Marooned & Forgotten German Garrison 1945 

was just thinking the same thing. not even any locals to worry about that might be resistance members.

Definitely a good option. Not all good though... just imagine the tedium

Or be placed in some rural town in Norway and never see action

@@wm9346 From what I've heard, the German officers at Priest Lake had it pretty good...

It could be worse...you could have been on the Eastern Front...

Hope they had a lot of chess sets and board games and cards to while a way the time.

@@389383 They played on their Reich-Phones.

@@captainpoppleton Good one, dude!

That's what I was thinking. I hope discipline was relaxed a bit. Maybe they got in some good fishing.

Slightly preferable to the Russian front!

Yah, sounds like they served out the War at Club Med!

Grandpa it’s just joking or being humble in a way. He may not want you to feel how terrible about the situation of the war. Because when he’s gone, he’ll left you with hope, understanding, love and peaceful life. He did it more likely also to avoid hatred.

At some point those Germans realized they were Blessed to be bypassed by the War...

@andrewcombe8907 Jersey has huge tides, at low water Jersey's land mass increases by about a quarter. I worked with a girl from Jersey and she told me that during the war a group of German soldiers went exploring the uncovered rocks looking for shellfish, crabs etc. Unfortunately for them they were new to Jersey, didn't know about the huge tides and went out too far. The tide came racing back in and all the Germans were drowned, about four or five in number.

@@williamarcamo7588 That reminds me of a story my Dad told me. He served in the 1960s; and was the new Sergeant in a unit full of WW2 Vet NCOs. One day a few of them were talking, and a couple of the WW2 guys - Who had been in the Hurtgen Forest Battle together - Were talking about a time they found an abandoned German truck full of Sausage, Cheese and Bread. My Dad said "Man, I wish I'd been there with you guys for that one!" He never forgot their response. "No, you don't."

A good possibility is he never knew they existed. Very few Britons know about them.

Your (Nazi) grandfather lived far too long.

​@@binaway yeah if its over the horizon, no reason to find out about really

Of course not,they lost,poor germans.

Kellyflyin

He's good but the subject matter is interesting so plenty of others could teach it.

Garrison callsign decrypted by Enigma as, "Hey, Hey, it's the Minkeeys"...in the voice of Michael Caine, "No' many people dat."

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

I read up on the occupation and surrender of the Channel Islands some years ago and I did read about the Germans left on the Minkees. I thought it odd that the Germans could spare the manpower to occupy a reef that had no strategic value but this video goes into a bit more depth and the reason to occupy the reef. When I read about it is said the Germans were starving and pleaded with French fishermen to tell the British they were there so they could surrender. This video puts a different slant on that. Despite being told that Germany had surrendered the Germans ordered the French to take them off the reef. If I had been the French I think I would have left them there but then I suppose the Germans did have weapens.

Unlike the Canadians

Indeed, the sovereignty of the Minkies ended up being taken to the International Court of Justice that, after consulting with documents of recent and even as far back as medieval manuscripts, concluded that the islands indeed belonged to Jersey and not the French! But was still involved in many further disputes with the French over sovereignty and fishing rights regardless.

@@MaxwellAerialPhotography Genghis Khan, the Romans and the Ottomans would agree with you.

@@NorseNorman Then very similar to the dispute Spain and Portugal have about the Savage Islands

@@MaxwellAerialPhotography you appear to have mistaken the facts. The English owned the Islands AND had a claim to the landmass known as France. In exchange for giving up the claim to the French throne (which was NOT a popular idea back then) the French agreed that England would keep the islands they ALREADY OWNED. They didn't 'grab' anything. It was part of the inheritance of the English throne. Ensuring the French didn't steal the islands in contravention of the more over 800 year old agreement is an obvious and understandable action.

I am French and know the Normandy coast well facing the islands. In the late 1980s, in a public park in Berlin, I happened to have a conversation with an old gentleman who told me that during the war he was in garrison on Jersey or Guernsey (I'm not sure anymore) and that After the Allied landings, he experienced food shortages: according to his words, with his comrades, they only had apples to eat and were sick (dysentery). Well, it's just an anecdote. Cordially.

