While the Germans did not succeed in invading Britain during World War II, they occupied a number of islands in the English Channel. The English population continued to lead fairly normal lives, while the German occupiers built some of the most extensive fortifications of the Second World War. As the war progressed, British commandos made occasional attacks, resulting in harsher conditions on the islands. The German garrisons were totally isolated by the D-Day landings, but managed to hold on through the following winter to surrender in May 1945. The author, a renowned military historian, examines these questions with complete candor, in addition to his study of the famous fortifications. All of the wartime events and the islands and their fortifications as they are today are covered in the popular Battleground Europe style, with illustrations, maps and then-and-now photographs.

This WWII history and visitor’s guide explores the extensive network of Nazi fortifications built to defend Fortress Europe. Hitler's Atlantic Wall, the complex system of coastal fortifications that stretched from Norway to the Spanish border during the Second World War, was built to defend occupied Europe from Allied invasion. Many of its principal structures survive and can be visited today. This authoritative guide provides both practical information for visitors and essential historical context. The wall, which was constructed on a massive scale between 1942 and 1944 by German engineers, forced laborers and troops, consisted of strong points, artillery casemates, bunkers, troop shelters, minefields, anti-tank and anti-boat obstacles. It also included the concrete U-boat and E-boat pens in the key ports and, behind the Channel coast, the V-weapon sites. This huge scheme of fortifications was one of the longest series of defensive lines in military history. This comprehensive volume takes readers and visitors through the entire story of the fortifications from the fall of France to the D-Day invasion on the beaches of Normandy that finally broke through. As a guide to some of the most impressive relics of the Second World War, this book is essential reading for travelers or anyone interested in the liberation of occupied Europe.

During World War II, Adolf Hitler gave the order for a line of defence to be constructed along the coasts of the western front. Ranging from the French-Spanish border to the north of Norway, this Atlantic Wall is a series of bunkers, barricades and coastal batteries. Over the past year, Stephan Vanfleteren photographed this 'wall' of more than 2600 kilometers in his well-known black-and-white style. He planted his tripod on various beaches in Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany, climbed cliff faces in France, sailed between the fjords of Norway and stood in the surf in Denmark to photograph the ruins of the largest military structure of the previous century. Vanfleteren shows with this series of photos his wonder for the untamed architectural beauty of these concrete structures and he shows the power of nature as it slowly reclaims these structures that were once considered impenetrable.

Following the fall of France and the surrender of Paris on 14 June 1940, the British Government announced that the Channel Islands had no strategic importance and would not be defended. The Germans occupied the islands from the end of June onwards and remained in control until the end of the war. On 10 October 1941 Hitler announced his intention to 'convert them into an impregnable fortress', and the islands formed the most heavily fortified and defended section of the entire Atlantic Wall. This book describes the design, construction and manning of these defensive positions, as well as considering more widely the occupation of the Channel Islands by the Germans.