19 May 1945.

⁴⁶ Le Quesne, The Occupation of Jersey Day by Day, 197, entry for 28 June 1943; Sentences and Prosecutions by the Field Command and Troop Court, D/Z/H6/6/81, JA.

⁴⁷ MI19 (RPS) report 2438, 2 October 1944 WO/208/3741, TNA.

⁴⁸ “Geheime Feldpolizei (Secret Field Police) Guernsey,” Private Papers of Captain JR Dening, JRD.09, D-13409, IWM; Bell, I Beg to Report, 61–62.

⁴⁹ Confidential File – General, 16 October 1944 CC/05-17, GIA (Guernsey Island Archives).

⁵⁰ Hall, “An Army of Spies?”: 249, 258; Carr, Sanders and Willmot, Protest, Defiance and Resistance, 84.

⁵¹ Carr, Nazi Prisons in the British Isles, 163–174.

⁵² “The Feldgendarmerie, Guernsey,” Private Papers of Captain JR Dening, JRD.09, D-13409, IWM; Bell, I Beg to Report, 153–159; Albert Lamy, “Policing During The Occupation,” 18, undated typescript, Material concerning the German Occupation of the Channel Islands, D 5750, IWM.

⁵³ 15 August 1941–17 April 1945. Economics: Black Market (100), CC/EC 11–05, GIA.

⁵⁴ “Island Offences,” 13 November 1944 CC/14-05, GIA.

⁵⁵ Analysis of some of the case files of the three German Courts, 1944–45, D/Z/H9/2, JA.

⁵⁶ MI19(RPS) report 2348, 14 August 1944 WO/208/3736, TNA. Walling was liberated on 3–4 August 1944by American soldiers whilst being transported from St Malo to Rennes to serve his sentence, and was repatriated to England on 8 August.

⁵⁷ Police Occurrence Books, no. 111, 10 March 1944 GIA.

⁵⁸ Sentences and Prosecutions by the Field Command and Troop Courts 1941, case of Edmund Ryall and Emile Eloury, D/Z/H6/2/18, JA.

⁵⁹ “Confiscation of Radio Sets, Statement by Feldwebel Einert of the GFP, Guernsey,” 20 May 1945 Private Papers of Captain JR Dening, JRD.09, D-13409, IWM.

⁶⁰ Narratives of many of these escape attempts, successful and unsuccessful, can be found in: Roy Thomas, Lest We Forget: Escapes and Attempted Escapes from Jersey During the German Occupation, 1940–1945 (Jersey: La Haule Books, 1992).

⁶¹ For the work of MI19(RPS) see: Artemis Photiadou, “’Extremely valuable work’: British intelligence and the interrogation of refugees in London, 1941–45,” Intelligence and National Security 36, no. 1 (2021): 17–33.

⁶² “History of the London Reception Centre 1930–1945,” KV/47, TNA.

⁶³ “Appendix 14 – distribution list for reports,” The History of MI19(RPS), WO/208/4970, TNA.

⁶⁴ Photiadou, “Extremely valuable work”: 23–24.

⁶⁵ “Production of 1(B) brief by Security Service (Mr. Stopford) for the Channel Islands,” Minute Sheet, 23 December 1943 KV 4/78, TNA.

⁶⁶ Interview with Graeme Le Maistre, 6 September 1989 10,877, Sound Archive, IWM.

⁶⁷ For the Islands’ complicated relationship with their own occupation history, see: Gilly Carr, Victims of Nazi Persecution in the Channel Islands. A Legitimate History?, (London: Bloomsbury, 2019).

⁶⁸ MI19(RPS) report 2438, 2 October 1944 WO/208/3741, TNA.

⁶⁹ Louise Willmot, “Noel McKinstry,” Channel Islands Occupation Review 31 (2003): 28; Sanders, The British Channel Islands, 168–169.

⁷⁰ MI19(RPS) report 2468a, 21 October 1944 WO/208/3741, TNA.

⁷¹ MI19(RPS) report 2438, 2 October 1944 WO/208/3741, TNA.

⁷² MI19(RPS) report 2457, 10 October 1944 WO/208/3741, TNA.

⁷³ MI19(RPS) report 2461a, 14 October 1944 WO/208/3741, TNA.

⁷⁴ Heather Knowles Smith, The Changing Face of the Channel Islands Occupation. Record, Memory and Myth (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), 169–170.

⁷⁵ Photiadou, “Extremely valuable work,” 17–22.

⁷⁶ The History of MI19(RPS), 2, WO/208/4970, TNA.

⁷⁷ Julian Jackson, France: The Dark Years (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 577–579.

⁷⁸ Jersey Evening Post, 11 May 1945; Mière, Never to be Forgotten, 249–250.

⁷⁹ The épuration légale in France resulted in 1,500 death sentences for collaborators, the imprisonment or detainment of over 40,000, and a sentence of dégradation nationale for a further 50,000: Jackson, France: The Dark Years, 577–579.

⁸⁰ Bell, I Beg to Report, 357–358.

⁸¹ “The I(b) Reports on the Channel Islands,” 10 August 1945 KV 4/78, TNA.

⁸² “Training program for 159 FS Port Section,” memo from Dening to HQ Force 135, 4 January 1946 Private Papers of Captain JR Dening, JRD.02, D-13409, IWM.

