War Museums in Western Poland

Similar to other Countries around the Baltic Sea, Poland has a positive attitude towards its military past. Beside castles, barracks and traces of war from older ages, remarkably also some war material from the 20th century, and especially from WWII and the Cold War, has been in the focus of conservation activities.

The mystery bunkers in the southwest of the Country dating from the years of the Third Reich (see here), or the Soviet Monolith-type bunker in Podborsko (see here) and the impressive fallout monitoring center in Kalisz (see here), stand out as major remains from WWII and the Cold War for everybody to check out – and they are just examples.

Along those sites with a history of their own, Poland has many war museums, thematic collections and exhibitions to offer, retracing the evolution of its rich and extremely complex military history.

Looking at the 20th century, it is apparent that Poland has been swept violently and insistently by the winds of war. At the start of WWII, it was surrounded by the Third Reich on two sides, something that contributed to its quick invasion and defeat at the beginning of the conflict. A special relationship with the British meant some from the Polish military ended up directly in the British ranks in exile, whereas others were incorporated in a pro-German Army. However, in the closing stage of the war, when the unfriendly Soviets invaded from the East on their run to Berlin, some from Poland entered the ranks of a pro-Soviet, anti-German army.

Following WWII, Poland was re-founded with new borders, basically those we know today, and due to the presence of the Soviet Army on their territory, they quickly fell under communist control. The relationship between the USSR and Poland military was strong during the Cold War, and the military assets of the Polish Army were massive. The Red Army was also physically stationed in the Western part of the Country, in preparation to a much planned full-scale ‘atomic-supported blitz’ to the Atlantic coast, which luckily never materialized.

The many collections to check out in Poland these days are especially rich in Cold War era supply, and therefore they are tremendous resources for finding many examples of Soviet technology from the Cold War era. However, in most cases also highly valuable material from WWII and from the fierce battles fought on Polish territory mainly between the Germans and the Soviets can be checked out.

This post presents a quick, mainly pictorial description with excerpts from several collections open for a visit in Western Poland. Photographs were taken in the summer of 2020.

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The sites presented in this chapter are all in the Western part of Poland, i.e. west of Gdynia and Poznan. They are listed here below, basically from south to north on a map.

Sights

Museum of Military History, Jelenia Gora

The collection of the Museum of Military History in Jelenia Gora is arranged on an open-air apron. Here you can find several items mainly from the Soviet inventory – albeit in several instances physically manufactured in Poland – and once adopted by the Polish Armed Forces.

In the area closer to the ticket office, possibly the most exotic – or harder to find – items include transportable radar antennas. Items like these are still today the backbone of anti-aircraft defense, and are employed to either detect enemy aircraft or to guide surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) against this type of target. Differences among antennas reflect their actual purpose, as well as different range, intended target level (close to the ground, higher layers of the atmosphere, …) and ease of deployment. The latter is clearly inversely proportional to the bulkiness and weight of the antenna.

Truck-mounted antennas on display include an RW-31 and JAWOR-M2, both from the 1970s, respectively with a vertically- and horizontally-mounted antenna on top.

Exemplars of more modern RT-17 (on top of a taller tower) and PRW-17 models from the 1980s, the latter manufactured in the USSR, feature a somewhat larger size. Despite movable, these antennas are mounted on more articulated trailers.

Many more trailers and trucks are on display as well.

Further on, a few tanks and armored vehicles can be found. These include a well preserved Soviet T34-85, a modernized version from the early 1950s of the original homonym design, which gained fame with the Red Army in the closing stages of WWII against Hitler’s Wehrmacht.

Similarly interesting are a BTR-152, a troop transportation armored truck of Soviet make, and a launcher for a triplet of SA-6 Gainful SAM. The latter, namely a 2K12M, is an interesting and pretty widespread Soviet-made item from the early 1970s, with very good tactical deployment capability granted by its tracks. Also on display is a classical BM-13 Katyuscha rocket launcher, again a workhorse of the Red Army in Stalin’s era.

The latter part of the museum hosts a number of artillery pieces of various size, ranging from ship-mounted anti-aircraft machine guns, to field cannons, anti-tank cannons, etc. These are mostly from WWII, but reaching to the early Cold War period, and invariably share a Soviet design.

An especially interesting design is a recoilless B-11 cannon, designed against light armored vehicles. Of lighter design with respect to other guns of the same bore, it was pretty widespread as a tactical weapon in the early Cold War stage in countries of the Warsaw Pact.

A Mil helicopter, warship guns and some water mines complete this compact yet rich and well-maintained collection.

Getting there & Visiting

The museum is called ‘Muzeum Historii i Militariów’ in Polish. It can be found less than 1 mile southeast of the city center, to the east of the road 367 going south to the border with the Czech Republic. It can be reached easily with a walk from the city center, or by car. Free parking on site (limited capacity, but properly sized for the place). The exact address is Sudecka 83, 58-500 Jelenia Góra.

The museum is made of an open-air exhibition only (no inside display), where all artifacts can be checked out on a self-guided basis once past the ticket office. Plates with basic data and information in double language Polish-English are available ahead of most of the items on display.

The site is rich in material, yet not too big or extensive in size, hence easily digestible even for those without a special interest in military technology. Very convenient to reach and walk. Most artifacts are in a good to very good general condition. A visit taking many good pictures may take up to 1 hour for an interested subject, 15 minutes may be enough for a quick walk. Website with many detailed information, including an inventory of the weapons on display (also in English) here.

Lubuskie Museum of Military History, Zielona Gora

The prominent collection of the Lubuskie Museum of Military History is composed of an inside exhibition, hosted in a converted villa from the 19th century, and a major open-air display in the garden, where some of the items are protected under light structures.

Inside the museum building, a few rooms witness the involvement of Poland in several wars over the centuries. Beautifully crafted weapons from the 17th century, including both firearms and edged weapons, can be found in a number.

Several display cases are related to the involvement of Poland in WWII. The articulated history of the Polish Armed Forces in WWII is witnessed by the number of uniforms, medals and papers resulting from actions of Polish corps within the ranks of foreign Armed Forces – especially British.

Light weapons and technical gear from the time is abundant, including genuine material from the Armed Forces of the Third Reich, which occupied substantial parts of the Polish territory for almost the entire duration of WWII.

A historically interesting item is the headdress of a Polish officer killed in the Soviet town of Katyn, in the homonym massacre ordered by Stalin against the the ranks of the the Polish Armed Forces, soon after portions of the Country had been taken over by the Soviets upon agreement with Hitler. This was an unprecedented move to devitalize the Polish military structure by killing all key-figures in it. A pistol employed for executions and a few more memorabilia items from this awful chapter of Polish history are similarly on display.

Other rooms cover the technological evolution of military gear during the Cold War. Here, items on display range from air-to-air missiles – partly dismounted to allow looking at the electronics inside – tactical weapons, aircraft-mounted guns (always with impressively sized cartridges!), as well as anti-radiation suits with protection masks, flight suits, helmets, visors, and much more. Most of the material from those years obviously comes from the Soviet inventory.

In the outside exhibition a few thematic areas can be found. Possibly the richest among them is that of armored vehicles and artillery pieces. A major highlight is a couple of exemplars of the Soviet SU-152 self-propelled gun from WWII, made of an impressive 152 mm gun on a tracked vehicle. One of the exemplars has been recently refurbished and looks mint.

More Soviet tanks include some versions of the T-34 – a classic combatant of WWII – a T-55, and a more recent fully-working T-72, an icon of the Cold War in the 1970s. This is sometimes moved around in the apron.

A long array of guns, mostly field cannons, can be found on the border of the museum garden.

An impressive sight is the gigantic 2S7, a 207 mm self-propelled cannon manufactured in the Soviet Union from the 1970s, and still employed today by both Russia and Ukraine. Side by side with its ‘little cousins’, the monster size of this asset from the Eastern Bloc is readily apparent.

A second thematic area is centered around SAM missiles and their launchers, as well as theater missiles. Also radar antennas for aerial target tracking or missile guidance are on display.

Some major SAM Soviet systems are on the list, including the SA-2 Guideline, the SA-3 Goa and the SA-4 Ganef. The latter is present with the corresponding deployable radar (model code SNR 1S32M1), together composing the 2K11M1 SAM system, codenamed ‘Krug’ in Russian.

Theater missiles include the so-called Luna-M system (model code 9K52), composed of a wheeled transport truck and a missile (9M21), as well as an original transport trailer with a Scud missile! (See this and this chapter for dedicated information on Soviet-designed theater missiles)

Aircraft on display range from the early Cold War period – end of the 1940s – to the more hi-tech stage of the 1980s. Early jets include MiG-15 and MiG-17, and a pretty rare Jak-23, all in the colors of the Polish Air Force. Propeller aircraft include an Il-14 transport and a license-built Douglas C-47, aka. Lisunov Li-2 in the USSR.

Notably, the first defection to the West of a pilot from the Eastern Bloc on a Soviet-made jet fighter happened from Poland. A Polish pilot flew a MiG-15 to the Danish island of Bornholm, having departed from the Baltic coast of Poland. This was immediately after the death of Stalin, in March 1953. The controversial diplomatic case that ensued from this action was settled returning the aircraft to Poland, obviously after a secret and thorough inspection. The pilot moved to Britain and the US. His flight suit is in the Smithsonian collection in Washington, DC.

More recent aircraft include two MiG-21, a Su-20 and a Su-22. The latter is still operated by the Polish Air Force, and is presented in the museum with an underwing cannon pod for strafing. Also on display is a larger Il-28 light bomber.

Massive technical trucks, like movable pontoons, amphibious vehicles, etc. can be found in yet another thematic area, together with a small WWII diorama. The latter features a possibly original Third Reich emblem.

Finally, a small hangar to the far end of the exhibition area has on display a range of restored items of special interest. A didactically disassembled SA-4 Ganef missile allows to see the inner structure of this modern machine, still in use today.

Several field rocket launchers, including a Katyuscha, as well as field cannons and shells, make for a comparative display.

Interestingly, also a full array of air-to-air missiles, and aircraft components including almost complete engines can be checked out in this display.

Getting there & Visiting

The Polish name of the museum is Lubuskie Muzeum Wojskowe. It is located southeast of the small village of Drzonow, just west of Zielona Gora. The exact address is  Drzonów 54, 66-008 Świdnica. Easy parking possible along the little-trafficked road ahead of the entrance.

Rather unapparent until you get very close to it, the museum hosts a very rich collection, with a long list of artifacts to check out in an open-air exhibition, as well as really interesting and well-presented thematic rooms in the classical building – once a private residence – employed as ticket office and museum.

Despite the understated appearance, the museum is really worth visiting for everybody with an interest in weapons, especially field artillery and air defense. The physical extension of the site is relatively small especially for the content, hence the display is very dense and easy to tour. A complete visit may easily take 2 hours or more for an interested subject, and when visiting with kids or uninterested subjects the site offers plenty of intriguing sights as well, so it may take at least 1 hour.

The organization is really active, with a very rich website and many temporary war-themed exhibitions and events. Unfortunately, all plates and descriptions are in Polish only. Yet the collection is in a generally very good state of conservation (with the exception of some of the aircraft exposed to the elements in the courtyard), and offers a very rich insight in the past assets of the Polish Armed Forces, including literally tons of Soviet-made gear.

Armored Weaponry Museum, Poznan

For those visiting Europe with a specific interest to armored vehicles and tanks, the Armored Weaponry Museum of Poznan is a must-see. Besides an extensive collection with some tens of tanks and vehicles mainly from WWII onward, all preserved in mint condition (many of them still running!), the museum has been carefully and modernly designed, making for a very enjoyable visiting experience.

The exhibition is hosted in a few adjoining hangars, where vehicles are grouped based on technology, provenience, intended role, etc. The following pictures provide only an excerpt from this great collection. Tanks from different Countries are well represented. Starting from WWII, a British Centaur tank and an Achilles anti-tank self-propelled gun are displayed side by side with lighter vehicles.

A very rare Sturmgeschütz-IV, a self-propelled assault cannon from the Third Reich Wehrmacht, has been carefully restored and colored in an impressive camouflage. A SU-76 and ISU-152 self-propelled cannons of Soviet make are also on display.

Battle tanks include an ubiquitous Soviet T-34, and comparatively less common IS-2 and IS-3 Soviet designs. Both conceived amidst the battles of WWII based on experience against the technologically impressive German armored machines, the IS-3 entered production too late for WWII, and was instead rather widespread among the Countries falling in the Soviet orbit during the Cold War, to see action in the Cold War era.

Tracked missile launchers as well as cut-out engines are on display.

Among the most iconic tanks from the early Cold War period are the Soviet T-54 and T-55. The exemplars on display are movie stars, having been featured in ‘The bridge of spies’ by Steven Spielberg, who also left an autograph signature on the huge turret of one. From the same period is a PT-76 Soviet amphibious tank.

NATO counterparts from the early 1950s include the US-made M47 and M60 Patton.

Many more vehicles are on display from the Cold War, mostly from the Soviet galaxy, and covering several functions from carrying troops to vehicle recovery and repair. Also modern self-propelled guns like the 2S1, another Soviet model, are on display.

A small collection of parade cars, once employed by high-ranking military or governmental staff from the USSR, is on display.

An interesting addition is a couple of PT-91, which is a Polish-designed development of the highly-successful Soviet T-72 design, currently manufactured and employed by Poland, and exported to several Armies in the world.

Outside, a WWI scene is reproduced with a steam railway engine carrying a WWI fighter replica on a trailer!

Getting there & Visiting

The Polish name of this world-class museum is ‘Muzeum Broni Pancernej’, and it is located in the western outskirts of Poznan, one of the largest cities in Poland. The exact address is 3 Pułku Lotniczego 4, 60-421 Poznań. Large parking inside, flat access, totally easy to tour.

The collection has been transferred to its current purpose-built location in 2019-20, therefore it is totally modern and exceptionally well presented. The collection is completely indoor and away from the elements, with a suggestive low-light atmosphere, and tons of information for every single tank or vehicle on display, in double language – Polish and English.

A primary destination in Europe for everybody with an interest in tanks and armored vehicles, visiting may easily take more than 2 hours for an interested subject. Due to the number and attractive good condition of the items on display, not less than 1 hour is advised also for those with a less specialized interest.

Museum of Armaments, Poznan

Conveniently located in a nice park, which lies in the area formerly belonging to a Prussian fortress from the 19th century, this museum is a branch of a larger entity, which manages several war-themed exhibitions in town. The museum is composed of an inside display and an open-air area, where larger items like tanks, cannons and aircraft have been placed for display.

