20 Facts About the Nazi Occupation of the UK’s Channel Islands

20 Facts About the Nazi Occupation of the UK’s Channel Islands

Shannon Quinn - February 16, 2019

20 Facts About the Nazi Occupation of the UK’s Channel Islands
Old women standing next to the Swastika spray painted on a wall. Credit: BBC

14. Swastikas Were Painted All Over The Islands

When the Nazi soldiers took over the Channel Islands, they couldn’t exactly decorate with the traditional flags, statues, and more. The war was in full swing, and while they planned to completely modify everything once Germany had secured their victory, decoration was not exactly a priority. So the Nazi soldiers settled for destroying any signs that the island was ever owned by Great Britain. They spray painting swastikas on the walls of buildings as a way to mark their territory. As time went on, the Germans would import signs and more symbols of the Third Reich, but much of that original graffiti remained for a long time.

Of course, once the occupation was over in 1945, many of the Nazi soldiers were forced to clean up a lot of the damage they had made on the island, but the British people did plenty of cleaning, too, and they were forced to do a lot of maintenance and repair on the buildings that had been seriously damaged during the occupation.

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