"made sleeping rather difficult" hahahaha, british understatement at its best:))))

I can't understand how France made an alliance with a sworn enemy. The British fought for hundreds of years and joined those pigs who even took away the islands that should have been French.

So Fritz can shoot but he can't fish?

Indeed! And after D Day quite uncomfortable for the German Garrisons as supplies could not get through from the mainland. The citizens started receiving Red Cross parcels and at the end the German troops were going hungry. The group of people that really suffered were the forced labourers billeted on the Islands who , under fear of being shot by the Germans, had to forage in the fields or beg for food from civilians. If you want a good read "Hitler's British Isles" by Duncan Barrett - Might not be the most comprehensive tome but easy and engaging to read. Covers a lot of personal stories of people and families involved including what happened after the war. Some quite touching stories concerning Islanders and German occupiers that fell in love including one couple that later married.

Say my name.....

Imagine his frequent flyer miles from such travels!

i enjoy your work

99.1% scientifically accurate

That sounds like a great interview on Coast to Coast AM.

Which the skipper replied, "Do you have money?".

Whiting wasn't entirely accurate regarding the conversation, according to documents I've seen.

@@MarkFeltonProductions Okay.

​​@@knife-wieldingspidergod5059es. But, I'm not paying until we get to the other side. 😊

Newspapers 😂😂 Titanic refurned to Southampton Newyork Times april 15th 1912

Could i get more info about this lovely story?

@@kettlehat376 yes of course, it was part of a documentary I watched yesterday actually il try and find it to link it to you it was very touching and the entire documentary was indeed very interesting aswell

@@kettlehat376 ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-JR7v8114XOc.html here you are, my grandfather was stationed here before the war and evacuated before the Germans invaded, so obviously I saw this documentary and took an interest, I’m Irish but to see British street, police officers with German escorts and the Wehrmacht marching down the streets was very jarring

Could i get that link as well?

@Blackfyre

Thank god the Royal Marines were able to recover that dunny for His Royal Majesty King George VI. Having to use a pissoir instead doesn't bear thinking about.

There is still a forgotten German garrison posted to my shed in 1944. I bring in some supplies on weekends.

One thing this channel has taught me is that its impossible to know everything about ww2. There's probably still a lot Mark doesnt know as well. It feels like there are still new stories being told every year

I lived on Jersey for almost ten years and knew nothing about this! Well done and thank you doctor felton.

Living behind the moon.. 😂

No, there is no end.

HES A FORCE!!!

Yeah, I think Timeline did an episode on them.

I still have plenty of family in the Channel Islands and some of the stories are quite epic.

He is doing british propaganda. Germany is always bad in your version of the story. 2015 we took your refugees in our homes.

Hope he does more about jersey as it’s my home

@@maginotline7490 Visited with my wife a few years ago. We had a great time and if there weren't 100s of other places we would like to see, we wouldn't hesitate to go back. We went to the various war museums and learned a lot. The island and its history is fascinating and the people very nice.

I assume the Finns adopted this as a standard tactic? "Sergeant, draw 100 sausages from stores and stage a diversion on the left flank."

That battle was during the Winter War in Dec '39, before the Soviets entered WW2. An interesting war where the Russians decided to invade one of their smaller neighbors, but ended up suffering horrendous losses, similar to their invasion of Ukraine today. Their justification for starting the war was similar to the one Putin used to attack Ukraine.

Every army had its bad moments and situations. The Red Army wasnt the IJA, they were most of the times well equiped, but the cold war propaganda and books would paint them as eternal miserable and starved slaves

@@pagodebregaeforro2803 Soviets were well equipped during the Winter War of 1939 in terms of weaponry and military vehicles. Having some 100 TIMES more tanks than Finland. However the tactics used in Finland by Soviets were outdated and relied too heavily on roads, which Finnish soldiers would often ambush, this is one of the reasons having such an advantage with tanks didn't bring Soviets an edge over Finland. That being said, some Soviet soldiers lacked winter clothing and went without eating for long periods of time, it is estimated that thousands of Soviets froze to death. But, the biggest reason why the Winter War went so poorly for Soviets was low morale and Stalin having had purged his high ranking officers prior to the conflict.

