The scenario distinguishes peacetime commerce from wartime coercion. Britain would have little reason to obstruct German trade or the Kiel Canal while at peace, and Germany had begun building the canal before acquiring Heligoland. The island therefore does not impose the automatic peacetime economic strangulation suggested by one viewer. In war, however, its position beside the shipping channels would place a British fortress at the centre of German naval planning. Its cliffs and distance from mainland artillery make it politically irresistible to recover but operationally difficult to seize, concentrating German attention on an objective the Royal Navy can prepare to defend.
Chapter · 49:08-54:10
A wartime threat, not a peacetime economic blockade
Keeping Heligoland would not automatically strangle German trade in peace, but it could become a powerful wartime danger and a lasting political grievance.