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

Abstract

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?