Due to an unforeseen closure on the day of my visit (2020) I could only access the outside part of the exhibition.

The most prominent asset is an Il-28 twin-jet light bomber. This is flanked by a Su-22 fighter-bomber, as well as a MiG-21 and a MiG-17 fighters, all Soviet designs adopted by the Polish Air Force over the years of the Cold War.

A beautifully restored An-2 biplane, an ubiquitous workhorse in the USSR, the Eastern Bloc and exported to many clients around the world still operating it today, can be found to complement this heterogeneous collection.

A display of transport vehicles include both vans and transports from the Eastern Bloc, and a US-made 4×4 vehicle.

An SA-2 Guideline SAM is presented on its launcher in a ready-for-launch attitude.

A big collection of field cannons, anti-tank guns and lighter pieces of artillery from various ages starting from WWII is aligned on a side of the exhibition, where you can spot also a MiG-15 fighter from the late 1940s.

Armored vehicles include some armored transports for tactical deployment, self-propelled cannons and tanks.

Getting there & Visiting

The museum in Polish bears the name ‘Muzeum Uzbrojenia’. Among the many war-related museum in Poznan, which also cover conflicts from various ages in history, this can be found easily in the middle of the Citadel, north of downtown Poznan. Access to the old Citadel fortress – now a park – is not possible by car, but parking for accessing the park by walk is abundant all around. I would suggest parking on the southern side of the citadel, for instance in the public parking area located at Al. Niepodległości, 61-001 Poznań, for easily accessing also other monuments of interest, like the war cemetery and the Soviet commemoration monument from the Great Patriotic War (described here).

The exhibition is convenient to reach, and located in a very nice and relaxing park, ideal also for taking a breath from the crowded historical city center of popular Poznan.

As noted above, I could not visit the inside exhibition on the underground level, due to an unforeseen closure. The outside part can be walked in 20-30 minutes, since it is arranged on a relatively compact apron. Most exhibits feature a modern explanatory panel in double language, including English. An institutional website with visiting info (in Polish) is here.

Land Forces Museum, Bydgoszcz

The collection of the Land Force Museum branch in Bydgoszcz is displayed in two parts. A large purpose-built – and recently renovated – building hosts temporary exhibitions, as well as a number of thematic rooms, with high-quality dioramas flanked by display cases with material ranging from weapons and technical gear to uniforms and memorabilia.

The thematic rooms cover the history of land armed forces in Poland over the ages. Among the most striking war material from before the 20th century are authentic pieces of armories, swords and edged weapons from the 16th and 17th centuries. In those years, the Polish Army was pivotal in helping the Empire to fight against the invading Islamic Ottomans, who had conquered the eastern-European territories up north to today’s Hungary, and had reached the gates of Vienna. Some material, including uniforms, maps and firearms, dates back to the 19th century, including the Napoleonic Wars and the German Second Reich period.

Of course, most of the items on display date from the 20th century. Especially nice dioramas include a setting in WWI and the inter-war period.

The evolution of the war material, including the appearance of automatic firearms, is readily apparent following the display cases, which of course include much gear from WWII.

Looking at the uniforms on display, you can note the number of unusual affiliations of the Polish ranks, who due to the complex evolution of the occupation of their national territory, had to deal with several allies and invading forces, who were enemies to one another. Thus the original Polish Army survived a kind of incorporation within the British Army in exile, but also within the Third Reich, the Red Army, and tried also to act independently at home. It is hard not to get confused, and possibly the best way to get the hang of this fascinating plot is by following the display in a museum like this one!

Dioramas from the Cold War are particularly interesting, and perfectly recognizable by the distinctive anti-radiation or chemical warfare suits worn by the models. Also the firearms and the technical gear on display is in line with the evolution of the tactical hazards faced on the front.

Much of the material on display from this age is clearly of Soviet make. The inside exhibition ends with the most modern engagements of the Polish Army in recent conflicts.

Outside, a nice array of perfectly preserved field guns, anti-tank guns and anti-aircraft guns can be found on the platform ahead of the front entrance.

Also mortars and tactical rocket launchers are on display.

Possibly even more captivating for the eye are a T-34 tank in a rampant position, and a the sheer beauty of a T-72 tank. Both iconic Soviet-designed models, these tanks were supplied to most Countries in the Soviet orbit over various stages of the Cold War.

Another massive tracked object is a 2S1 self-propelled cannon, looking mint like the T-72!

Finally, also two missiles can be found, an SA-2 Guideline SAM, and the Scud, a tactical nuclear-capable missile which became a widespread asset in Eastern Europe over the years of the Cold War (see this post).

Getting there & Visiting

The Polish name of this very nice museum is ‘Muzeum Wojsk Ladowych’, which includes also other branches in Torun (see here) and Wroclaw. The location of this major branch is in the northern outskirts of the town of Bydgoszcz, at the address Czerkaska 2, 85-641 Bydgoszcz.

The museum does not feature a private parking, but good parking opportunities can be found for free on most of the quiet residential streets around (for instance, I found a number of free lots on Świerkowa, 85-632 Bydgoszcz).

The collection is interesting and generally attractive both inside and outside, with high-quality dioramas with much original material, as well as ‘big items’ like guns, tanks and missiles outside. Its size and level of detail are well balanced for both the more committed technically-minded subjects and those with only a general interest in the topic, especially kids. Visiting may require 1 hour for the permanent exhibition, more including the always interesting temporary exhibitions.

Some paneling with double language explanations including English can be found along the visit. The official website with access information in English is here.

Museum of Coastal Defense – Fort Gerharda, Swinoujscie

The collection of the Museum of Coastal Defense is reportedly one of the largest private military collections in Poland. It is hosted in the evocative frame of an original Prussian fort from the 19th century, Fort Gerharda. Originally designed to guarantee free access to trade ships entering the Szczecin Lagoon and going to the major inner port of Szczecin, the fort was potentiated in more instances, but basically never saw war action. It was later employed as a reserve fort by the German Kriegsmarine, and by the Soviets as a depot for a while after WWII (similar to Komarom in Hungary, see here). Over the last two decades the fort was substantially restored, and opened to the public as a major attraction.

Access to the fort, rather compact in size, is through a drawbridge. The inner courtyards are the setting for bulkier collection items, including original cannons from the 19th century, as well as anti-tank cannons from WWII!

Range-finding gear, half-dismantled torpedoes, machine gun turrets and more can be found in the recesses of the articulated geometry of the low-rise constructions inside the fort.

Some of the ammo storage bunkers in the fort can be seen inside.

The core of the collection of the Museum is inside the central building in the fort, an interesting multi-level construction. Older items date from the 19th century or earlier. Reconstructed scenes from the life in the fort at the time include men working around a heavy piece of artillery, a communication office with a telegraph and the nicely reconstructed kitchen of the fort.

Other scenes are from WWI and WWII, including men around a howitzer and a German soldier hiding in an apartment!

Interesting memorabilia items range from larger ones, like original flags from warships, to smaller personal items for everyday use, like canned food or table games employed by the troops.

The collection of weapons and technical gear is really rich and interesting, and mostly centered on material from the inter-war period onward. Racks of rifles an light arms of various makes are on display.

A part of the collection is especially focused on weapons by the marvelous Soviet/Russian weapons designer Mikhail Kalashnikov.

Of major interest are also special military suits, against poisonous agents, gas, etc. dating from the Third Reich and Soviet era.

Some of the displays of foreign origin are really unique – and unexpected on the northern boundary of Poland! Others bear Cyrillic-written tags, witnessing their Soviet origin.

Many artillery range finders are on display, of different make and level of complexity. They include a rare Cold War computer-assisted model.

Getting there & Visiting

Fort Gerharda is right in the northwestern corner of Poland, on the Baltic Coast less than 1.5 miles from the German border. The reference town of Swinoujscie (Swinemünde in Prussian times) is located on the western bank of the water access from the Baltic to the Szczecin Lagoon. The fort is instead on the eastern bank. The waterway can be crossed via a quick ferry. Access from mainland Poland is seamless along the E65.

Fort Gerharda is a bit hidden in the trees, despite in a rather urbanized area, and therefore not easy to spot even from close apart. However, a fence with a small parking clearly mark the entrance. The address is Ku Morzu 5, 72-602 Świnoujście. More parking spots can be found along the same road.

The ensemble of the fort plus the collections in the museum make for a very interesting and rich visit for everybody, including families. For the more technically-minded subjects, the military collection, despite compactly presented, is rich of very interesting items. A visit of 1-1.5 hours to the complex is likely, depending on the level of interest.

A website with many updated information is here (in Polish, with a rich downloadable leaflet in English).

This area is rich of interesting sights for those with an interest in military history, including the ‘Vineta Battery’ WWII/Cold War fort (see here), and a prototype of Hitler’s V-3 multi-stage cannon, actually built in northern France (see here).

Polish Arms Museum & Navy Museum, Kolobrzeg

Kolobrzeg is the Polish name for Kolberg, a town belonging to Prussia (then Germany) at the times of the two World Wars of the 20th century. The place was a theater of war, in the focus of a fierce battle in the March of 1945. The Polish Army and the Soviet Red Army, along their march to Berlin, isolated the town from the south, triggering a massive evacuation of German military forces and civilian population by sea, to further west along the Baltic coast in Germany. It is estimated that more than 100’000 people were evacuated in less than a week. In the attack, the town was almost completely destroyed. As a matter of fact, most residential housing today clearly dates from the communist era.

The Polish Arms Museum is the ideal location to see memories from this great battle, as well as for retracing the military history of the Polish Armed Forces more at large. The collection on display is composed of an inside display and an outdoor exhibition.

Inside, the items on display, mainly preserved weapons, armories, but also parts of ships, date to as far back as the 16th century. The role of the Poles in countering the Ottoman Islamic domination in Europe is retraced through precious weapons from the time. Clearly more abundant are the items from the interwar and WWII period. An organic display of uniforms is featured, witnessing the many affiliations of the Polish troops during WWII.

Uniforms and light weapons belonging to the Western Allies, the USSR and of course the Third Reich are on display in this nice collection.

A small diorama with a painting related to the conquer of Kolobrzeg in WWII is clearly part of the show.

In a hall immediately ahead of the open air exhibition, some restored light transport vehicles are on display, including jeeps and trucks, as well as a light plane.

The outdoor exhibition features an array of heavy armored vehicles. These range from Soviet-made tanks – including a T-34 and IS-2 – and self-propelled cannons – for instance a massive ISU-122 – and armored vehicles, to a tracked Scud missile launcher, in very good general conditions.

A well-stocked array of field guns, anti-aircraft and anti-tank guns is aligned along a side of the exhibition court.

Aircraft on display include Soviet-made material which saw service with the Polish Air Force, in particular an Il-28 Beagle, as well as a Su-22.

A rather unusual item on display is a railway carriage, in the colors of the USSR railway service, the same model employed for the deportation of people from Europe to the gulag system in the USSR at the time of Stalin, and later – in some cases – to return them to their home Countries. A vivid exhibition on this terrible part of WWII and early Cold War history is narrated inside the carriage, through maps, photographs and other memorabilia items (unfortunately only in Polish, but many of the artifacts are almost self-explanatory).

A Soviet SAM, an SA-2 Guideline, is on display on its pivoting launch platform.

The Navy Museum in the same town is an outdoor-only exhibition, mostly made of two well-preserved warships, namely the anti-submarine patrol ‘Fala’, from 1965, and the missile launcher ‘Wladyslawowo’ (NATO class Osa-I) from 1975. The former was laid down in Poland (Gdynia), and withdrawn from service in the 1990s, whereas the latter was manufactured in the USSR and saw service until the 2000s.

Both are interesting examples of Cold War warships. The armament of the ‘Fala’ was mainly composed of depth charges. Many of the original rooms are preserved in good conditions, showing some of the most interesting technical gear installed on this type of warship.

This includes the navigation room and the deck, with the helm and engine controls on top. The canteen, cabins and official quarters are on display, with a depressing – likely original – Soviet-style upholstery and furniture. Interestingly, despite being a Polish warship, most of the labels, including explanatory ones intended for use by the hands on board, is in Russian.

Technical gear include an inertial system, and acoustic sensors to find and track enemy submarines.

The engine compartment hosts two big 2.500 hp Diesel engines, plus three Diesel generators for electric energy supply. The control room for the electric and propulsion system is inside a dedicated cabin. Again, writing is almost invariably in Cyrillic only.

The Osa-I class ‘Wladyslawowo’ was designed around four P-15 (SS-N-2 Styx) surface-to-surface passive-active homing anti-shipping missiles. The mission of this very fast warship, capable of a peak speed of 40 knots, was that of hitting surface shipping. For self-defense, the ship was equipped with two AK-230 turrets, served by an automatic aiming system, as well as a rack of four Strela-2 light surface-to-air missiles. The overstructure of the ship is very limited, the upper deck being mostly taken by the Styx missile hangars. Inside, the technical rooms – still in very good condition – include sensors, inertial navigation gear, as well as compartments for the troops.

Also visible are the engine rooms. Three bulky 4.000 hp Diesel engines provided power to as many propellers, producing the power needed for the high speed of the warship.

The deck (GSD) is stocked with yellow cabinets, allowing to monitor virtually all plants on board. As expected on a Soviet-made warship all writing is in Cyrillic.

All in all, a visit to the Navy Museum is really evocative especially for those with a fascination for the Cold War. The Osa-I class saw extensive service in the cold waters of the Baltic, including with the GDR, and this exemplar represents an easy-to-reach specimen offering a rare glimpse in Soviet marine technology from the time (similar to the K-24 Juliet-class submarine in Usedom, not too far from this location, see here).

Getting there & Visiting

The Polish Arms Museum, named ‘Muzeum Oręża Polskiego w Kołobrzegu’ in Polish, is located in the city center of the coastal town of Kolobrzeg. The exact address is Gierczak 5, 78-100 Kołobrzeg. The open-air part can be clearly spotted from outside – like a fenced city park – when walking the (really) crowded pedestrian area. Due to the totally central location of the museum, right in the most touristic area of this small town, parking in the vicinity may be not the easiest task, but many parking lots are theoretically available in this district. Another option is parking out of the city center at all, and enjoy a pleasant walk to the museum and other attractions in its vicinity.

