How many women were there at any one time is guesswork. The commandant of Alderney, Oberstleutnant D R Schwalm, who took up post on 23 October 1943, estimated their numbers at ‘about 100’. He ordered them to be quartered together and imposed strict visiting hours. Most of the women in Alderney were evacuated after the Normandy landings in 1944. By the end of the war, there were five women. Details are lacking on the brothels in Jersey, but conditions would be analogous to those in Alderney. The numbers, including both brothels, are likely to be higher, although it is probable that the OT brothel was wound down when the majority of OT men and labourers were moved to the European mainland in 1943–4.

The Lebensborn programme, one of Heinrich Himmler’s schemes, was a system of breeding, choosing women of ‘pure Aryan’ stock and encouraging senior SS officers to impregnate them. Babies born as a result of this scheme were to be raised in the Lebensborn homes or put up for adoption by suitable German families. Some ‘Aryan’-looking children in the occupied countries were kidnapped and given to German adoptive parents. There were a number of Lebensborn facilities established throughout occupied Europe, including the one at Lamorlaye in France, opened in February 1944 and closed by the Allies in August 1944. The homes offered superior nutrition and hygiene standards and the most advanced medical treatment available for mothers and babies.

For Hitler, occupation of the British Channel Islands held not only propaganda value but was also critical to the coastal defence of Europe. The Atlantic Wall, built to rebuff invasion by Allied forces, was a system of heavy-duty fortifications stretching from Norway to south-west France. Organisation Todt provided the labour for the construction of these defences. As in the rest of Europe, a small part of the local workforce was employed as skilled labour, but the majority of workers (some as young as fourteen) were forcibly brought in from all over Europe. Some were also political prisoners from Africa or Spain, held by the French.

There were fourteen labour camps in Jersey, five in Guernsey and four (including a temporary camp) in Alderney under the jurisdiction of Organisation Todt. A fifth camp on Alderney, Lager Sylt, was under the authority of the SS. The commandant was Maximilian List, who earned his spurs in Neuengamme, of which Lager Sylt was a satellite. It was the only SS concentration camp on British soil. The inmates were largely political prisoners, criminals and Jews. An architect by training, List is alleged to have designed and had built the commandant’s house on Alderney. He was recalled to Berlin in February 1944 to answer questions relating to an escape of Jewish prisoners removed from the island in 1943.