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| Adolf Hitler delivering a speech to the German people during the Party Congress of the NSDAP in Nuremberg, 1935, Weimar Republic. |
On an island cut off from the world, a tyrannical dictator hides a terrible weapon: a secret missile program, aimed at the defenders of democracy.
This dictator believes he is genetically superior, that he is born to rule the world. What’s worse, he’s completely insane.
This is not 2017 and the dictator is not Kim Jong-Un. Itʼs December 1940, and that island – Alderney, located in the English channel – is occupied by Hitler’s forces.
Where today itʼs a peaceful patch of British soil with a population of 2000, during World War II it was transformed by the Germans and covered in Nazi bunkers and labour camps.
It was during this period that Alderney earned the nickname “Fortress Island”.
“The Nazis arrived in Alderney after they defeated the Allied forces in France,”
Colonel Richard Kemp said.
“They were able to do this all very freely because the British evacuated.”
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| German railroad low loaders with new tanks on the way to the Eastern Front in 1943. |
Col Kemp is a former commander of British troops in Afghanistan. A fascination with the presence of the SS – the Schutzstaffel, Hitlerʼs notorious special branch – on Alderney, recently prompted him to conduct extensive research into Alderney’s wartime history.
Alderney was the only channel island where a SS regiment was deployed. It is an accepted fact that the organisation ran the “Lager Sylt” concentration camp on the island – “the only concentration camp on British soil”.
“Not many people know about it,” Col Kemp said.
A recent discovery in the German archives raises further questions about the SS mission on Alderney.
That discovery is a letter from Heinrich Himmler – the head of the SS and the third most senior figure in Nazi command – to the SS Captain on Alderney.
“It wouldnʼt be normal for Himmler to write a direct letter to mere captain, but he did that, emphasising the importance of his work,” Col Kemp said.
That important work? A series of tunnels beneath Alderney.
Col Kemp and his team have photographed the area and taken measurements which match the size and scale of German V1 missile sites on the western coast of France.
Col Kemp believes that Alderney was to be the base for a bombing campaign on Britain, and yet the V1 missile sites in France would have had enough range to reach Britain already.
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| Hitler legitimates the military aggression against Poland in his speech at the Kroll Opera House in 1939. |
A standard bombing campaign could not in itself be worthy of a letter from Himmler. Col Kempʼs research has suggested another purpose altogether.
“I strongly believe (Himmler’s special reason for writing) was the presence of Sarin gas,” Col Kemp said.
“This was intended to be dumped on the Allied forces building up on the south coast of England, ready to invade Europe.”
According to Col Kemp, the tunnels on Alderney have unique side chambers running off the main corridor. He believes this would be the perfect place to store chemical warheads.
“Eyewitnesses during the war have said that yellow-painted containers were seen being unloaded from a supply ship in the Alderney harbour,” Col Kemp said.
“Yellow was, and still is, a colour coding for chemical weapons.”
The chemical weapon theory has its critics, like Trevor Davenport, who lives on Alderney and has published his own research into the islandʼs history. He calls the idea “absolutely tosh”.
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| Free City of Danzig, a semi-autonomous city-state which was in existence between 1920 and 1939, as seen on Aug. 29, 1939. |
Mr Davenport’s work is based on the findings of Captain Theodore Pantcheff, sent by British intelligence to investigate Alderney after the war. During his investigations, Cpt Pantcheff found no evidence of chemical weapons.
He eventually settled on Alderney and met with Davenport on a number of occasions.
“I think he never lied at all, and if he said he didnʼt know, he didnʼt know,” Mr Davenport said.
“There were no missile sites on Alderney. There never were.”
To add to the mystery, Alderney was the last Nazi garrison to surrender at the end WWII, German forces holding on until May 16, 1945 – nine days after the official end of the war.
What evidence could have been destroyed in that time? What SS activities hidden before the British arrived?
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| A German watch column in Paris, France, circa 1940. |
If Col Kempʼs chemical weapon theory is correct, it would prove hugely significant.
“It could have changed the course of the war and the world we live in today could be a very different world (as a consequence),” Col Kemp said.
After all, at the time these missile sites are thought to have been constructed, the Allied forces were preparing for the D-Day landings – an offensive that would turn the war in favour of the Allies and put the Nazis on the back foot.
There is much about the Nazis that still remains a dark secret, but what we do know for certain is that Hitler was defeated and died a coward.
Take note, Kim Jong-Un.
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| German submarine in the polar sea in 1942. |