Relatives from Ostrobothnia in Finland described how as children on their way home after school they passed a prison camp with Russian prisoners of war and they felt so sorry for the starving Russians that they threw them some pieces of bread, which they gratefully received and immediately ate.

Really great history

Me too!😅😅

Me the same John.😂

“I fart in your general direction” comes to mind

I vaguely remember a sitcom as well called 'Owner Occupied' on ITV, which I recalled reading about but never watched. IMDB says it was about a channel islands hotel that carries on regardless with it's business after the occupation. I can find very little info about it. Looks like it was a pilot episode that never went to series.

I watched this series as well, excellent series

Simon Cadell was the ss officer, died of cancer age 46.

There was another TV drama series about 20 years ago about the occupation of the Channel Islands. If I remember what it was called I'll be back . . .

@@ray.shoesmith Thanks for that, what an intriguing premise for a show.

For a good book set on and around the Minkies, check out The Wreck of the Mary Deare, by Hammond Innes. It's probably my all-time favorite novel.

@@andrewvanatta1569 Thank you. I'll check it out!

Micky Dolenz with the chin.

based on a novel by Hammond Innis.

It is a book adapted to a movie. Hammond Innes from memory

I read the book - the author has a vivid imagination. How he thinks one man, alone on a steamship with no autopilot, can have a little steer then nip down to the boiler room to throw a few shovelfuls of coal into the furnaces then nip back up top for another little steer, and keep repeating this performance is beyond me.

There was a German weather unit in Svalbard who surrendered September 4, 1945. They were forgotten after the national surrender, continued to radio weather reports but no-one was responding for months. Finally they made contact and a Norwegian sealing boat was sent to collect them. They were said to be the last.

My Great Uncle Ib Poulsen operated a weather station in Northeast Greenland. He was suppose to transmit weather reports by radio in the clear to that both Axis and Allied forces, however after arriving in Greenland the only reports were in Allied coded messages. His and those who worked with him records of WWII are told in the book Sledge Patrol by David Howarth.

Yes, I was thinking about this weather reporting station. Trouble is that I can't remember who retold that story? Was it Dr Felton? I am sure that Dr Felton can straighten out the mystery as to just which German Outpost was the last to surrender? The trouble for the lads in Greenland was that if their radio had failed catastrophically, then they could have slowly died from starvation and or disease and no one would have known about their plight for years. Fortunately, they were able to get someone's attention and they were rescued, but it could just as easily have gone the other way. Not sure if Polar Bears were a regular problem or not. Mark from Melbourne Australia

​@@markfryer9880... a German weather station was already subject in this channel.

@@markfryer9880 The last German soldier to surrender was Georg Gaertner, in the USA, in the early 1980s. He had escaped from a POW camp in the US in 1944 and been on the run ever since, even marrying and building up a new identity.

They were turning up when I was in elementary school

Last one gave it up in1974

We left lots on the islands Too much trouble to get them

I visited some of those and I would love to hear a recount of how the surrender happened to the US Navy and Marines. Were there any fanatics who resisted?

​@@tomhenry897 About this only major islands in any group were invaded. T!his was major tactic/strategy called (island hopping) if I remember correctly. This was for the reason you gave about being too much trouble or time being involved.

good film called "Another Mother's Son" about a Jersey woman who hid a young escaped Russian POW

@@4exgold Louisa Gould. None of the film was made in the Island. Her Brother Harold Le Druillenec was also arrested and sent to Belsen. He survived and returned to the Island were he took up his old job as a teacher. As the Island's were under military control, a Festung, the arrests were not made by the Gestapo, which were a civillian organisation, but the Gehime Feilde Poliezi Secret Feild Police, the military equivalent. There are to stories as to how the remark 'Another Mother's Son ' came about. . Her son Edward had been killed serving as an RNVR officer. One tale is then when her Brother Harold took her to task for hiding Fyidor, the Russian she replied 'He's another Mother's son'. . The other story is that when she was being interogated and the NAZI interegator asked why she had risked her life for a pice of sub human waste, she then replied 'He is another Mother's son'. Either way a remarkable woman. Her betryal was probaly due to a pair of sisters that lived near by. Both the sisters were what were described as 'simple'. Post war , they had committed no crime, and as it was considered that both were menatlly sub normal, what would be point of brining any action against them? Both lived till the late 1960's. Thier cottage was on a narrow road, as kids we used to ride our ponies past the cottage. If either were outside they would stop and just stare at us till we wnt past, normally at a fast trot!

