The Von Aufsess Occupation Diary, Hans Max Aufsess; Kathleen Nowlan (Editor, Translator). Published by Philimore & Co., Chichester, 1985. First Edition. 8vo up to 9½” tall. 208pp, notes and index. Red cloth, gilt spine titles. Volume is in fine condition; jacket is clipped with fading to spine and is otherwise fine.
This is a first-hand account of the Occupation of the Channel Islands written by a senior German officer whose job was to liaise between the civil authorities and the occupying forces. In his diary, Aufsess comments candidly on the characters of his fellow officers as well as on events towards the end of the end of the war (1944-45), a period when, cut off from France, food and fuel were running out. Keeping a diary left Aufsess vulnerable to a conviction of treason and for a long period of time, he hid the diary behind the wallpaper in the house he occupied. An aristocrat and lawyer, he was thought by some to be pro-British and therefore suspect after the Bomb Plot of July 1944 and his wife was in fact arrested.
The diary published 40 years after the end of the war, in 1985, and provides an insight into the Occupation from an ‘occupiers’ point of view, as well as revealing some interesting observations and assessments of the men who held the fate of the Channel Isles in their hands.
