A Paradox: The Dual Face of the Occupier

Abstract

In the extract opposite, under the heading, ‘An Attempt at a Right Judgement of our Enemies’, one of the main difficulties and dilemmas facing the Islanders during the Occupation is crystallised. In the extract above, Reverend Ord describes how many people chose to deal with that dilemma. All over Occupied Europe similar problems abounded. Yet the number of German personnel was so exceptionally high in the Islands that unique difficulties were caused by their overwhelming presence, and many Islanders simply could not avoid daily contact with these ‘visitors’ who were also effectively their jailors. In diaries, and later accounts, there is a lot of detail about dealings with the enemy, and all provide insights into the deeply paradoxical nature of the position in which the Islanders found themselves. It was potentially a very dangerous situation in which the enemy, all powerful, sometimes cruel and collectively hated by the population could often be friendly and humane in his personal dealings, operating according to apparently familiar moral codes.

Those in any sort of public position soon found themselves compelled to lay down a principle governing relationships … on the one hand to the Wehrmacht as an engine of oppression, on the other to individual Germans. As to the former there was only one possible attitude, complete antagonism … Individual contacts were another matter.¹