The Museum is rather compact in size, and a popular destination. It offers many interesting items, including less obvious ones for more technically-minded visitors, as well as well as heavier armored vehicles, artillery pieces and planes which will appeal to everybody. A visit of about 45 minutes to 1 hour may be fine for a complete tour.

The open-air Navy Museum, aka. ‘Kołobrzeski Skansen Morski’ in Polish, is located beside the marina. A convenient public parking just 150 ft from the museum entrance is here, 54.175972, 15.559315. The two warships can be boarded and visited thoroughly on your own, making for an interesting and rewarding visit for everybody. A time of 45 minutes to 1.25 hours may be adequate depending on your level of interest.

Walking between the two destinations in town is an easy stretch of about 20 minutes one way.

The two locations are brilliantly administrated by the same subject, the ‘Muzeum Oreza Polskiego’, which also has under its umbrella other sites of great interest in the vicinity of Kolobrzeg, including the world-class exhibition of one of only two preserved and accessible Monolith-type Soviet bunkers for nuclear warheads in Europe (Podborsko, see here). The website – unfortunately only in Polish – covering all the sites managed by this association, with many details on the exhibits beside logistical information, is here.

Museum of Air Defense, Koszalin

The Museum of the Air Defense in Koszalin offers an exceptional insight in the capacity and evolution of the anti-aircraft defense systems deployed in Poland. The collection in this hidden gem, relatively far from the tourist path (especially from abroad), is based on the heritage of a similar initiative from the Cold War years, when Poland was a satellite of the USSR especially in terms of weapons supply. As a result, the display allows to get a detailed overview of the Cold War anti-aircraft technology of the Soviet Union, with examples of material (especially surface-to-air missiles) still in use today in many Countries.

The collection is located close to an active military academy, in a quiet and secluded neighborhood of the town. The exhibits are partly inside, partly outside on a small apron around the museum building.

Some initial dioramas are focused on range-finding gear, with material dating from WWII and the Cold War era. Anti-aircraft machine gun  batteries are also on display.

A centerpiece of the exhibition is a didactic cutout of an SA-2 Guideline (aka. S-75 Dvina) SAM, an early anti-aircraft missile from the 1950s, which was however rather effective. The propulsion system, guidance mechanisms and warhead are on display. The latter appears relatively small compared to the overall size of the missile, but it is actually rather powerful. This system was not intended to physically touch the target, but an explosion of the warhead in proximity to the target could be enough to irrecoverably damage an aircraft.

A super-interesting sight is the array of cabinets employed for the launch of the SA-3 Goa (or S-125 Neva). An example of the corresponding battery of missiles is located outside. This suite, was called Karat-2 in Soviet standard, allowed for TV-guidance of the SAM system. This incredible piece of technology from the time of the Iron Curtain – and from the early age of miniaturized electronics – is presented partly lit-up, revealing the colors of the buttons, and making it even more captivating – you would like to try all its functions like in a new video game! Needless to mention, all writing on the labels is in Russian.

Another unusual sight in the collection is a static example of the still widespread SA-6 Gainful (or 2K12 Kub). Further material on display include instrumentation and cabinets for launch control and guidance of other missiles, or for managing radar-gathered information.

Smaller anti-aircraft weapons are also represented, like the Strela-2 shoulder launched missiles.

On display in the outside exhibition are very interesting items, starting from a battery of two SA-3 Goa, side by side with their corresponding target tracking antenna. The latter, pretty rare to see in museums, is actually composed of a suite of antennas, and is designed to track smaller and low-flying targets, against which the relatively small SA-3 missile is particularly effective.

Close by are an SA-2 Guideline in an upright ready-for-launch attitude, as well as a SA-4 Ganef, sitting horizontally.

Another radar antenna is the truck-mounted PRW-9 altitude finder, complementing the guidance suites of the SA-2 and SA-3 as well.

Armored anti-aircraft vehicles are also on display, similar to anti-aircraft guns, trailers, SAM missile canisters and field range finders. An interesting item is a searchlight (model APM-90), which unexpectedly does not come from WWII, but was instead put in production in the early 1950s, well in the turbojet era and atomic age. It was a handy item mostly for helping aircraft in homing on obscured airbases in case of war. It was truck-mounted, and could employ the same engine of the truck for power production – ingesting up to 17.5 kW, thus remaining visible from a distance of 80 miles!

As a bonus, two aircraft are on display in the museum, a PZL TS-11 Iskra trainer, and a Yakovlev Yak-40 three-jet small transport, employed for state flights. The latter, a Soviet aircraft from deep in the Cold War era, was withdrawn from service apparently in the 2000s. Manufactured in more than 1.000 exemplars, this type was rather widespread in the USSR and its satellites.

The aircraft can be accessed – through the unusual back door! – revealing a neat interior, and a captivating purely analog cockpit. The typically Soviet black rubber ventilation fan for the pilot is prominently hanging from the ceiling!

Getting there & Visiting

The name of this exhibition in Polish is ‘Muzeum Obrony Przeciwlotniczej’, and its location is in the southeastern suburbs of the northern town of Koszalin, itself less than 5 miles from the Baltic coast. The exact address is Wojska Polskiego 70, 75-903 Koszalin. The place is surrounded by neat, active military facilities (academy). The museum is easily noticed from the road, thanks to the bulky and unusual items on display in the outdoor exhibition! A small parking area can be found cross the road with respect to the gate.

The display is gathered in a single building, surrounded by a small yard. Visiting is totally easy, and the collection is not too big, yet extremely interesting and well preserved. A visit of at least 1 hour will be needed for technically-minded subjects, whereas for the general public 30 minutes may suffice for a quick look at everything. The place is managed and frequented by former men from the military, who will likely offer you further insight if you ask. Some information is in double language (Polish and English) in any case.

The museum is currently a branch of the bigger Museum of the Air Force located southeast of Warsaw (Deblin). The website of the latter provides information also on the Koszalin site (see here).

Naval Museum, Gdynia

The port town of Gdynia, since long the major industrial port of Poland, is also home to the collection of the Naval Museum, an eminently military collection, with some unique items on display from various ages, making it a primary addition to the panorama of naval museums in Europe.

This museum is composed of two parts, namely an exhibition building, located right ahead of the nice touristic waterside and featuring an indoor and outdoor exhibition, as well as nothing less than an original destroyer from the 1930s, the venerable ORP ‘Blyskawica’, a true WWII veteran!

The indoor exhibition has been refurbished recently, making the visit light and enjoyable. Among the artifacts on display are original anti-aircraft guns, previously installed on warships, of diverse size and provenience.

Torpedoes, including old German designs from before WWI, are on display together with rare examples of sea mines. Some of them are cut to ease looking inside.

The Soviet anti-shipping missile P-15 (SS-N-2 Styx) and its evolution P-21/22 are on display as well, with photographs witnessing their deployment on board Polish warships.

Interestingly, also aircraft-carried missiles and rocket pods, of Soviet make, are on display. Everything comes with a technical description in double language, allowing to obtain many information on the exhibits on site.

A rare artifact is an experimental weapon from the Third Reich, a rocket-torpedo. Valuable memorabilia items include many documents and papers, as well as uniforms, from ages before the 20th century. A fragment of the flag of the ill-fated ORP ‘Gryf’, a massive mine-layer from WWII sunk by the German forces at the beginning of WWII, is prominently on display.

The outdoor exhibition is hosted in a small yard to the side of the museum building. Bulkier artifacts have been put here, including cannons from the ORP ‘Gryf’, several torpedoes and torpedo-launching tubes, depth-charge launchers, older cannons from the age of sailing ships, weapons, propellers (of downed aircraft and ships) and even a helicopter!

Perfectly visible for everybody passing by, a major focal point of the museum is the ORP ‘Blyskawica’. This destroyer was laid down in Britain, together with a twin ship, for the Polish Navy in the mid-1930s. Unfortunately, Poland was among the first Countries to fall under the attack of Hitler’s Third Reich. The Polish Government and a good part of the Armed Forces were evacuated to Britain. In particular, the troops and much of the savaged war material was incorporated in the ranks of the British, with a special agreement which kept the two formally independent, and defined a scheme of mutual anti-German cooperation.

A very modern ship for the time, well armed and propelled by steam turbines granting a speed nearing 40 kn, the ‘Blyskawica’ fought for the entire duration of the war, with key roles in several war actions. After the war, the ship was reclaimed by communist Poland. Following an accident to the propulsion system, it was never fully repaired, and it was converted to a marginal role before retirement and re-opening as a museum ship in the 1970s.

Today, this perfectly preserved warship makes for a really captivating sight. The naval guns and much of the machinery on board clearly bear British markings.

The engine room can be visited, and offers an exciting view of the mighty boilers an steam turbines allowing the destroyer to reach its incredible top speed.

Beside this warship, even though not part of the museum, chance is to see the ‘Dar Pomorza’, a splendid sailing ship from 1909, employed as a training ship between the 1930s and the 1980s.

Getting there & Visiting

The museum, called ‘Muzeum Marynarki Vojennej w Gdyni’ in the local idiom, is located in a prominent location in the most touristic part of the port town of Gdynia. The building of the museum is separated from the destroyer ORP ‘Blyskawica’, which can be reached with a 3 minutes walk from the museum. The address of the museum building (hard to miss) is ul. Zawiszy Czarnego 1B, 81-374 Gdynia. Parking lots are available around the building and in public parking. However, please note that this totally central area may be very crowded in the high season, so be prepared to some traffic congestion.

The inside collection is very interesting and valuable, yet not disproportionately big. Therefore visiting can be enjoyable for the committed military minded subjects and for the general public as well. A visit to the building may take 30-45 minutes. A visit to the glorious destroyer Blyskawica may take as much, depending on what parts of the ship are actually visible – thanks to the prominent position and historical value, ceremonies and cultural events or visit sometimes take place, therefore the ship is at times only partially open.

The museum is very modern, boasting a well-designed, up-to-date website in double language (here). A smartphone app can be employed to take you along the museum historical path.

Museum of Military Technology ‘Gryf’, Dabrowka

This impressive collection was created through a private initiative after 2010. It bolsters two equally interesting and fascinating sections, one devoted to shells and bombs, the other to vehicles – either armored, transport or civilian. The collection is very rich and exceptionally well presented.

The shells and bombs display is one of the largest collections of shells, cartridges, shoulder-launched rockets, air-dropped bombs, land mines, etc. to be seen in Europe. The presentation follows a thematic-chronological order, therefore you will start with cannon balls, walk through shells from field cannons from the 19th century and WWI, and end up with a plethora of WWII and Cold War items.

To the inexpert eye, a cannon or mortar shell may look like a dull piece of metal. Looking closer, you notice that most of the shells are actually rather complex pieces of machinery, with mechanisms inside them to regulate the behavior of the shell after fire.

Furthermore, many types of shells exist, engineered to maximize the damage against some type of target or another – armored vehicles, buildings, ships, troops, deposits of explosives, wooden constructions, metal constructions, etc.

Extremely interesting is the collection of WWII air-dropped bombs. As known, the accuracy of bombing raids left much to be desired during WWII. Furthermore, as you can clearly see here, bombs from the time were relatively small, with a limited yield. These factors in turn forced bombing groups to carry out massive attacks, with many aircraft involved, to maximize the effectiveness of the mission.

Mortar shells take several dedicated display cases. Represented are many and diverse models from different provenience.

A similar impression as with shells you get looking at land mines – so many different designs, corresponding to different targets, and of course resulting from engineering efforts carried out in different Countries, and over several ages. These include material from WWII, like explosives put on railway tracks, glass mines or air-launched land-mines.

Original explosives from the Third Reich are on display, with clear swastika and eagle insignia on them!

An incredible and unique display is related to triggered explosive devices. This includes several original triggers, from the US, Soviet Union or Third Reich, and from various ages.

Shoulder-launched rockets include the pretty famous RPG from the Soviet Union – displayed together with original instructional panels! But also more technically evolved rockets are on display – or parts of them, like what appears to be the homing system of a SAM missile!

Demining gear follows suit – a rich collection also in this respect – together with grenades, both hand-launched or rifle-mounted.

A collection of purely Cold War gear is that of anti-radiation suits, measurement gear, and instructions for emergency in case of a nuclear bombing raid. These are very similar to their Western counterparts (see this post).

A few dioramas are build including original material from WWII, including Third Reich uniforms, and the Cold War.

This really impressive collection is just a part of this great museum. The second part is composed of a series of vehicles, ranging from cars and buses, to military trucks and, of course, armored vehicles and tanks. Similar to the previous part, the appearance of this component of the museum is exceptional. It is no surprise that all the vehicles here are working, or undergoing restoration to a working condition!

A first display is related to civilian vehicles from the communist era, some from the Soviet union – like a GAZ car – or from Poland – like interesting license-built Italian cars, labeled as ‘Polish-FIAT’!

A second hangar has on display a set of wonderful trucks, including German Mercedes-Benz trucks from WWII – similar to the one featured in the Indiana Jones movie ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’! – and massive Soviet designs, like ZIL and more modern KRAZ.

A separated hangar hosts a number of US-made trucks and jeeps, and a nice collection of rare OPEL light trucks from Germany. Also on display are a glider and a few side-cars.

A focus of the visit is of course the hangar dedicated to armored vehicles. These include Soviet designs, like the iconic T-34 and T-54, and  working replicas of German vehicles – in particular a Panther. Even an original Gepard moving light artillery battery from West Germany is part of this collection!

Even on standard days when non special events are planned, it is likely you will see some of this massive vehicles moving around, on the apron and along a small circuit to the back of the museum!

Also field cannons and other artillery pieces – including anti-aircraft guns – are on display.

Leaving the museum, you may notice a Guideline and a Ganef SAM from the USSR, as well as a static T-54 in a desert camo.

Getting there & Visiting

The location of this impressive collection (‘Muzeum Techniki Wojskowej ‘Gryf” in Polish) is somewhat secluded in the trees, close to the small village of Dabrowka. The address is ul. Ppłk. Ryszarda Lubowiedzkiego 2, 84-242 Dąbrówka, and the coordinates to the entrance are 54.55185, 18.17217. The place is in the countryside, some 20 miles west of the major port town of Gdynia.

The museum is compact to tour, but the exhibits are many, extremely interesting and nice to check out, especially thanks to the exceptional state of preservation. This is true for both the many vehicles and for the exhibition on artillery inside, one of the most impressive of the kind to be seen in Europe – and one of the most neatly presented!

The collection may require 1.5-2 hours at least for a technically minded person. A 1 hour visit is advised for the general public. Time may vary, however, in case live exhibitions are taking place – usually involving tanks performing some acrobatic maneuver!

