During the Second World War, when Jersey was under Nazi occupation, the JCP-leader Norman Le Brocq led a resistance group called Jersey Democratic Movement. The resistance helped many of the Soviet forced labourers that the Germans had brought to the island. JDM, the JCP and Transport and General Workers’ Union distributed propaganda. With the aid of a German deserter, Paul Mulbach, they apparently had some success in turning the soldiers of the garrison against their masters, including most notably the highest military authority in the Islands, Huffmeier. There is some evidence to suggest that they had even set a date for this mutiny (1 May 1945), but that it was rendered pointless by the suicide of Adolf Hitler.[1]
The history of the party is murky at best. Peter Tabb suggests that they were involved in the blowing up of the Palace Hotel and of separate ammo dumps, in fact it is more likely that their involvement was to set fire to the hotel, and the German efforts to put out the subsequent blaze, by using dynamite to create a breach between the flames were misjudged and set off charges in a neighbouring ammo dump. Nevertheless, the JCP do seem to have made many plans for organised resistance.
After the war Norman Le Brocq was elected deputy in Jersey in 1972. He was twice reelected and sat on a ministerial committee.
In 1966, Le Brocq and 19 other islanders were awarded gold watches by the Soviet Union as a sign of gratitude for their role in the resistance movement.
Le Brocq led the Fishery Advisory Committee until his death.
After his death, a fishing vessel was named after Le Brocq. There is also a Community Worker award named after him.
The date at which JCP dissolved is unclear. There was also a Communist Party of Guernsey[zh] though they seemed to have enjoyed even less electoral success and are also a defunct political entity.
The Channel Islands are an archipelago in the English Channel, off the French coast of Normandy. They are divided into two Crown Dependencies: the Bailiwick of Jersey, which is the largest of the islands; and the Bailiwick of Guernsey, consisting of Guernsey, Alderney, Sark, Herm and some smaller islands. Historically, they are the remnants of the Duchy of Normandy. Although they are not part of the United Kingdom, the UK is currently responsible for the defence and international relations of the islands. The Crown Dependencies are neither members of the Commonwealth of Nations, nor part of the European Union. They have a total population of about 171,916, and the bailiwicks' capitals, Saint Helier and Saint Peter Port, have populations of 33,500 and 18,207 respectively.
Jersey – the largest of the Channel Islands – has been an island for around 6,000 years. Early inhabitation is evidenced by various neolithic monuments and hoards. In the 10th century, Jersey became part of Normandy. When the Normans conquered England in the 11th century, Jersey remained a part of the Duchy of Normandy, but when Normandy and England were finally split in the 13th century, the Channel Islands remained loyal to the English Crown, splitting Jersey politically from mainland Normandy.
A resistance movement is an organized group of people that tries to resist the government or an occupying power, causing disruption and unrest in civil order and stability. Such a movement may seek to achieve its goals through either the use of nonviolent resistance, or the use of force, whether armed or unarmed. In many cases, as for example in the United States during the American Revolution, or in Norway in the Second World War, a resistance movement may employ both violent and non-violent methods, usually operating under different organizations and acting in different phases or geographical areas within a country.
Sanzō Nosaka was a Japanese writer, editor, labor organizer, communist agent, politician, and university professor and the founder of the Japanese Communist Party (JCP). He was the son of a wealthy Japanese merchant, and attended the prestigious Keio University. While in university, Nosaka became interested in social movements, and joined a moderate labor organization after graduation, working as a research staff member, and as a writer and editor of the organization's magazine. He traveled to Britain in 1919 to study political economy, where he deepened his studies of Marxism and became a confirmed communist. Nosaka was a founding member of the Communist Party of Great Britain, but his activity within British communist circles led to him being deported from Britain in 1921.
The Communist Party of Germany was a major far-left political party in the Weimar Republic during the interwar period, an underground resistance movement in Nazi Germany, and a minor party in West Germany during the postwar period until it was banned by the Federal Constitutional Court in 1956.
The Japanese Communist Party is a communist party in Japan. Founded in 1922, it is the oldest political party in the country. It has 270,000 members as of 2020, making it one of the largest non-governing communist parties in the world. Kazuo Shii has been the party's chairman since 2000.
Maurice Thorez was a French politician and longtime leader of the French Communist Party (PCF) from 1930 until his death. He also served as Deputy Prime Minister of France from 1946 to 1947.
