MARCH 21, 2025 – I enjoy the work of good filmmakers as much as I delight in the oeuvres of accomplished writers. Though in each case my radar is honed on “the story,” I’ve learned that often what makes a book or movie especially memorable are all the elements that bring the tale to life. The more you read and watch, of course, the more you learn to observe.
Recently on YouTube, I stumbled across an old 26-part British TV series called Enemy at the Door. It portrays life on the Channel Island of Guernsey during the German occupation in World War II. Each episode centers on interactions between the Islanders and their Occupiers, as the Islanders try to make the best of things and the Occupiers attempt to maintain some level of control. Both groups hold to odd ground, at least in the larger context of the war: they co-exist under a regime of occupation, not conquest.[1]
It’s a very low-budget production from the standpoint of sets and settings. The outdoor scenes were filmed on site (the wind is always blowing hard; waves crash ceaselessly onto the rugged coastline), and the indoor sets and costumes are few and simple. Occasionally, the viewer is treated to fleeting images of vintage (by today’s standards) “lorries” and automobiles.
What distinguishes Enemy at the Door are the characters, the actors who portray them, their lines—both in the writing and delivery—and the directing. Most fascinating, though, is the work’s treatment of . . . the “Enemy,” which on the surface is the German but below the surface, is an amalgam of ourselves; of human nature as manifest in our persistent attempts to direct our own fates.
In nearly all film depictions, Nazis and Wehrmacht (army) soldiers are treated with the contempt to which history has condemned them. In Enemy at the Door, however, we are presented with a different, more nuanced, and at times, even sympathetic, view of the people in the crisp gray uniforms and clicking jackboot heels. The senior Wehrmacht officer, for instance, Major General Müller, is a sophisticated, intelligent, no-nonsense individual good at sizing up his inferiors—both those who are officially his subordinates, as well as those who are his hierarchical superiors. He is a flexibly pragmatic thinker and exhibits no traits of a monster; he’s just doing his job, though given the way the war is going, you get the impression he wishes it were a different job and not in a war, though he’s perfectly at home in a gentlemen’s army. (More than once, I found myself asking, How could an officer like Müller fall in line behind the Nazis he despised?)
The Guernsey commandant, Major Richter, is a refined and articulate academician, who lived and studied in England before the war. Far more comfortable discussing great literature than dealing with the administrative challenges of military occupation, he is decent and fair-minded, at least within the given strictures that define his latitude. Richter is also highly legalistic—to a fault, forcing the viewer to consider the full contextual meaning of “the rule of law.”
On the commandant’s staff are his righthand man, Major Freidel, and Oberleutnant Kluge, the designated investigator of alleged infractions of the occupier’s rules and regulations. These latter two officers embody the stereotypical traits of “orderliness” and “conformity” so often attributed to high German bureaucrats. If they are not necessarily likable characters, they are by no means unsavory ones either.
Freidel comes across as a gentleman with strict old school notions of how all law-respecting people should behave. Major Richter often looks to him for the “correct” answers to challenging quandaries. Freidel is never caught off guard. He’s bright, intuitive and decisive.
Kluge is a former police detective from Hamburg, and his methods are in keeping with his peacetime training and expertise: Who is responsible for suspected black market operations? Who among the Islanders is part of a suspected conspiracy to sabotage military facilities? He is first a seeker of truth according to meticulously verified evidence, and second—and a rather distant second—a member of the Wehrmacht, despite the uniform.
The principal SS character—“Reinicke,” with the typically Nazi über title of “Hauptsturmführer”—is superbly played by an excellent casting choice. Stiff, officious and slavishly loyal to the party (and his own prospects for advancement within it), Reinike bears a mouth line that is perpetually slanted at an angle befitting his off-putting personality. (If it’s natural to the actor, the casting deserved a gold medal; if it’s affected, the actor deserved an Oscar.) Reinicke is someone so completely mean-spirited and full of himself, you don’t wish so much for his demise as much as you for his demotion and humiliation by the senior Wehrmacht staff, who are his ambiguous superiors. Throughout the production, the exasperated army staff would like nothing better than to ship Reinicke back to occupied France and from there, to Berlin and off to the Eastern Front, never to be seen or heard from again.