A small restaurant is open inside for lunch around midday.

Their very good website, with full information for a visit and also about the collection, in both Polish and English, is here.

Traces of World War II in Norway – Highlights

War actions in Scandinavia constitute a crucial stage in the unfolding of WWII events in Europe. The strategic position of the Scandinavian peninsula was not overlooked by strategists in the Third Reich and the USSR, and by the Western Allies. As a matter of fact, the German invasion of Denmark and Norway took place as early as the Spring of 1940, starting just weeks before the invasion of Holland, Belgium and France.

History & Remains – A Quick Summary

For Germany in WWII, the long and impervious coast of Norway constituted an ideal strong point to carry out raids over the North Sea, Norwegian Sea, the northern Atlantic and the Barents Sea, interfering with resupply convoys from Britain and the US. Especially after the start of the war against the USSR in 1941, the polar routes going to Murmansk – the only non-freezing port on the northern coast of the USSR – were within range of German warships and aircraft operating from the north of Norway. Control over Norway and Denmark meant total control on the access to the Baltic Sea, thus protecting the northern coast of Germany from direct attack by the Western Allies, allowing unimpeded action against the Soviet Union on that sea. Of the greatest importance in the northern European territory was also the abundance of raw materials – mainly metals for industrial production – so desperately needed by the Third Reich.

For the Allies, keeping Scandinavia was an objective of great relevance in the early stages of the war, since this territory could be a convenient springboard to launch attacks against the flat and easy coast of Germany. In the rapidly changing complex alliances and diplomatic relationships of the early stage of WWII (1939-40), Norway and Sweden tried to keep out of the war. Finland fought the Winter War against the USSR (itself one of the results of the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact, albeit not to the knowledge of the Finns), loosing part of its territory and strengthening its link with Germany for some years to come (see this post). The Third Reich attacked Norway by air and sea in April 1940, and help was sought especially in Britain. King Haakon VII of Norway left for exile in England, and the initial battles of WWII between the Reich and the UK were fought – mainly at sea – in proximity of Norwegian ports.

The Atlantic Wall

Possibly the most impressive military trace of WWII in Europe, the Atlantic Wall – a defense line stretching from France to northern Norway – was designed and built in Denmark and Germany, immediately following the successful push of the Third Reich into these Countries. Actually, those are the Countries where the most relevant remains of this interesting trace of war can be found today. A very ambitious project both in purpose and required resources, the Atlantic Wall never reached completion. Despite that, the geography of Norway, with a coastline featuring only limited access to the inland area, allowed to create an effective barrier against a potential enemy landing. Hundreds of gun batteries, complemented with anti-aircraft artillery and radars, constituted a powerful deterrent against any invasion. As a matter of fact, after the unique episode of the Battle of Narvik in the early stages of WWII, no Allied forces ever landed in Norway from the sea for the rest of the war.

A complete visit to all sites of the Atlantic Wall in Norway is a really immense task, due to the number of installations and their geographical remoteness. However, a few impressive highlights can be found in convenient locations, and can be easily visited by everybody. In this post some of them are presented – the colossal battery ‘Vara’, the southern fortified area of Lista, the forts of Fjell and Tellevik near Bergen, and the massive cannons of Austratt.

War Museums

But other fragments of the rich legacy of WWII in Norway can be retraced also away from the preserved installations of the Atlantic Wall. An interesting page is that of naval warfare deployed by the Navy of the Third Reich – the Kriegsmarine – to counter Allied shipping activities. Names like Tirpitz, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau are frequently found in history books as well as in movies or scale model shops, and they are just a few of the mighty vessels linked to the Scandinavian war theater. Dedicated exhibitions can be found in little but impressively rich museums on these topics. In this post, the Tirpitz Museum in Alta, the War Museum of Narvik and the exhibition in the visitor center of North Cape are covered.

Special interest sites

Heroic actions involving the Norwegian resistance organization are proudly remembered all over the Nation. A particularly interesting location being the Rjukan hydroelectric power-plant, which produced heavy water, a key-component in the research leading to the preparation of fissile material. This strategic asset was highly needed by the German nuclear program. On the other hand, its possession by the Third Reich was seen as a clear and present danger by the Allies, who tried to have the plant destroyed in several instances. The Norwegian resistance was clearly much involved in sabotage missions, due to the difficulty in targeting the place through air bombing raids. The power-plant is today a nice museum, covered in this post.

Photographs in this chapter were collected on a visit in August 2022.

Sights

The map below shows the location of the sites mentioned in this chapter. Their listing in the descriptions roughly follows a clockwise sense, starting from the southernmost point of Kristiansand (Vara battery). Red items are in disrepair, whereas blue ones are official tourist destinations.

Navigate this post – Click on links to scroll

Vara Battery – Kristiansand

The Vara battery was built as the core of the strongly fortified area around Kristiansand. Thanks to its position close to the southernmost tip of the Norwegian territory, this port town is still today very busy with passenger and freight traffic from nearby Denmark.

The Third Reich military started to lay sea mines as soon as it gained control of both sides of the Skagerrak strait. The coast around Kristiansand was reinforced with several coastal artillery pieces, and production of a set of special 38 cm caliber guns – called Siegfried -was started by the Krupp ironworks in Essen in 1940. The aim was that of controlling access to the Baltic sea by means of two batteries of long-range naval guns, one to the south in Denmark (Hanstholm, see here), and one to the north in Kristiansand.

The cannons should be capable of revolving by 360 degrees, and special concrete rotundas were prepared for the scope in a location called Møvik, on the southwestern end of the gulf of Kristiansand. The complex morphology of the terrain in this site led to a smaller than desirable area for the battery, where all technical buildings – including ammo storages – had to be built relatively close to one another. These massive constructions alone, built by the same ‘Organisation Todt’ responsible for the implementation of the coastal defense positions all over Europe, make for a remarkable work of engineering, carried out with the help of local builders, working relentlessly around the clock to have these emplacements ready as soon as possible.

In the event, only three of the four Siegfried cannons made their way to the battery in Kristiansand, one being apparently lost when the transport ship carrying it was sunk on the Baltic Sea. Transporting these 110 ton, around 60 ft long barrels by rail from Germany into the narrow valleys of Scandinavia was not an easy task. However, two cannons were test-fired in May 1942, and the third in November the same year.

The battery received the name ‘Vara’, after a high-ranking official killed in Guernsey in 1941.

Battery Vara went through the war without seeing an involvement in any major war action, and was mainly test-fired only. The whole installation, comprising target detection points, analog computers for target aiming, ammo storages – including more than 1.400 shells! – and many other service buildings, was inherited intact by the Norwegian Armed Forces in 1945, similar to many other installations along the coast of the Skagerrak and the North Sea. It was incorporated in the Norwegian coastal artillery between 1946 and 1954, being later placed in reserve having by then become obsolete for Cold War warfare standards. Two cannons were scrapped, whereas one – the only entirely surviving battery Nr. 2 – was luckily kept. The site survived subsequent stages of demolition works over the next decades, but in the early 1990s it was finally re-opened as a museum.

Cannon Nr. 2

Today, the centerpiece of the visit is constituted by a walk around the perfectly preserved building of cannon Nr.2. This bunkerized building is composed of a set of technical rooms, for ammo assembly and storage, as well as for services like Diesel power generators, and an adjoining rotunda, where the big cannon revolved around a pinion, and could be pointed to its target, following instructions from the battery control center. The latter elaborated target data from detection, identification, measuring and range-finding positions scattered around the battery perimeter.

Access to the back of the concrete building is via the original hatch, closed by iron doors. You can see the narrow-gauge railway track leading in. This linked the cannon buildings with the ammo storages around, and allowed to supply the cannon with ammo parts (the explosive cartridge and the shell are not assembled in a single unity for larger cannons, unlike for lighter weapons). The hatch drives you into a long corridor, the backbone of the bunkerized quarters behind the cannon rotunda. Here some shells have been put on the original railway trolley for display.

The cannon building hosted a permanent watch of a few men, which manned it permanently in shifts. A living room with some berths is the only one offering some comfort in the building.

A number of rooms in the bunker are dedicated to the power generator plant. A primary and a back-up generator share the same room. Of special interest are the labels on all machines and mechanisms, proudly made in Germany – in some cases, by brands still existing today.

Electric power was required for the motion of the cannon, besides for smaller appliances like lights and radios. The cannons could make use of the regional grid, but since an unstable supply might have damaged the cannon motors, aiming operations were often carried out on the controlled internal power grid, fed by the generators, and producing an optimal output.

Beside the generator room, the air conditioning plant (not for comfort, but to slightly pressurize the bunker in order to repel and pump-out poisonous or exhaust gas), the Diesel tank and the water tank for cooling the generator can be seen in adjoining rooms.

To the far end of the corridor, a radio room was used to maintain a link with the battery command post, located more than 1 mile away from Vara battery. Actually, by design the electric signals to orient the cannon could be given by the control post, and the radio communication system was there for backup.

On the other side of the corridor with respect to the generator rooms – i.e. towards the cannon rotunda – are four adjoining rooms, used to store the components of the explosive cartridges and shells. The shells and cartridges prepared for firing were moved via a crane to a tray, and from there sent side-wards to the rotunda, where they were loaded on a trolley. The cranes, trays and slots linking these rooms to the rotunda can be found around the area of the bunker closer to the rotunda.

The cranes moved along tracks hanging from the ceiling. These tracks had some switch points, allowing to allow the crane to move across different rooms in the bunker.

Inside these rooms, today you can find much original material of special interest. Specimens of high-explosive (yellow) and armor-piercing (blue) shells are displayed. The weight of the shells was around 800 kg, where the cartridge could feature different weights, roughly from 100 to 200 kg.

The top range of these cannons and shells was around 43 km. Smaller 500 kg shells could alternatively be fired by Siegfried cannons, with a longer range of 55 km. Furthermore, the cannon could be test-fired during drills with smaller caliber shots, by reducing the bore of the cannon. This was a very useful feature, since the estimated loss of barrel metal due to attrition was a staggering 0.25 kg per shot, implying a life of the barrel of only around 250-300 shots, firing with sufficient accuracy. Shooting smaller shells allowed to spare barrel wear and extend the time between overhauls of the cannon.

The sealed canisters for the explosive cartridges, with original markings in German, can still be seen piled in a room!

More material on display includes a rare example of fire direction computer. Actually, that on display is smaller than the one originally used for the long-range cannons of Vara battery, but it provides a good idea of the level of sophistication of this mechanism. Data like target distance, velocity, orientation, wind speed and direction, etc. were set as input to this analog computer, producing fire direction variables to point the cannon. An incredible masterpiece of engineering and craftsmanship, this type of computer is difficult to find in museums, and allows to appreciate the level of development of warfare back in the 1940s.

Data including range of the target was found with the help of special instrumentation. A stereoscopic range-finder was installed in the battery command post, with an arm of 12 m, which allowed good accuracy for very distant targets – required for the long range of the cannons of Vara battery. Smaller instruments with the same principle are displayed in one of the rooms.

Among the special features of this bunkerized building are the restored, original writings from German times, as well as a one-of-a-kind painting made by a Soviet prisoner of war.

From the bunkerized room, you can get access to the rotunda. Cartridges put on trolleys moved along a circular railway track all around the rotunda. This way, cartridges could be taken to the cannon whatever the direction it was pointing. Once to the base of the cannon turret, the explosive charge and the shell were lifted separately by means of two special elevators, up to the level of the gun shutter.

An impressive feature of the rotunda is the ring cover for the circular railway. In order to protect the railway passage from above, while allowing the cannon to rotate, a roof made of thick metal scales was implemented. When revolving around the pinion, the cannon turret would automatically lift the scales on its passage. The sound of the scales being lifted and released while the cannon body was revolving must have been really an experience!

Pictures can hardly tell how big the cannon turret is!

Following an exploration from beneath, you can exit the bunker building, climb up to the level of the barrel, and finally enter the turret.

Here the back of the barrel dominates the relatively large firing chamber. The shutter has been left open, so you can see the sunlight through the barrel.

The shell and explosive charge were received from the two elevators on a special tray, and here they were finally aligned one before the other. Somewhat in contrast to the top-notch technology level of the installation, the cartridge had to be pushed from the back into the barrel by hand. A long wooden stick was used for the task. Actually, it was so long that it protruded from the back of the cannon turret, thus requiring a small hatch to be pierced in the metal armor correspondingly. On one side of the barrel, instrumentation for measuring the pointing direction is still in place.

Air-pumping mechanisms can be clearly seen, similarly to communication phones to the back and top of the room.

Cannon Nr. 1

The position of cannon Nr.1 was prepared unusually close to that of Nr.2. As said, this was due to the limited available area on the uneven coast section where the battery was put in place. However, Nr.1 never received a cannon. Conversely, it was modified later in the war, when experimenting with cannon protection from air-dropped high-yield bombs. The rotunda was capped with a very thick concrete roof, sustained by sidewalls which limited the side-wards rotation of the cannon to 120 degrees.

The rotunda can be walked freely. The central pinion is still in place. Inside, the ceiling is covered in original metal panels. The round corridor for the trolleys can still be seen, but there is no access left to the bunkerized part.

The firing position can be climbed, and from the elevated top you get a great view of the battery and of the area ahead of it.

Other buildings

Following the railway around the site is a great way to find what remains today of the original installation. There are two bulky ammo storages. These were reportedly more thickly armored than usual, in view of a higher risk of getting hit, due to the unusual proximity with the cannons – designated targets for the enemy.

Furthermore, other smaller buildings are scattered around, which may have served as storage for lighter weapons.

The positions of cannons Nr. 3 and Nr. 4 have been largely demolished, and access is permanently shut to the bunkerized part. However, you can easily climb to the top level, to get a nice view of the rotunda.

Visiting

Vara is in the top-five list of the most famous surviving installations of the Atlantic Wall in Europe, and a visit to this destination is in itself a good reason for a detour to Norway for war historians and like-minded people. Due to its proximity to the port of Kristiansand, just minutes apart by car, and the relatively easy-to-reach location in the most populated part of Norway, it is also a top destination for any tourist in the area. As a matter of fact, the place is run as a top-level museum, with great reception capability, and is visited by thousands of visitors per year.