The Francs-tireurs et partisans français (FTPF), or commonly the Francs-tireurs et partisans (FTP), was an armed resistance organization created by leaders of the French Communist Party during World War II (1939–45). The communist party was neutral at first, following the Soviet Union's official view that the war was a struggle between imperialists, but changed to a policy of armed resistance against the German occupation of France after Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941. Three groups were formed, consisting of party members, young communists and foreign workers. Early in 1942 they were merged to form the FTP, which undertook sabotage and assassinations of the occupation. The FTP became the best organized and most effective of the French Resistance groups. In March 1944, before the Allied forces returned to Normandy, the FTP was theoretically merged with the other Resistance groups. In practice, it retained its independence until the end of the war.
Although the politics of Jersey has been largely based on independent parliamentary representatives, from time to time the island has had political parties. There are currently 3 active political parties in the island.
Jèrriais literature is literature in Jèrriais, the Norman dialect of Jersey in the Channel Islands.
The Jersey Evening Post (JEP) is a local newspaper published six days a week in the Bailiwick of Jersey. It was printed in broadsheet format for 87 years, though it is now of compact (tabloid) size. Its strapline is: "At the heart of island life".
The military occupation of the Channel Islands by Nazi Germany lasted for most of the Second World War, from 30 June 1940 until liberation on 9 May 1945. The Bailiwick of Jersey and Bailiwick of Guernsey are British Crown dependencies in the English Channel, near the coast of Normandy. The Channel Islands were the only de jure part of the British Empire in Europe to be occupied by Nazi Germany during the war. Germany's allies, Italy and Japan, also occupied British territories in Africa and Asia, respectively.
Charles Joseph Tillon was a French metal worker, Communist, trade union leader, politician and leader of the French Resistance during World War II (1939–45).
Norman Le Brocq was a communist, trade union activist, and a leader of a Jersey resistance cell opposed to the German occupation of the Channel Islands during World War II. The resistance cell distributed anti-fascist propaganda throughout Jersey and sheltered slave labourers who had escaped from German captivity. After the liberation of France by the allied forces, a German soldier connected with Le Brocq and they began planning a mutiny against the German commanders on the islands. However, the war ended before the mutiny could be attempted. After the war, Le Brocq became a human rights activist, campaigning for a minimum wage, equitable divorce laws, compulsory school education and health insurance, and the introduction of a minimum wage. He also won several elections throughout the 1960s and 70s to serve as a Jersey State Deputy. Le Brocq was a life-long member of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB).
During World War II, the Soviet Union occupied and annexed several countries effectively handed over by Nazi Germany in the secret Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of 1939. These included the eastern regions of Poland, as well as Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, part of eastern Finland and eastern Romania. Apart from the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact and post-war division of Germany, the USSR also occupied and annexed Carpathian Ruthenia from Czechoslovakia in 1945.
During the German occupation of the Channel Islands, there was limited resistance. The islands had a very high number of German soldiers compared to the civilian population, one soldier for every 2-3 civilians, which reduced options; this linked to the severe penalties imposed by the occupiers meant that only forms of non-lethal resistance were used by the population. Even so, over twenty civilians died for resistance against the occupiers.
The Channel Islands, Crown Dependencies of the United Kingdom, were occupied during the Second World War by Nazi Germany, from 30 June 1940 until May 1945. They were liberated by British forces following the general German surrender.
Louisa Mary Gould was a Jersey shopkeeper and a member of the British resistance movement in the Channel Islands during World War II. From 1942 until her arrest in 1944, Gould sheltered an escaped Soviet slave worker known as Feodor Polycarpovitch Burriy on the island of Jersey. Following a trial, she was sent to the Ravensbrück concentration camp where she was gassed to death in 1945. In 2010 she was posthumously named a British Hero of the Holocaust.
During the five-year German occupation of the Channel Islands civilian life became much more difficult. During that time, the Channel Islanders had to live under and obey the laws of Nazi Germany and work with their occupiers in order to survive and reduce the impact of occupation. Given no guidance on how to behave by the British government, there were individuals who got close to the enemy and others who undertook resistance activities.
Dorothea Weber was a Jersey person who sheltered a Jewish woman during the German occupation of the Channel Islands. She was posthumously recognised as Righteous Among the Nations and a British Hero of the Holocaust.
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