@@51WCDodge interesting...thanks for posting.

Is not that quote from a character in a film? If so, which one (character/film)? The suggestion of the quote is brilliant, nonetheless.

THE IMPERIALIST CAPITALIST CLASS WILL MOVE HEAVEN AND HELL AGAINST THE PROLETARIAT. IT WILL TURN THE COUNTRY INTO A SMOKING HEAP OF RUBBLE RATHER THAN GIVE UP WAGE-SLAVERY OF ITS OWN FREE WILL.

@@skyden24195 Drax from Guardians of the galaxy

@@Lowlight-pt4zs No the Germans said it before

@@Lowlight-pt4zs oh yeah!!! Thanks for the reminder.

Ww2 keeps getting weirder and weirder for me

En godnathistori

Lihou and Brechquou aussi!

I can't list every single one! The four main ones are the ones usually listed.

and Jethou

@@ianm452 Great book on P. Gutenberg by a man who let himself be stranded on Jethou for a year...

@@EdMcF1 I was going to add Lihou but is it technically an island. You can walk to it at low tide.

You channeled your inner Weird Al. Well done!

Like the monkees, they were shooting blanks

he's found enough material for two episodes so far. The other one, about the raid on France, is even crazier!

Your point?

Must be within the nine-dash line.

I guess this was weather station "Haudegen" on Spitsbergen not Greenland

I always thought that too, but AH left tens of 1000's of troops in Norway right up to the end.

Well it would have been a bit of a problem getting them off of the islands and back to Germany since well all of France was in the hands of the Allies and not really sure that they would have wanted to be removed from the islands. They were short on food but no one was shooting at them.

The German garrison on a Norwegian island that hung around until September 1945 was in deeper trouble…

And also they would probably just ignore them anyway. Like if you're on an island where the most dangerous thing is stubbing your toe on a rock, why would you go and die in literally hell on earth just because some guy thinks there's a scenario where not everybody dies?

@@chestersleezer8821 Agreed. I doubt they would have been eager to leave the island and return to Germany, even if they could have. On the other hand, the high command sent thousands of children and old men to their deaths to buy themselves a few extra days. They would have rather seen the garrison annihilated by allied forces in a failed relief mission than to have them surrender peacefully and survive the war.

I forgot to add that a tagline from the article was “Es ist so fein, ein Soldat zu sein.” (It is so fine to be a soldier). Loses a lot in translation.

German POWs in the US had it pretty good. Initially, many were from the Afrika Korps and were high-morale, with a number of arrogant, committed Nazis among them. But as the war went on, increasing numbers were let out to work on building projects and agricultural harvests around their camps, and were by all accounts good, conscientious workers. The same had been true of Germans captured during the American Revolution -- as, the whole brigade garrisoning Trenton, NJ in 1776, and the German wing which surrendered at Saratoga, NY the next year. The guys from Trenton built (on contract, while POWs) many "Hessian" barns , outbuildings, and little stone bridges and dams in the upper Shenandoah Valley that are still in use today. Once the final peace agreement had been ratified, a Hessian private who'd been captured at Trenton deserted the army column on its march from the Shenandoah back to its port of embarkation in NY. He got clean away, settled down not far from Trenton itself, took up the butcher's trade, married a local girl, and sired a large family. Years later he chanced to meet President George Washington when the latter was riding out from Philadelphia one day. He told GW that being captured was the best thing that could have happened to him, since his status as a poor peasant in Germany (prior to his impressment into the military) would have afforded him no opportunities. As it was, the Army had paid for his ride to America, where he now owned a business, had money in his pocket, and was both a free man and respected member of his community.

Yep, I was thinking the same, is the Minkees for sale?

Yes I was thinking of this case when Mark said about "the most isolated German garrison". I initially thought this video would be the case of Svalbard.

And what you thought were your comrades in arms.