Visiting can be performed on a self-guided basis, with an explanation leaflet which allows to get much from your visit, especially if you are not new to installations of the Atlantic Wall (which are mostly standardized, despite Vara having really oversized guns!). A tour of the main features – cannon Nr.2 and the building of Nr.1 – may take 1 hour at least, for an averagely interested person. For an in-depth visit and a quick tour of the premises including other remains, more than 2 hours are needed. Thanks to the exceptional level of conservation and the explanation of whatever is on display, the visit is not boring and may be very rewarding even for younger people.

Large parking on site, picnic tables and warm reception are available – as usual in Norway! Website with full information here.

Nordberg & Marka Batteries – Farsund

Located in the southwestern corner of the Norwegian territory, about 100 miles south of the port of Stavanger, the municipality of Farsund encompasses a number of small coastal villages, around the landmark represented by the lighthouse of Lista.

Two batteries were set up by the German occupation forces as part of the Atlantic wall, both fully operative by 1942. The northern one is called Nordberg fort, where the southern one, very close to the shore line, is known as Marka fort. Between the two, the Germans installed a full-scale airbase, with a runway of roughly 1.5 km, complemented by hangars and shelters largely standing today. Following the end of WWII and the withdrawal of the German military, all these installations were converted for military use by the Norwegian armed forces, which also developed the original airfield into a more modern airbase by stretching the runway.

Today, Nordberg fort is a museum. The German Navy was in charge of the station, which had as centerpieces three 150 mm cannons, with a range of around 23 km. The cannons have been scrapped (with the exception of a lighter piece of Russian make). However, the firing positions are still there, linked by a semi-interred trench.

You can see also the original control point for the battery, developed by the Norwegians more recently, and the concrete base for a radar antenna originally on site.

Several original buildings for services – canteen, hospital,… – are still there, making for a an interesting opportunity to see how this installation looked like back in the 1940s.

The Marka fort was assembled around six 150 mm guns, located very close to the sea, grouped in two batteries of three firing positions each. A huge bunkerized command post was built in the premises of the fort. Today, after the Norwegian military left at the end of the Cold War, the Marka battery is basically a ghost site, despite being still in a relatively good shape.

The control bunker is especially interesting, since you can access the top level and watch the sea from the very same room and windows originally used by the German Navy troops! The general arrangement of the bunker is similar to other command posts you can find on the Atlantic Wall – especially in Denmark (see here).

The positions for the coastal guns can be reached close to the control bunker. They are uncovered round areas, slightly below the level of the ground, framed by a circular reinforced sidewall.

More Atlantic Wall remains, like bunkers, foundations for radar stations, or emplacements for lighter guns, can be  be found scattered in the area of Farsund – which kept its military site status well after the Germans had left.

Visiting

The museum of Nordberg keeps some of the buildings on the respective site open. However, the majority of the site is open 24 hours, and can be walked freely. A visit may take about 1 hour. A convenient parking can be found right ahead of the modern and welcoming visitor center, from where you can effortlessly reach most of the points of interest in this installation. Website with full information here.

The site of Marka – not part of any museum – can be approached at any time with some walking in the rural area along the coast line. A good starting point for an exploration is here, where you can leave your car and move along an easy trail to the command bunker and the gun rotundas about 0.5 miles west.

Fjell Fortress – Bergen

Bergen was a strategic base of the German Navy, which received a fortified submarine deck among the largest, most active and longest lasting in the history of WWII. The complex morphology of the territory around this port town allowed to effectively protect the access by means of a network of nine firing emplacements. One of them – Fjell – was of exceptional power and range.

It was built between 1942-43 diverting one of the batteries of battleship Gneisenau, which had been damaged beyond repair by an air raid while in port at Kiel (Germany). The battery was composed of three 28 cm guns in a single turret. The latter was very compact in design, a real masterpiece of naval engineering, but nonetheless it featured a rather tall substructure, with all that was needed to operate the guns – protruding from the relatively sleek top of the turret, surfacing on the ground.

Placing this special battery in Fjell required carving the rocky coast, creating a cylindrical underground pit, inside coated with concrete, to host the turret. The turret, an assembly of around 1.000 tonnes with the guns on top, was then transported up to this elevated site, and lowered into the pit. The battery was test fired in the mid of 1943. It acted as an effective deterrent, and reportedly never used in combat.

The battery was incorporated in the Norwegian coastal defense after WWII, and sadly scrapped in 1968, since by then obsolete, but not yet considered an historical landmark.

Clearly, the battery was in the middle of an off-limits military area in wartime, where bunkers for several services and for the the troops, at least two radar antennas and many emplacements for lighter defensive weapons were installed to protect the battery from ground and air attacks.

Today, the bunker-pit where the turret used to rest is the centerpiece of a visit to the site. Starting from the visitor center on top, where the guns used to be, you can descend to the base of the cylindrical pit – roughly 30 ft in diameter and 75 in depth! Here you can see the rooms originally employed for storing the explosive cartridges and the shells for the cannons. These were supplied on trolleys and slides, and sent inside the metal turret, to be lifted up to the level of the cannons for firing.

Most of the original German mechanical and electrical systems is still there to see, including wiring, phones, cranes, trolleys, and examples of shells and cartridges.

Back then, you got access to these storage areas from an entrance on the same level (i.e. not from the top of the turret, but from the base). You can see this entrance, as well as the curved corridor leading from the gate to the ammo storage area. Here, examples of sea mines and other war material can be found. The corridor has narrow-gauge railway track, which was used for resupplying the ammo storage from outside.

The corridor is curved, and firing positions are strategically placed to cover it, in order to counter enemy intrusion.

The bunker gives access to the living quarters for the troops. These are well preserved, and feature brick walls to help insulating the inside from the wet rock of the walls and ceilings.

Services, like toilets, sauna, washing machines and more, are original from the German tenancy. Especially the water basins appear very stylish, a good example of German design from the era.

Besides the main turret bunker, as said the Fjell site offers other constructions on a vast area, which can be checked out from the outside – also since the premises are at least formally military grounds still today.

The road reaching the site from the parking, gently climbing uphill, is reportedly the original main access to the Third Reich site. An interesting tank-stopping device can be seen to the lower end of the road – heavy stones on top of light pillars on the sides of the road. The pillars could be blown, and the stones would fall cutting the road, in case of a potential intrusion.

Visiting

The fort of Fjell, about 15 miles west of central Bergen, is professionally run as a museum. Parking is only possible to the base of the cliff where the turret used to stand. From there, a 0.8 miles road climbs to the entrance. The scenic location and the nice rural area around make for an enjoyable walk. Visiting inside is only possibly on guided tours, offered also in English (an possibly other languages). A small restaurant can be found on top, where an observation deck has been built in place of the battery.

The location of the parking is here. A visit may take around 45 minutes, excluding the time needed to climb uphill and descend to the parking. Website with full information here.

Tellevik Fort – Bergen

The coastal fort of Tellevik, on the eastern head of the Norhordland Bridge, 15 miles north of Bergen, was part of the lighter defense artillery put in place by the German military to defend any access by water to Bergen. The battery was built by order of the Third Reich, profiting from the forced labor of Soviet prisoners of war.

Lighter howitzers were enough to cover the narrow water passages in proximity of the town. The elevation of the emplacement is low, slightly above the water surface.

The battery of Tellevik was centered on two such howitzers, placed on open-top positions. The two guns can be seen still today, on round concrete firing positions. The giant bridge today largely obstructing the field of sight was not there at the time of the German occupation.

The site displays also a concrete trench, connecting the firing positions with a command post for the battery.

A monument to Norwegian seamen victims to sea mines laid by the German to protect the access to Bergen is concurrently located on the site of the Tellevik battery.

Visiting

Tellevik is an open air memorial, which can be walked freely 24/7. It can be reached by inputting these coordinates to a GPS navigation app.

A visit may take about 15 minutes, a nice detour from exceptionally crowded downtown Bergen.

Austrått Fortress – Austrått

Similar to Bergen, the major port of Trondheim was a strategic base for the German Navy. Protected by a long firth, the port was an ideal base for submarines and warships, to intercept convoys in the North Sea, Norwegian Sea, the Atlantic Ocean and the Barents Sea. Correspondingly, a number of coastal forts was prepared by the German occupation forces to counter any unauthorized access to the waterways leading to Trondheim.

The most powerful and impressive of these batteries is the Austratt Fort. Similar to the fortress of Fjell near Bergen (see above), Austratt received one of the turrets of the ill-fated battleship Gneisenau, damaged while moored in Kiel, in February 1942. A control and aiming position was put in place a few miles apart along the coast, whereas the battery was surrounded by an off-limits area, stuffed with bunkers for the troops, ammo storage bunkers, and lighter guns for protection against an attack by land.

A major difference between the two ‘sister sites’ of Fjell and Austratt is that in the latter the cannons are still there!

Following the installation of the turret, test fired in September 1943, the fort saw little action, acting as a deterrent, and effectively preventing any serious intrusion by the Allies towards Trondheim from the sea. After the demise of the Third Reich, the fort was taken over by the Norwegian coastal defense, stricken off in 1968, and restored as a museum in the early 1990s.

The cannons are on top of a hill. From the outside, the massive three-barreled turret is really impressive in size!

The barrels can be seen besides the original range-finder – with its impressive arm, granting good measuring accuracy even at a large distance from the target. This item, with its bell-shaped cover, was originally part of the control point, located southwest of the battery, in a location currently very close to an active base of the Norwegian Air Force (Orland).

Despite access to the the firing chamber being possible through a hatch to the back of the turret, the tour follows the way a shell would travel from storage to firing. Hence you start your tour from an entrance to the side of the hill, at the same level of the bottom of the cylindrical tower supporting the guns. This metal tower was taken from the Gneisenau together with the cannons, and put in a pit carved in the rock for the purpose in Austratt.

Access through the side of the hill is protected by a smaller gun. Once inside, you find yourself in a curvy corridor, with a narrow-gauge railway track for the trolleys needed to carry the shells and cartridges inside. A firing position behind an embrassure points against the entrance, for further protection of the site against an intrusion.

The bunker in Austratt – but the same happened to many installations of the Atlantic Wall in Norway – was plagued with severe humidity problems. Immediately besides the entrance, a room with a water basin is fed by natural water dripping from the ceiling and from the rocky walls around.

Original machines for tooling, put in place for maintenance purposes back in the Third Reich years, are still there and working. Similarly, a primary and a backup Diesel generators supplying the fort are still in place, with all ancillary plants, like big Diesel and water tanks for cooling. This is original machinery too, as witnessed by the tags of the mechanical components, all made in Germany.

Living quarters were at the bottom level too. Trying to supply some comfort, the rocky walls were covered with bricks and wood, especially against humidity. These rooms have been partly refurbished with a good resemblance to the original ones. They include the kitchen and some of the sleeping quarters for the troops. However, since humidity was really extreme, troops spent limited time here especially for sleeping, and provisional barracks were built outside of the installation instead.

Hygienic services were reportedly extremely advanced compared to Norwegian standards of the time. Fully working toilets, lavatories and showers were taken as a blueprint by the Norwegian Army after the war. The electric water heater put in place in the Austratt battery was apparently among the first installed in the whole Country – it can still be seen.

Explosive cartridges, fuses and shells arriving from the bunker entry you have walked through at the beginning of your tour would be eventually lifted upstairs. Shells, either high-yield explosive or armor-piercing, would be stored in a chamber featuring cranes hanging from the ceiling, used to put the shells on trolleys. These trolleys transported the shells to the lower level of the turret. The chamber where the shells were stored is physically separated by the turret by means of a concrete wall.

Tight compartments are often found in war bunkers of the Atlantic Wall, and this can be explained by the fact that the deadliest effect of an enemy shot (either a cannon shell from a warship, or an air-dropped bomb) would be that of an overpressure wave (shockwave), capable of killing many in just moments. Overpressure effects can be effectively reduced by putting physical obstacles on the way the shockwave would travel – walls, tight doors, etc. – or by forcing it into smaller passages, like hatches or smaller doors and windows. Therefore, bunkers like Austratt are built in rather small rooms, connected only through narrow hatches and doors.

Again in the storage chamber for the shells, extensive writing in German can be found on many of the mechanisms and electric plants. Everything is original and exceptionally well conserved, just like the Germans had just left!

The lowest level of the turret, where the shells would arrive from the storage chamber to be loaded on elevators going to the upper levels, is a masterpiece of engineering. The technical problem here was that of connecting the slides from the storage chamber, which are anchored to the ground, to the receiving slides on the turret, which could pivot around 360 degrees. The designer of the turret solved the issue by placing an intermediate ring, revolving independently, and capable of connecting the fixed slides from the storage chamber to the revolving platform on the turret. The extremely compact size of the overall design, originally prepared for fitting into a warship, and the elegance and precision of the mechanism resemble those of a pocket watch from the 1920s more than a cannon!

On the turret, you can see three elevators for the three barrels, which were therefore fed independently.

Going upstairs, you meet the storage room for the explosive cartridges. These used to be stored in sealed canisters on display, original from the time. This storage room is placed to the side of the corresponding level in the turret, in a similar fashion to the shells storage below.

Climbing up one more level inside the turret, you reach a platform with the motors for moving the battery around its vertical axis, and for lifting or lowering the three monster barrels. The motion involved high-pressure mechanisms, rather complex and requiring many valves and extensive piping.

To the back of each of the barrels, you can see a large empty volume for recoil. The battery rested on a ball bearing – one of the pretty sizable metal balls is on display.

Finally, the firing chamber can be found on the top level in the turret. Here the shells and cartridges were received, aligned and loaded from the back into the barrels by a pushing mechanical arm. Three independent mechanisms were put in place for the scope in the firing chamber.

To the front of the battery, instrumentation for aiming can be found, with writing in German. Also radio positions are there.

Battery fire could be triggered by a single man, sitting to the back of the turret in front of a control panel with three independent triggers.

You can exit the turret from the hatch to the back of the turret, concluding your tour. In the video below you can see a portrait of the battery from the air, made with a drone.

All in all, similar to the Vara battery (see above), Austratt is in an exceptional state of conservation in the Norwegian and European panorama of artillery engineering from WWII, and a visit may be super-interesting for any public.

Visiting

Despite being relatively close to Trondheim on a map, as usual in Norway, Austratt is a more than two hours drive from the town, and reaching requires taking at least one ferry. However, as noted, this location is a pinnacle in the Atlantic Wall, and surely deserves a visit for technicians and non-technical public as well, and of course for the kids.

Access to the exterior is possible at any time, but visiting inside is only possible on guided tours. The guide is very knowledgeable and makes the visit interesting also for a technically-minded public. The visit inside may take around 1 hour, more if you make questions and show some interest. Convenient parking by the gate of the fort, easy access to the area around the battery. Moving inside can be requiring for non-fit people.