Other German characters—junior officers and rank and file—are at center stage now and again; some sympathetically, some not so. An example of a likable sort is the officer and gentleman who bears disdain for the Nazi nonsense but is an accomplished pianist. Seeking to advance his proficiency further, he signs up for lessons with a well-regarded Guernsey pedagogue. Defying a standing order, he accepts an invitation a social gathering of the Guernsey elite and performs for them rather convincingly, the music of Mendelssohn and Chopin. An opposing example of an unlikeable German is the haughty scion of an ancient Junker family; a complete snob and perfect match for Reinicke, whom he despises as a “low life” and with whom he tangles.
Another German soldier, accused of rape (with actual guilt inconclusive), is executed by the surprising order of Major Richter. Yet another falls in love with an Islander and fathers a child by her—before he is transferred to the Eastern Front (where he is killed). The mother of his child is shunned by her fellow Islanders, who call her the derogatory “Jerrybag.”
The open-ended, up-and-down story line of the production is driven by the relationships between the occupiers and the occupied. The main characters among the latter are the good Dr. Phillip Martel, whom everyone—Islanders and Germans alike—are perpetually asking for advice and assistance. Highly intelligent with an E.Q. equal to his I.Q., Martel does his damndest to do what he believes is best for his patients and compatriots and consistent with his moral principles. His exemplary bedside manner is as convincing as his contempt for injustice. He’s not afraid to get in the face of any German officer, yet he’s pragmatic and principled enough to know when and how to cooperate.
His adult daughter Clare is less cunning. She makes no effort to hide her disdain for everything German and is unafraid to risk her life in violating the rules. Her greatest punishment, however, is self-imposed.
Clare’s crime originates with a German fighter pilot shot down over the Channel, rescued from the drink and brought to Guernsey to recover. Badly disfigured, he’s housed for a time with his fellow German officers and joins them in their occasional fraternization with Islanders. His own experiences—in the Blitzkrieg, strafing innocents; now his close call with death—have turned him decidedly against the war. When climbing alone along the rocky shore, he encounters Clare and her sometime “interest,” Peter Porteous, a member of the island aristocracy, as well as what qualifies as the “resistance.” Clare impulsively picks up a stone and hurls it at the flyer, knocking him off his perch and to his death. An investigation into his murder is launched by Kluge, but the result is inconclusive. Clare henceforth carries a burden of guilt. Her conscience is further burdened by later participation in unrelated subterfuge that sends both her father and Peter to prison for a time in occupied France (which they endure, eventually returning to Guernsey). She avoids arrest but is crushed by guilt and goes catatonic for the rest of the series.
Enemy at the Door is filled with a steady course of conflicts, each with ample tension and ultimate resolution—just in time for the next crisis. In each cycle, of course, the viewer sees another layer of each character. Those who are unlikeable at the outset become more so over time; those who are likable to begin with, become even more favored as they struggle through their trials and tribulations.
Apart from being an excellent piece of film work, Enemy at the Door captures an obscure piece of World War II history in a rather obvious but overlooked place—an island flying the Union Jack just off the coast of Normandy. Even if you’re not a student of World War II history but are looking for an easily accessed, well-crafted series, I highly recommend this one. If you’d rather be reading than watching a TV series, take it from my good neighbor the literary savant: this one’s worth your time. Recently, when I mentioned Enemy at the Door—with my enthusiastic approval—he surprised me with spontaneous agreement. He too had discovered it by accident and enjoyed the series immensely.
Just make sure the popcorn is fresh to compensate for the fact that the resolution of the 40-year-old production film has not yet been remastered.
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© 2025 by Eric Nilsson
[1]The largest four of the Channel Islands—Jersey, Guernsey, Alderney, and Sark—were the only part of Great Britain that Germany managed to occupy during the war. Initially, their capture was considered a political win for Hitler, but their strategic value to the Führer’s plans for the invasion of the UK proved to be fleeting.
