Enemy still at door

Press, 4 January 1980, Page 9

Enemy still at door

London Weekend’s popular* drama series about the German occupation of the Channel Island of

Guernsey has returned for a new series of. 13 programmes in Britain. With extensive location shooting and meticulous attention to historical and military detail, “Enemy At The Door” tells the human story of occupiers and occupied living a forced and isolated co-existence. The first series took the story to the end of 1941 and' the arrest and imprisonment in France of Dr Philip Martel (Bernard Horsfall) and Peter Por-

teous (Richard -Heffer). Dr Martel Was the innocent victim of a plot to smuggle secret military information out of Guern•ey — a plot engineered by Porteous and connived >t by Martel’s daughter Mare (Emily Richard). Major Richter (Alfred lurke), the Kommandant, ook a relatively lenient attitude towards the offenders to avoid violent reaction from the islanders. The second series develops from this crisis. Starting in March 1942, the backlash of the Martel case has again risen to the surface. Producer Jonathan Alwyn says: “By 1942 the Germans had been rulers the Channel Islands for nearly 18 months. The character of their occupation differed in two important respects from that of their occupation of the rest of Europe. “In the first place the Channel Islands were not invaded by force; they were surrendered as being strategically indefensible. Second there was not, nor

could there have been, any active resistance from the islanders. In such geographically confined circumstances any resistance movement would have been doomed to failure. “An uneasy truce existed, with passive resistance and non-co-operation the only options open •to the islanders. “With Hitler convinced that it would be only a matter of time before the British would throw in their lot with him and combine forces to attack Russia, the Germans were anxious to show that there occupation of this outpost of British soil was, by and large, a benevolent one. “As the war progressed, though, it became obvious even to Hitler that such Anglo-German co-oper-ation was no more than a dream — and as the dream dissolved so the nature of the occupation became increasingly asgent.' “It.is against this background that the second series-is set.”-