Website with full information here.

Arctic Circle & North Cape

As pointed out in the introduction to this chapter, Norway is rich of memorials from WWII. Even close to some of the attractions in this wonderful Country which are must-see stops for other reasons, features recalling memories from war actions are offered to a curious eye.

Two notable examples are the visitor center of the Arctic Circle along the E6, as well as that of North Cape.

Scandinavia has been a bloody and extremely active theater of war all along WWII, and Norway was directly involved in significant war actions since the first year of the conflict. As a matter of fact, most of the impressive line of fortifications constituting the Atlantic Wall was erected by deploying forced laborers, typically prisoners of war from the Eastern Front, primarily including Russians, other people from the USSR, and Balkan prisoners.

Soviet troops attacked the northernmost German-occupied region from the North, together with the Finns, after the latter negotiated a separate peace with the USSR in late 1944. The retreating Germans opposed a fierce resistance, and it was in this latest stage of the war that most physical damage to towns and installations was caused in Norway, since German troops were ordered to burn up all positions they had to leave.

These facts explain the many Soviet monuments and war cemeteries scattered especially in the northern part of Norway still today – commemorating Soviet soldiers fallen either in war actions or as prisoners of war in the harsh conditions of northern Norway.

One such monument, albeit overlooked, is prominently placed besides the visitor center of the Arctic Circle.

The interest of Germany for Norway was primarily for its strategic position, which became an asset of special value after the start of the war against the USSR in mid-1941. The convoys feeding vital material to the USSR from Britain and the US had to go to Murmansk (see here) and the Kola Peninsula, i.e. over the Barents Sea. This was conveniently controlled by the German occupants, operating from the Norwegian coast.

In the visitor center of North Cape some panels are dedicated to this topic, showing an impression of the structure and routes followed by Allied convoys going to the USSR.

Detailed panels with maps and pictures recall the last battle of the German battleship Scharnhorst, which was confronted by the group of the British battleship HMS Duke of York, in an epic battle relatively close to North Cape. The massive German battleship, deployed to Norway with Tirpitz (a sister ship of the famous Bismarck) to block the resupply traffic to the USSR, was hit several times and finally sunk in the freezing last days of 1943. The battle was posthumously named ‘Battle of North Cape’. A detailed scaled model of the German battleship is similarly on display in the visitor center.

Visiting

The visitor center of the Arctic Circle on the road E6, with a small Soviet monument, can be found here. The monument is open 24/7.

The visitor center of North Cape is… at North Cape! The inside can be accessed during opening times, and the tables with information on WWII convoys and battles are on an underground mezzanine. Website with full information here.

War Museum – Narvik

The port town of Narvik was founded in the 19th century as a commercial base for exporting iron ore from Sweden. A small town by the sea, surrounded by steep-climbing mountains, and in a remote location well north of the Arctic Circle, Narvik was turned for about two months into a though theater of war for the Germans, following their occupation of Norway.

It was here that the British started a battle to stop the German push to the north, as soon as the 10th of April 1940, basically at the same time as the Germans had reached the town during their conquering campaign.

What resulted was a complex, multi-stage operation, lasting until early June 1940.

At first, the British fleet mounted a naval attack, carried out with a flotilla of five destroyers. This force clashed with the local German complement of ten destroyers. The British operation met with mixed success, and was finally repelled by the German navy operating in the narrow waters around Narvik, at the price of two destroyers on each side – plus several cargo ships destroyed in the battle. Three days later, on the 13th of April, a new force, composed of the British battleship HMS Warspite and 9 destroyers, launched another assault, resulting in the complete loss of the German destroyers fleet in the region – German warships were either sunk or scuttled.

The Germans however kept control of the town. A mixed force of British, Polish and French troops, together with the Norwegians, started an operation to conquer the town by land. The operation was successful, and the German troops had to retreat along the coast, away from Narvik. However, the start of the Battle of France – the invasion of France by the Third Reich – on the 10th of May, 1940, resulted in a rapid loss of priority of Narvik as a strategic target for the Allies. It was decided in Britain to withdraw from Norway, and to evacuate all previously landed military forces from Narvik. The town fell under German control on June 8th, basically concluding the conquer of Norway by the Third Reich.

The Allied landings around Narvik in 1940 where the first on the European continent in WWII, carried out without the participation of the US, more than three years before operations in southern Italy or Normandy.

The town of Narvik is still today an active commercial port of primary relevance in the region. The heritage of war actions is preserved in a purpose-installed museum, modernly designed and easy to visit.

On a first floor, the naval operations around Narvik are described by means of technological 3D board with virtual projections – very nice and lively. Around the board, memorabilia from the British and German warships taking part to the operations back in the Spring of 1940 have been put on display.

They include an original Nazi eagle from one of the ships. Since the campaign around Narvik included also air and land operations, war traces including parts of aircraft, guns, mortars, machine guns, first-aid kits and many uniforms are also on display.

Uniforms are from the many corps which took part to those actions – they are British, German, Polish and even French.

On a second floor, you are offered displays of artifacts retracing other aspects of WWII in Norway. These include land mines – put in place by the Germans along the coast, similar to Denmark, to impede Allied landings – an Enigma coding machine, Third Reich memorabilia, a section of the Tirpitz armored hull, radio machinery supplied to the resistance, as well as personal items belonging to former prisoners of war.

Finally, on the last floor heavier weapons are put on display, including torpedoes, light armored vehicles and more, even for post-WWII times.

Visiting

The battle of Narvik is one of the best known from WWII in Norway, and the little museum in the town center duly retraces its timeline, through an elegant exhibition, sufficiently rich to satisfy even the most exigent experts, but not so extensive to be boring for the general public. A really well designed museum, surely worth a visit, which may last from 30 minutes to 1 hour depending on your level of interest.

The location is right besides the town hall, and can be found here. Parking opportunities on the street nearby. Website with information here.

Tirpitz Museum – Alta

The German battleship Tirpitz was laid down as the only sister ship to the well-known Bismark. Eventually, she underwent developments which made her the heaviest battleship built in Europe. Her actions were concentrated along a limited time frame, between January 1942 and November 1944, when she was finally sunk by British Lancaster bombers, making use of Tallboy high-yield bombs.

She spent her operative life along the coasts of Norway, where she constituted an effective deterrent against a sea-launched Allied invasion, and was employed tactically against resupply convoys going to the USSR.

Tirpitz was a strategic target for the Allies, which tried to get rid of her by no less than seven war operations, meeting with limited success until the last one.

With an armor more than 30 cm thick, Tirpitz was marginally maneuverable especially at lower speed, but the hull was very difficult to penetrate, and the four turrets and eight 38 cm barrels, plus twelve side-shooting 15 cm barrels, complemented by many more defensive weapons, made it a dangerous asset against land and sea targets.

The ship capsized and sunk in shallow water in the bay of Tromso, and following the end of the war, she was largely dismantled. Original pieces of the ship could be collected, as well as some personal belongings from the crew. Some more were taken out from the water over the years.

The museum in Alta is dedicated to the memory of the ship, and offers an extremely rich collection of items connected with Tirpitz. Furthermore, by means of memorabilia items, it retraces the history of the war years in the northernmost region of Norway – Finnmark. The reason for installing the Tirpitz Museum in Kåfjord, near Alta, is bound to the fact that the battleship was based here for a period, as witnessed by some historical pictures. The museum has a rich guestbook, which includes top-ranking military staff from several Countries.

The small museum is home to some of the finest and largest scales models portraying Tirpitz. The level of detail and the accuracy of the reconstruction is really stunning.

Some smaller diorama models portray scenes from the life onboard, or details of special interest. An unusual one portrays the capsized hull of the ship, following the sinking!

Besides the scale models, original instrumentation, shells, wooden slabs from the deck, and more parts of the ship are put on display.

A room is dedicated to the operations carried out against the battleship. The ship was reportedly attacked several times without substantial damage. One of the attacks was carried out by the British, recurring to mini-submarines. Among the artifacts on display are the decorations to the men involved in these operations.

Extremely interesting artifacts in the museum include material from the crew, taken away after the sinking over the years – sometimes found in the area as recently as the year 2000.

These include typewriters, cutlery with swastika emblems, musical instruments, sport suits with prominent Third Reich insignia, and many personal belongings.

In one case, the cabinet or wallet of a crewman revealed cash and stamps from the time.

Among the countless items in this exhibition are original material – including radio stations – employed by the resistance movements in Norway, as well as light weapons, uniforms and decorations of the Soviet troops who operated in the Finnmark region, helping in repelling the Germans in the last stages of WWII.

On the outside, the anchor and parts of the armor of Tirpitz can be seen, together with an official memorial stone.

Visiting

The museum is located some five miles from Alta, in the small settlement of Kåfjord. It is hosted in a single, small wooden building – possibly a former canteen – to be found here, with a small parking nearby. A website with full visiting information is here.

Visiting the museum may take from 30 minutes to 1 hour depending on your level of interest.

Vemork Hydroelectric Power Plant & Heavy Water Facility – Rjukan

The nuclear program of the Third Reich is still today a matter for researchers, since – mysteriously enough – most documentation disappeared by the end of the war. Among the ascertained facts were the excellence of nuclear scientist in Germany at the time on the one hand, and the total lack of adequate quantities of raw material, or plants for processing it, to actually build real nuclear weapons on the other.

The latter is witnessed by the great strategic value attributed to the plant in Rjukan, hidden in a scenic deep valley in the region of Telemark, in southern Norway, about three hours by car from Oslo. A hydroelectric plant there – the exact name is Vemork power-plant – was employed to produce heavy water through a dedicated electrolysis separation process, which requires huge amounts of energy. Heavy water is a key component for the production of Plutonium – in turn required for atomic weapons – in heavy-water reactors.

Also the Norwegians understood the value of the plant. As soon as the winds of war started blowing from Germany in early 1940, heavy water then in storage was taken away to France, and later to Britain following the invasion of France by the Third Reich.

After Norway had been occupied by the Reich, the plant was at the center of three sabotage operations. Extremely risky and partly ending in disaster, these operations were carried out both by Norwegian and British staff, parachuted from Britain.

It took until 1944 to mortally hit the plant, well protected by its own natural setting. Two dedicated bombing raids carried out by US bombers damaged the plant beyond repair – at least in the late war scenario, when the Third Reich reaction capacity was weakening every day. The final act in the Norwegian heavy water saga was the sinking of the small boat – named Hydro – loaded with the reserve of heavy water from Vemork, having just started its trip to Germany on Lake Tinn.

The plant was again in business in the years after the war, and remained operative until the early 1990s, involved in production of various chemicals.

Today, it is a much visited museum. Actually, the most impressive part of the plant is that of the hydroelectric turbines. Aligned in a single immense hangar, these now silent giant machinery send glimpses of the original, fashionable early-1900 industrial style.

Some of the turbines and generator assemblies – manufactured by AEG, as witnessed by the labels – are really huge.

A suspended platform allows to capture with a bird’s eye the entire hall. Here you can see also completely analog control panels, again in a very elegant style from the era.

Visiting

The museum in Vemork can be reached in less than 3 hours driving from central Oslo. The power-plant can be approached walking from the parking (here) over a suspended bridge crossing the deep valley. The area is very scenic. The highlight of the show is the hall with the power turbines. A visit may take from a few minutes to more than 1 hour for more interested subjects.

A website with full information can be found here.

The Border Forts of Czechoslovakia Against Nazi Germany

The Maginot line – a line of forts running along the French border with Italy, Switzerland, Germany and Belgium – is a widely known example of military engineering from the inter-war period (see this chapter). The adopted construction technique, based on reinforced concrete pillboxes with walls several feet thick, half interred to decrease visibility from above, field cannons and anti-tank defensive guns, witnesses the great consideration given to tanks and aircraft as attack weapons.

Due to the fast movements typical to the new strategy of the German army since the beginning of WWII, the Maginot line is mainly remembered for having not been involved in any major action, and having being largely bypassed. As a matter of fact, the German opted for a bypass also because the line was in place, so it was not as ineffective as it is often thought.

What is possibly even less known is that similar defensive lines were built in earnest in other European countries, before and even during WWII, after the Maginot line had failed to stop the invading German army. The enormous Salpa line, built by Finland against the Soviet Union, was probably the last and most effective to be completed (see this chapter). The Stalin line, prepared by the Soviets against Germany in Belarus, is another example. Another country who invested much in this type of deterrent was Czechoslovakia.

To understand the drivers of the design of the huge line of forts envisaged by the Czechoslovakian government of the mid-1930s, one should take a look at a map of Europe from the time. After the defeat of WWI Germany had managed to keep significant parts of todays Poland. The border between Germany and Poland ran close to Gdansk – aka Danzig in German -, and the province of Lower Silesia with the town of Wroclav – Breslau in German – were undisputed German territory. This means that todays border between the Czech Republic and Poland used to be actually a border between Czechoslovakia and Germany in the years before WWII.

With the turmoil preceding the infamous Munich Agreement and Nazi Germany claiming the right to control ‘Sudetenland’ – a large part of the peripheral territories of todays Czech Republic – in 1937 the Czechoslovakian government quickly started the construction of a huge system of forts to protect the border.

The concept was pretty similar to that of the Maginot line, with extensive underground tunnels to shelter soldiers and ammos, facing to the surface with reinforced concrete bunkers with different purposes, including observation, artillery shelling with field cannons, mutual protection with short range anti-tank cannons, machine guns and grenade-throwing tubes. There were also bunkers for accessing the tunnel system with resupply. About 10’000 light fortifications were actually built, more than 200 heavy fortified positions and a handful of heavy artillery positions.

The geopolitical situation in Europe got worse quickly in 1938, with the annexation of Austria in spring and finally the Munich Agreement, which caused the dissolution of Czechoslovakia. As a result of this internationally approved de facto German invasion, the works on the defense line were halted by the Wehrmacht. A relevant part of the hard construction had been completed, but most of the bunkers were still unarmed or lacked some software – air filters, ammo supplies, everyday items for the troops, etc. – and were not serviceable.

Most of the ironworks, including especially all heavy-metal turrets, were salvaged by the Germans. Some of the cannons found their way to the Atlantic Wall. The most massive concrete bunkers were used to test new weapons. As a result, the majority of the most sizable structures are still today in a partly damaged shape.

