Britain Under the Nazis: the Forgotten Occupation
My photography for TV is certainly varied, you might’ve seen my recent blog post for the last show I provided the promo shots for (Open House, the Great Sex Experiment) and now I have the great pleasure to present images from a fascinating two-part series about a period of time in which The Channel Islands was controlled by the Nazis. Over the years this period has been portrayed in various different ways, but this new Channel 4 / Minnow Films production is drawn from eye-witness accounts from people who were actually there at the time, and having seen them recording it and reading up about it, it promises to be superb.
I was asked to take some portraits of the various characters, but also portraits of historians Prof Gilly Carr and Louise Willmot, who were providing their expert opinion on the portrayal. You can see them and the other characters in the images below.
Underneath the images I’ve also included the Channel 4 news release about the show for further reading. It is available to stream on Channel 4 from Friday 30th May 2025.
News Release: Britain Under the Nazis: the Forgotten Occupation
To mark the 80th anniversary of the eventual Liberation of the islands, ‘Britain Under the Nazis: the Forgotten Occupation’ (w/t) tells the story of one the most controversial periods in WW2 British history, utilising eye-witness accounts from those who lived through it.
In June 1940 Britain abandoned the Channel Islands to the Nazis. 69,000 islanders were left to live with the enemy, facing an impossible dilemma: to collaborate, resist, or tread a difficult line in between. Their words, drawn from little known diaries, memoirs and letters from both the occupiers and occupied, are brought to life by actors for the first time. Leading historians Gilly Carr and Louise Willmot bring together their meticulous research, including recently unearthed documents that shed fascinating new light on this forgotten period of fascism on British soil.
The invasion of Guernsey, Jersey and Alderney was a propaganda coup for Hitler, who began a building campaign to transform the islands into an impregnable fortress. But what started as a so-called ‘model occupation’ degenerated into a nightmare roll-out of Nazism – with persecution, antisemitic orders, informants, mass deportations, starvation, slave labour camps. There was no official investigation into the Occupation but the fallout from the division it caused remains toxic to this day.
Emily Shields, Commissioning Editor at Channel 4 says: “Drawing on incredible first-person testimony, with stories that intersect, overlap and defy each other in ‘their ‘ version of the truth, Minnow have created a mesmerising portrait of life under Enemy rule.”
Credits:
Series Directed & Filmed by: Jack Warrender
Series Producer: Tim Dunn
Executive Producers: Alicia Kerr & Morgan Matthews
Production Company: Minnow Films
About Paul Groom
Paul Groom is a Bristol Photographer who travels around as needed as a commercial and TV / film photographer. See TV / FILM website page for more information on his TV work. Alternatively take a look through the portraits page and elsewhere for other types of photography.