Word: helgolanders
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...generations the cliff-guarded, North Sea island of Helgoland led a strained double life as a famous European bird sanctuary and as a key naval base for Imperial and later Nazi Germany. World War II scared away the birds; at war's end, the British also sent away Helgoland's human population of 1,400, turned Germany's backyard Gibraltar into a target range for Royal Air Force and U.S. Air Force bombers. Every five days or so, bombers out on target practice pounded the island's remains to smithereens...
...Germans brooded over this indignity. Last month two Heidelberg students, 21-year-old Georg von Hatzfeld and 22-year-old René Leudesdorff, had an idea. Said Leudesdorff, an ardent United Europe supporter: "We suddenly saw that Helgoland was a symbol of injustice.* We decided to make an issue of Helgoland in order to clear everyone's conscience...
Nothing But the Rats. The students hired a fishing boat in the port of Cuxhaven, sailed off to occupy the island until the British stopped the bombings and returned it to its former inhabitants. Equipped with the flags of West Germany, Helgoland and the United Europe movement, they landed on the rubbled shore. "It looked to us," said one of the invaders later, "like the world on the morning after the next war." The island's vegetation had been wiped out; except for rats, few living things had survived. The two students huddled in a flak tower, the only...
After victory in 1918, the British tore down the fortifications, but in spite of the protests of the proud, German-hating Frisians who lived on the island, Helgoland was left to Germany. By 1936, Hitler's tractors and bulldozers had moved in. Helgoland's receding shores (in 300 years four-fifths of the island had washed away) were buttressed with granite and bound with huge chains. Submarine pens with walls twelve feet thick, harbors, and eight miles of tunnels were built...
Last week, Helgoland's tunnels were packed with 6,400 tons of explosive. Birds were warned off with charges of TNT. Then a British naval vessel touched off the biggest bang since Bikini. A sixth of Helgoland slid into the sea. The dagger pointed at Britain was once again dulled-this time, the British hoped, for keeps...