Some of the bunkers came to life again in the 1970s, when re-founded Czechoslovakia, that time a satellite country of the USSR living under a repressive and hard communist dictatorship, started a low-paced conversion of some of the structures into nuclear shelters for top ranks of the military and political hierarchies.

Notwithstanding these incidents, todays Czech Republic is duly proud of the significant work which was carried out in the difficult late Thirties. Very much was done for the little time available, and the quality of the design and construction is remarkable. While most of the sites are open only rarely, there are some where you can step inside and enjoy an interesting visit. This chapter covers with photographs and text five larger fortified complexes along this anti-German defensive line, from a two-days visit taken in August 2018.

Map

The following map shows the highlights of each of the five sites listed in this chapter. Please zoom in for greater detail. For the Bouda fort I could not spot and pinpoint on the map all the pillboxes you can easily visit from the outside – this are covered by vegetation.

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Sights

Stachelberg

The Stachelberg site is located about three miles north of the small city of Trutnov. The fort should have consisted of a main entrance and peripheral shooting positions, some of them linked by underground tunnels, to defend the area of the Giant Mountains. Construction works were terminated much before completion, so the surface bunkers forming the ensemble are actually not connected. Yet the major installation, a bulky infantry positions with provision for anti-tank artillery, provides access to an extensive system of half-prepared tunnels, which gives you a clear picture of the size and capacity of the complex.

The site is open to the public, and the ticket office can be found right inside this huge major bunker. From the outside, the volume of this pillbox is particularly stunning. Also interesting are the anti-tank obstacles, which used to be placed along the border line and between the forts, to trap invading columns in a position where anti-tank guns could be most effective.

This multi-level bunker is also place for a little museum on the fortifications, mainly based on explicative panels and scaled models of weapons and of the entire bunker complex. It covers the history of the fortifications, and explains most technical features of their construction. There are no weapons or other software – they were either not installed before the construction works were stopped, or salvaged by the Germans.

The tunnels can be visited on a guided tour only, starting from inside the main bunker with a descent of several tens of feet along a flight of stairs, originally made at the time of construction. The tunnels unfold on the sides of a major, perfectly straight initial track. Some of the lateral halls, intended to store ammos as well as for sleeping the troops, are very large and close to completion, whereas others are just sketched.

The tunnels were dug in the rock with the help of explosives. The next step in the construction works would have been a layer of concrete from the pavement up to the ceiling of the tunnels. This is present today only close to the entry point, at the bottom of the access stairs.

There are at least other five smaller pillboxes which have been preserved to some extent in the Stachelberg complex. They are accessible with different timetables, and do not provide access to the underground – by design, some of them should have.

One of the pillboxes has been colored in a very bright camouflage. I could not find out whether this used to be the standard, but it looks pretty unusual and not really mimetic… There are also refurbished connecting trenches between the smaller bunkers.

The concrete base of a never built bunker can be found not far from the parking area.

Getting there and moving around

Getting close to the complex is really easy, the area is very scenic and a popular destination skiing, and for nature trail hiking in summer. There is a parking on road N.300 from where the museum-fort can be reached with an almost flat, 0.3 miles track.

The complex can be toured on the outside without restrictions. The main bunker has opening times, and the underground part can be toured only with a guide. The guide speaks Czech, but you are provided a leaflet with explanations in English, upon request. The tour takes about 30 minutes, and is offered on a regular basis, with several entries per day. They warn you about the inside temperature, but I found it pretty easy to bear with normal summer clothes. Website here, but you will need some Google translation to find the info you need.

Voda, Brezinka and Lom

These three forts are actually parts of the same system, built on the eastern end of the town of Nachod-Beloves, the major center in a local valley ending in Poland. Three items in the complex are typically accessible to the public.

The one closest to the town, on the bottom of the valley, is the Voda bunker. This is very convenient to reach, and is basically composed of a preserved typical infantry pillbox with provision for machine guns. The bunker has been painted in a credible camouflage. On one end it is possible to note the damage inflicted by the Germans, when they took out the metal observation turret. This kind of treatment – and damage – can be observed on a great many bunkers of the line.

Inside, the bunker has been turned into a local museum on the armed forces. There were border guards operating in the area, involved in skirmishes before and after the end of the war. The weapons originally intended for the fort are not in place, but there is an interesting collection of weapons, uniforms, motorcycles and other gear from the army corps operating around there over the years.

The Brezinka fort is possibly one of the most famous of the entire defensive line. The reason for that is that it was recently restored to look like it should have looked, if only it was completed back in the late Thirties. In the restoration process, weapons and system parts from other locations in todays Czech Republic were brought to the Brezinka site.

The visit of the interiors is really exceptional, even compared to the forts of the other defensive lines in Europe. The fort really looks like it could be put in operation today!

The first part of the visit of this two-levels artillery bunker will take you downstairs, where you can find the sleeping quarters for the troops with a food storage.

Close by, there are two rooms for the electrical generator and for the ventilation system. Here you can see the electrical compressor, with backup manual handles, and the huge air filters. These are multi-stage filters, where each stage was designed to stop different poisonous components in the air. The system is working, so you are given a demonstration of the compressor – interesting to get an impression of the incredible noise this system produced!

On the same floor there is also a telegraph system, which was used to communicate with other bunkers in the complex in case of failure of the telephone link. This system was capable of transmitting Morse signals to the other pillboxes next to it, projecting the signal into the ground and using it as a medium – there were no cables! This allowed it to work even if a direct electrical link was lost.

The upper floor is even more surprising, cause basically all weapons have been restored to their original positions. The Brezinka bunker featured two main firing chambers. The one pointing uphill features two heavy 7.92 mm machine guns Zbrojovka Brno Mark 1937, a very widespread and reliable weapon, with an operational range of 1’000-2’000 ft at 500-300 rounds per minute. These were used to target infantry movements along the border line, pinpointed by anti-tank obstacles. Fire direction was from the observation turret or via an optical aim system. The latter was extremely precise, but more expensive than the machine gun!

In presence of an impenetrable smoke curtain or at night, an open-loop aiming system could be used. This consisted of a board with a precise sketch of the view of the outside from the firing point, mounted on top of the machine gun. A calibrated needle pointer was used to align the machine gun with respect to the target, by simply pointing the needle on the intended target on the board!

The third machine gun is a light ZB vz. 26, a very popular light 7.92 mm machine gun. This was used for close defense of the fort access. There are also grenade throwing tubes for the same purpose.

The other firing chamber points downhill, and is supplied with a machine gun as in the first chamber, plus the assembly of an anti-tank cannon and another machine gun. The cannon is a 4.7 cm Skoda KPUV vz. 38, with an up to 1-mile range at 35 rounds per minute. It could pierce a 50 mm armor from 0.7 miles apart, and was a very effective weapon. This very cannon was already in place before the German invasion, and was taken by the Wehrmacht to the Atlantic Wall in Norway. It has been returned to its original location in recent times.

There are other two metal-reinforced embrasures in the bunker for other two ZB vz. 26s. On the same floor you can find a kitchenette and toilets for the troops, ammo storages, and two observation turrets. The latter feature a working movable floor, to allow tailoring to the height of the observer. The turrets were fitted with a periscope, and were used to direct fire. They weighed 21 tonnes each, and could withstand direct close fire from anti-tank guns!

Finally, the room of the commander and the telephone room – with an original machine from the Thirties – conclude the tour.

The Lom object, five minutes uphill with respect to the Brezinka fort, is another infantry bunker. It has not been refurbished to the level of Brezinka, but nonetheless it is used to showcase construction pieces, weapons and memorabilia from WWII years. The armored turret was taken away by the Germans.

Between the Brezinka and Lom bunkers you can find a section of anti-tank obstacles. The concrete base used to support them can be spotted in several places here and other sites of the defensive line.

Getting there and moving around

These bunkers, and especially Brezinka, are surely among the most interesting of the kind to visit, considering also their counterparts in France, Finland and Belarus.

The Voda site is easily accessible by car. The Brezinka and Lom bunkers cannot be reached by car. You can park on a street close to the trail-head and take the trail. Unfortunately, the road going uphill, albeit not uneven, is extremely steep and about 1 mile long. You should definitely take this into consideration when planning your excursion, even if you are physically well-trained. Very few beverages are available at the Lom site, which is five minutes farther uphill from Brezinka. Nothing is sold at Brezinka.

It is a pity they didn’t prepare a better access road, cause the site is surely worth a visit, and may appeal to the specialist and to the general public – especially children! – as well.

Only cash is accepted in all these sites. The Brezinka site is accessible only with guided tours. Tours were offered every 20 minutes in late August when I visited. You are given a detailed leaflet in English or German, in case you can’t speak Czech. The guided tour of Brezinka takes about 50 minutes.

The Lom site can be toured in 10 minutes, whereas the Voda bunker is worth a 20-30 minutes self-guided visit. Explanations are partly also in English and other languages in the Voda bunker.

Information on these three forts can be found from this website.

Hanicka

The Hanicka site features an extensive underground tunnel system, actually connecting the main entrance to some major peripheral forts. The ensemble includes one of the few most imposing firing units in the entire defensive line.

But what makes this site even more unique is the fact that, after having fallen into oblivion since the end of WWII, in the 1970s it was selected to be developed into a nuclear-proof governmental bunker – codenamed ‘Kahan’. The ensuing modifications altered greatly the appearance of the entrance bunker, and most of the systems you can see today in the underground part are actually dating from the 1980s.

The works on the conversion were carried out at a slow pace, and were actually not completed before the end of communism in Czechoslovakia, the collapse of the Czechoslovakian federation and the birth of the Czech Republic in the early 1990s. The bunker was soon opened to the public as a unique specimen of military building engineering from both WWII and the Cold War.

The tunnels can be be visited only with a guided tour. The original entrance to the tunnel, modified in the 1980s, is the starting point of the visit. The entrance to the bunker looked totally different before it was developed into a nuclear shelter. The modifications at the level of the entrance included the construction of a soft service building, with room for storages of trucks, armored vehicles and other material.

In the first hall giving access to the tunnels you can find weapons, communication systems, scale models of the site, maps and much more from both the ‘two lives’ of the bunker, in the 1930s and 1980s.

Access it through a thick, typical soviet nuclear-blast-proof gate. Inside, you see the nuclear-proof system allowed to seal a section of the entry tunnel close to the gate. The bunker was designed to allow long-term survival and operations for 300 people also in case of total insulation from the world outside.

A modern energy production system was put in place and can be seen together with water and gasoline tanks. The structure of the bunkers was not altered significantly, but the various systems date clearly from more recently than the Thirties.

There are also extensive sleeping quarters and a medical facility to the far end of the main tunnel, which was built in the side of a hill.

You finally come out in a former infantry bunker, reached climbing upstairs to the top of the hill. Here the embrasures and reinforcing panels of the firing chambers are still in place.

The next part of the visit will take you to some other smaller bunkers, visible only from the outside.

The visit ends in front on the major RS-79a bunker, a top of the line artillery bunker. This was provided with three embrasures for field guns. The size of this installation is really striking. You cannot visit inside this bunker.

It was somewhat damaged by weapons testing by the Germans, and never refurbished. You can see a nuclear-proof door substituting one of the original embrasures.

Back to the parking, it is possible to see from the outside an infantry bunker and examples of anti-tank barriers. This bunker is a rare example of a totally undamaged fort of the line – even the metal turrets are original and have been left in place by the Germans.

Getting there and moving around

The Hanicka complex can be explored outside with no restrictions, but the inside can be toured only with a Czech-speaking guide. They provide you a leaflet in English. The visit lasts about 60 minutes. Info on their website.

The entrance is via the original entrance bunker, modified in the 1980s. Reaching this point from the parking on road N.319 is a bit demanding, cause you need to walk on an unpaved road going uphill with a relevant grade for about 0.7 miles, then you have about another 0.7 miles walking on an easy, flat road. Differently from Brezinka (see above), they have a facility selling food, beverages and souvenirs close to the entrance. It’s a pity they just did not prepare a good road and a parking nearby the entrance.

Anyway, this site has much to offer and the visit is highly recommended, both inside and outside, for children and adults as well.

Bouda

The two nearby forts of Bouda and Hurka share a basically similar construction, and represent possibly the best examples of almost-complete forts in the defensive line. They are articulated around a straight tunnel, mined in the side of a mountain. The section of the tunnel next to the main entrance bunker features a narrow gauge railway, used to transport ammos and various supplies to the storage units inside. Deeper in, there is provision for sleeping quarters for the troops. To the far end of the tunnel you can get access to a group of fortified installations and artillery bunkers.

The Bouda installation can be visited thoroughly. The site is very big but more remote to reach than Hurka. Besides the access bunker, where the ticket office can be found, you can see a specimen of a metal turret. None of the original turrets has been left in this site, all have been salvaged by the Germans.

Soon after the beginning of the tour, you will see the terminal of the narrow gauge railway. The double track goes through a short incline. At the base of the incline the main tunnel starts.

Not far from the entrance you meet slots for sealing doors and related actuation systems. These were installed by the Germans and used to test their reliability and the effectiveness of their weapons on them. They had some cannons installed further in along the tunnel, and shooting on the armored doors they had installed.

The railway turns single-track, until you reach a major storage for weapons with a loading platform. One of the storage chambers has been reused to display a collection of weapons used in the forts and the corresponding armored embrasures.

Further on you visit a group of chambers originally intended to be fitted as sleeping quarters. The dividing walls and metal frames have been demolished at some point – or may be they were never installed – but some of them can be seen, original or reconstructed. In this area there is also a memorial to Czechoslovakian troops.

Further in the tunnel you reach another set of chambers, one of them with pieces of armored constructions and other heavy material from around the site. Then you get access to the stairs leading to a heavy artillery bunker.

What you see here is the cylindrical concrete box where the actuation mechanism and reinforced cupola should have been installed. The size of the construction suggest the total intended size of the field cannon assembly, really big! This should have been very similar to some of the installations in the Maginot line (see this post). There is also a firing chamber for lighter weapons where nothing remains except some metal coating.

The guide will lead you back to the bottom and inside the main tunnel, and ascending along another stairwell you can reach an observation bunker with provision for light weapons. This bunker is in a better shape, and significant traces of the original soft construction are clearly visible.

Damage is due also to weapons testing carried out by the Germans, clearly visible from the outside.

Upon reaching the surface, you will be directed along a walk through the exteriors of the bunkers in the fortress, including the incomplete heavy artillery bunker, with the large concrete pit from visible above.

