Self-Guided Occupation Trail

The Channel Islands were the only part of the British Isles to be occupied by German forces in WW2. The Occupation has left an extraordinary legacy on Jersey, with hundreds of concrete bunkers, walls and tunnels ringing the coast and scattering the island’s interior. Download the Geotourist app to follow the Occupation Trails and explore how the Occupation has left an extraordinary legacy on Jersey.

The order for such an immense construction effort came directly from Hitler, who demanded his much-prized Channel Islands be turned into impregnable fortresses. He insisted that Jersey become a centrepiece in the Atlantic Wall, Germany’s steel and concrete belt of fortifications protecting Western Europe from an allied invasion. Though never completed, fortification building in the Channel Islands drew in around one tenth of enemy wartime construction effort – leaving the amazing results seen today. Exploring, you will find most of these remarkable structures still in place, some preserved, most derelict.