⁸³ “Channel Islands CI Directive,” draft, undated, pre-Liberation, KV 4/78, TNA.

⁸⁴ 159 Field Security Port Section, War Diary, April 1945, WO/171/8137, TNA; “Exercise Sparhawk,” Private Papers of Captain JR Dening, JRD.02, D-13409, IWM.

⁸⁵ Major Stopford, Notes on meeting with 20 CAU, 13 June 1944 KV 4/78, TNA.

⁸⁶ Letter Stopford to Major Morrison, HQ Southern Command, 20 April 1945 Private Papers of Captain JR Dening, JRD.02, D-13409, IWM.

⁸⁷ CAU Report Appendix B, “Civil Affairs in the Channel Islands,” 7 July 1945 WO/171/7883, TNA; “Further Report on Progress of Work of 20 Civil Affairs Unit from June 18th to August 8th, 1945,” Colonel Power, WO/171/7883, TNA.

⁸⁸ Letter from Major d’Egville, MI5 Regional Security Liaison Officer, to Major Stopford, 8 July 1945 KV 4/78, TNA.

⁸⁹ Letter of Theobald Mathew (Director of Public Prosecutions) to Sir Alexander Maxwell (Permanent Under-secretary of State, Home Office), 9 July 1945 HO/45/22,399, TNA.

⁹⁰ “Geheime Feld Polizei (Secret Field Police) Guernsey,” Private Papers of Captain JR Dening, JRD.09, D-13409, IWM.

⁹¹ “The I(b) Reports on the Channel Islands,” 10 August 1945 KV 4/78, TNA.

⁹² Major Stopford, note on MI5 reports and cards, 29 September 1945 KV 4/78, TNA.

⁹³ “Memorandum to the DPP – Sources of Information,” 1 August 1945 KV 4/78, TNA.

⁹⁴ “The Channel Islands under German Occupation,” 17 August 1945 KV 4/78, TNA.

⁹⁵ “The I(b) Reports on the Channel Islands,” 10 August 1945 KV 4/78, TNA; “Norah M Pickthall,” 30 July 1945 KV 4/78, TNA.

⁹⁶ “J.E. Cort,” 30 July 1945 KV 4/78, TNA.

⁹⁷ “Maud and Lily Vibert,” 30 July 1945 KV 4/78, TNA. For the victims of this denunciation, Louisa Gould and Harold le Druillenec, see: Sanders, The Ultimate Sacrifice, 47–64.

⁹⁸ “John Hughes,” 30 July 1945 KV 4/78, TNA; for the victims, Peter and Clarence Painter, see: Sanders, The Ultimate Sacrifice, 38–46.

⁹⁹ Letter of Brigadier Snow (Force 135) to Sir Frank Newsam (Deputy Under-secretary of State, Home Office), 24 August 1945 HO/45/22,399, TNA.

¹⁰⁰ For the ‘V’ campaign: Charles Cruickshank, The Fourth Arm: Psychological Warfare 1938–1945 (London: Davis-Poynter, 1977), 121–128. For the ‘V’ campaign in the Channel Islands: Carr, Sanders and Willmot, Protest, Defiance and Resistance, 43–64.

¹⁰¹ “Channel Islands: Administration during the German Occupation,” Correspondence between Victor Carey and the Home Office, 18–25 June 1945 HO/45/25,844, TNA; see also Sanders, the British Channel Islands, 240–242.

¹⁰² Letter from Captain Dening to Major Stopford, 3 July 1945 KV 4/78, TNA.

¹⁰³ For a full narrative of the discussion and decisions taken after the Liberation with regard to collaboration, see Sanders, The British Channel Islands, 231–254: Cruickshank, The German Occupation of the Channel Islands, 338–342.

¹⁰⁴ “CAU Progress Report 28 May 1945” 20 CAU War Diary, WO/171/7883, TNA.

¹⁰⁵ Interview with J.B. Howard, tape 4526 (typescript), Material concerning the German Occupation of the Channel Islands, D 5750, IWM.

¹⁰⁶ “The Channel Islands under German Occupation,” 17 August 1945 KV 4/78, TNA; “The Reverend F.G. Waterbury,” 30 July 1945 KV 4/78, TNA.

¹⁰⁷ Defendant: LINGSHAW, John. Charge: Doing an act likely to assist the enemy, CRIM/1/1759, TNA.

¹⁰⁸ Letter from Major Stopford to Captain Dening, 31 May 1945 KV 4/78, TNA.

¹⁰⁹ “Geheime Feldpolizei (Secret Field Police) Guernsey,” Private Papers of Captain JR Dening, JRD.09, D-13409, IWM.

¹¹⁰ “Intelligence Summary,” Brigadier Snow Papers, L/C/14/A/5/12, JA.

¹¹¹ Letter from Major d’Egville, MI5 Regional Security Liaison Officer, to Major Stopford, 8 July 1945 KV 4/78, TNA. D’Egville had previously been posted to Guernsey in 1939–1940; personal communication, Alan F. Judge, Intelligence Corps Historian.

¹¹² Letter from Captain Dening to Major Stopford, 3 July 1945 KV 4/78, TNA.

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Graham Smyth

Graham Smyth is an independent scholar living in Jersey, where he is researching various aspects of the German occupation of the British Channel Islands during the Second World War.