Finally, you access one of the bunkers, which appears pierced and heavily damaged from the outside. On the inside the firing chamber is fairly well conserved, with the original embrasures for machine guns still in place. The wall is pierced presumably by a shell or mine.

This very bunker was used also for testing high-yield explosives, and as a result of a huge explosion it shifted sideward of a few feet, without collapsing and with no alterations to its general shape – really sturdy! You can clearly appreciate the shift by going down in the stairwell!

You will then return to the main entrance with the ticket office where the visit will finish.

Getting there and moving around

The bunker parking can be found very easily driving north of the road N. 11 between Cervena Voda and Cerkovice. The area is popular for nature trail hiking, and the fort is also a popular attraction. Following the road signs, you will be driven to an observation tower on top of a mountain.

From there, the entrance to the bunker can be reached only by taking a trail which descends along the northwestern side of the mountain. The distance to cover by foot is a good 1.5 miles, so this should be taken into consideration when planning your trip. You have to go uphill on your way back to the parking, so the trail is more demanding when you are leaving. There are signs on every crossing, so you should not get lost. By the way, the walk is really nice, going in the trees with some bird-eye views on this beautiful countryside!

Once at the entrance of the bunker you can find refreshments and souvenirs. The bunker can be visited only with a guide. They are offering three options for the visit, each of them adding something to the other, yielding a difference in time. I took the most complete tour, and it took about 180 minutes.

You are provided jackets for staying inside – even though the temperature is not extremely low, especially if you are wearing technical trekking clothes, which are recommended for the preliminary trail to the entrance. The jackets are dirty, so it’s better to bring one of your own, as they almost force you to have something to cover in!

The tour is offered in Czech, with explanations in English provided on all panels and on a leaflet you can borrow inside. There is a fee for taking pictures, but both this and the entry ticket are rather cheap. Further info on their official website.

Hurka

The Hurka fortress is an installation pretty similar to the Bouda site, at least considering the inside part. After some years of closure following WWII, the Hurka site was converted into an ammunition depot in the 1960s. The modifications inside include some demolition work on the soft walls and frames, so the structure is mainly composed of large vaults.

The tunnels can be visited only with a guide. The visit starts from the original gate of the underground facility, where all supplies could be placed on a narrow-gauge convoy. An external loading platform can be spotted, together with specimens of anti-tank devices and of the reinforced observation turrets.

Inside, an incline leads to the initial part of a long straight tunnel. The exhibitions provide an impressions of an ammo storage, and there are also weapons and armored embrasures from the fort.

An interesting exhibition prepared in one of the halls is about the activities of the agents of the Czechoslovakian government in exile during WWII. This included launching paratroopers over the territory of the former Republic, tasked with establishing contact with dissident anti-Nazi movements, and carrying out high-risk, top-priority missions. A pretty famous mission they were tasked with was the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, a top-ranking SS, since 1941 responsible for the administration of the annexed territory of todays Czech Republic. A bloodthirsty, feared and hated figure, he died in hospital soon after having being shot in June 1942 in an operation codenamed ‘Anthropoid’. All the spies involved in the operation were later killed, and terrible retaliation actions were taken by the Nazis on the local population. An international movie was produced on this subject in 2016.

You don’t get access to the firing positions from inside, but you can visit them from the outside on your own and with no restrictions.

A pretty rare feature is a ‘top of the line’ artillery bunker, with three shooting embrasures on one side. This bunker is today standing severely damaged from German fire, inflicted during weapon testing. The bunker was actually de-interred by the Nazis to expose its walls, and perforation cannons were tested on it. Among them, the so-called Röchling shells, with a high perforation potential, adopted operationally but used very rarely in action by the Germans.

The other artillery positions are scattered on a grassy area on the side of a hill dominating a local valley. You can see the damages inflicted by fire testing, and the empty boxes of the metal turrets salvaged by the Germans.

Getting there and moving around

The tour of the underground starts from the original access bunker, which can be reached just north of Kraliky on road N.312. Convenient parking outside. The underground can be accessed only with a guide. The ticked office offers also food and beverages. More info on their official website.

The firing positions can be toured on your own. They can be accessed driving about 0.3 miles north along the same N.312 road to the top of the hill, and turning left on an unpaved road. You will soon see a bar with a prohibition sign for cars. You can park nearby on the grass and proceed by foot, you will meet the fortification with an almost flat walk of 0.15 miles. There are signs with multi-language explanations close to each of the bunkers. The place is really nice, and the walk is highly recommended.

Forts of the Maginot Line

Soon after the end of WWI, the government and the top-ranking officials of the victorious French Army set plans for a defensive system along the eastern border, which would protect the nation from future invasions. The ambitious plan was initially based on a line of reinforced concrete forts placed along the border with Italy, Germany, Luxembourg. Construction started in the last 1920s, and the defense system was named after Henri Maginot, ministry of war at the time and a major advocate of the project, who died well before its completion in 1932.

Construction works continued till at least 1935 on the Italian and German sectors. Soon after, in 1936 due to the re-negotiations of the alliance with Belgium, the line was partly extended along the border between France and Belgium, but it never reached completion, thus failing to seal that sector of the border – which might have been possible only by reaching the coast of the Channel.

When the first thunders of war resounded in Europe in 1939, the forts of the Maginot line were reinforced further. The German Army planned an attack accounting for the presence of the line, and when the invasion of France was enacted in May 1940, a small diversionary army was sent against the French forts, while most of the Wehrmacht moved quickly through the forests of southeast Belgium – the Ardennes – finally entering France in the region of Sedan, next to the western extremity of the French defensive line. So the immense defensive system was outflanked in about three weeks, and an armistice between France and Germany followed soon in June 1940.

The Maginot line is composed of 108 major forts – ‘ouvrage’ in French – plus many more smaller installations. These bunkers had often different characteristics depending on the region, and were interred to an extent depending on the local characteristics of the terrain. Typical features of these forts are turrets with cannons and periscopes. Larger forts have usually two separate entrances for the troops and for supplying goods – shells, grenades, kerosene for the electric generators, food, medical supplies, etc.. These forts could house more than 1’000 troops each. Larger bunkers were often connected by a network of underground tunnels with smaller observation or firing positions, or reinforced barracks. There was also a dedicated telephone communication network all along the line.

Many forts of the line never sustained attacks, while some did. Some were even used in the closing months of the war by the US Army, as strongpoints during field battles against the retreating German Army.

Today, many forts of the line are preserved as national monuments. Some of them are open as top-ranking museums, some have been entrusted to local societies of enthusiasts which allow to visit them on a regular or limited basis. Some are usually shut and inaccessible except by arrangement.

This chapter is about a few forts of the Maginot Line in northeastern France visited in 2016. These highlights provide an insight on the typical construction of these defensive installations. Featured are many photographs taken during these visits.

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Sights

Ouvrage de la Ferté

This smaller fort is probably the one in the Maginot Line which saw the most intense action. Located in the beautiful countryside north of historical Sedan, on the border with Belgium, this fort is where the invading Wehrmacht inflicted a first major blow, entering French territory in Spring 1940. It was in the focus of a direct German attack between May 18th-19th, 1940, and no one of the French soldiers in the fort survived.

This installation, located on top of a hill, is composed of two main blocks, connected by an underground tunnel. The interior can be visited only on a guided tour, while the exteriors can be walked freely. The visit starts in the visitor center,  with a very nice animated movie telling the story of the fort, and of the momentous events of May 1940 it was involved in.

Then you are taken to the entrance of the bunker nearby. Getting closer, you are shown original defensive obstacles originally placed along the perimeter of many forts of the Maginot Line. There are six lines of rail beams stuck vertically in the ground, to stop tanks and vehicles, plus lines of barbed wire against attacking troops.

The entrance is through a bunker – Block 1 – emerging from the side of a hill. On top there are thick metal turrets for observation and rifle/machine gun firing. The entrance is through a smaller drawbridge, leaning over a dry moat. This is a distinctive feature of many similar forts of the line. An attacker close to the main door would find himself on the line of fire of anti-tank and lighter arms shooting through sealed loopholes in the wall of the bunker, and vulnerable to grenade attacks, which could be slipped through specially built inclined tubes. From the apron ahead of the bunker you can spot in the distance another concrete bunker part of the same group, about 1 mile away to the southeast. It cannot be visited.

Once inside you can see the shooting chamber opposite the wall close to the main door. Original light weapons are still in place – an anti-tank cannon and a machine gun. Close by there are the dormitories for the troops, the office of the commander and other service rooms, including bulky filters for the ventilation system.

During the fight, a grenade exploded inside the bunker, and this produced an extensive damage. Some non-structural walls collapsed, and what remains can be seen today. The ensuing fire was the final cause of the French disaster during the German attack, as the gas masks of the French troops were not designed against carbon monoxide resulting from a usual fire – most soldiers died from asphyxia.

The guide will drive you to the other block, walking along the connection tunnel. Block 2 features a revolving turret, which could be also retracted for sealing the bunker when necessary. When extracted, it exposed the barrels of various light weapons. This turret can be accessed if you are sufficiently agile. It was put out of combat by applying explosives which stuck the revolving mechanism – the turret has since then assumed a slightly banked attitude.

The guided tour ends after exiting through the door of Block 2. Moving around on top of the construction, you can see the clear signs of the German shelling on top of the turrets. Also the print left by a pack of explosive stick to the side of the revolving turret, but causing little damage, can be clearly spotted.

Between the two blocks, on the side of a local road crossing the site, a further concrete bunker with a small door – this time totally inaccessible – can be found. Opposite the road, there is a monument to the French soldiers who were killed in the attack.

Getting there and moving around

This site is really worth visiting also for those with a general interest for history, and it offers a very good insight on the specific features of the Maginot Line for technically minded people as well. The guide is very knowledgeable, and provides explanations in English also during visits in French. The place is managed as a modern museum, website here. The guided tour will last approximately 45 minutes. Allow more for touring the outside on your own and taking pictures. It can be reached along the road connecting Villy and La Ferté-sur-Chiers, less than 20 miles southeast of Sedan.

Ouvrage Simserhof

This is one of the big forts – ‘gros ouvrage’ – of the Maginot Line, located close to the German border. It was dug in the side of a hill, with two separate gates. The lower one at the foot of the hill was for supply, where the top one, close to the top of the hill, was for the troops. Both gates are reinforced concrete bunkers with loopholes for light artillery to defend the apron ahead of the entrance.

The place has a modern visitor center. The visit – only possible with a guide – is articulated in two parts. The first is a tour of the lower level, which used to be the storage for ammunitions as well as anything needed to supply the activities going on in the fort. This level has been converted into a dynamic exhibition, with sounds, a narrating voice, some visual effects. It is toured conveniently sitting on a cable car. The second part is a classic guided tour of the top-level, and it will start from the top entrance.

The inside of the fort is huge, and the tour is pretty extensive. You are shown the firing chambers besides the entrance, many tunnels, dormitories, living quarters for the troops, medical rooms, the rooms for the electrical generators, and many other service rooms. Remarkably though, you are not shown the artillery installations in the peripheral blocks.

Getting there and moving around

The museum is a prominent tourist attraction in the area. The visit to the lower level is more for children and people with a very general interest for 20th century history. The original setting was changed deeply to host a modern dynamic exhibition, which may not appeal to more technically minded subjects. The visit to the top part lasts about 1.5 hour, and is maybe too hard for kids. Many technical details are provided here and many items shown. Yet the fact that you cannot access any artillery position – at least when I visited – is a bit disappointing. Everything in French only when I visited. Info and timetables for visiting from their website. The closest sizable town is Saarbrücken, Germany, about 30 miles northwest of the site.

Ouvrage du Four à Chaux

This is an intermediate size fort, which hosted around 600 men in the days of operation. The visit – only possible with a guide – is very interesting, as the fort has many characteristics typical to larger installations of the Maginot Line – like Simserhof, see above – but it is more compact and easy to visit. Furthermore, during the visit you are shown all areas of major importance, covering the housing part, as well as the artillery control and firing part.

Much like larger forts, there are two entrances at two different levels on the side of a hill. You get inside through the top one, for troops. Access is by a drawbridge over a small artificial dry moat. From there, you are shown a series of long corridors and tunnels, along which you can find the dormitories and technical rooms.

A special feature is an escape tunnel, built vertically and reaching the top of the hill from the core of the fort. The tunnel is actually made of two twin parts, where the first was designed to be filled up with debris coming from the top of the hill in case of an attack, leaving the other free. This way escape was possible even after the emergency exit had been specifically targeted you enemy fire, causing the debris to fall inside. Further features include the big filters of the ventilation system.

The firing control area can be reached following a corridor going gently uphill. Here you are shown the technical situation rooms from where war operations were coordinated. Several panels and cutouts provide an idea of the structure of the fort.

Then you get access to the ammo storage. Here ammunitions for bigger calibers were put in canisters which were moved thanks to a rail hanging from the ceiling. Larger used shells were conveyed from the cannon to a storage area throwing them on a slide.

One of the retractable turrets is still perfectly working. The guide will operate the mechanism, showing how the turret can be moved up and down, and also how it can rotate. A closed circuit camera shows the turret from outside, thus allowing to better appreciate the effect of the mechanisms you see standing inside. This part is very interesting, and provides a good idea of how the fort worked during a battle.

The guide will finally drive you to the exit through the lower entrance originally for resupply, which is reached going down an inclined tunnel, used to load trolleys full of ammunitions moving them from the storage level to the operative quarters of the fort.

Close by the exit you can find an American M41 tank used as a gate guardian!

Getting there and moving around

The visit of this fort takes about 2 hours and it is very interesting. The museum is possibly less famous than others in the Maginot Line, which makes it more enjoyable, as groups are smaller and the staff is more dedicated. On the other hand, opening times are more limited, you can find information on their website. The visit was in French, but the guide answered my questions in English, plus you are provided a detailed paper guide in English – and probably other languages as well – for the time of the tour. The fort is on the premises of the town of Lembach, about 20 miles north of Strasbourg in the northeastern corner of France, right on the border with Germany.

Casemate Esch

This smaller reinforced artillery position is only rarely open to the public. Yet even from the outside it makes for a pretty unique sight. Actually this installation found itself in the middle of a storm in January 1945, when the 14th Armored Division of the US Army was stopped by the German army in the area of Haguenau during operation ‘Nordwind’, conceived by the Wehrmacht to repeat the success of the offensive in the Ardennes of May 1940. Many found shelter in this fort as a fierce tank battle raged all around.

Heavy damage resulting from intense shelling can be clearly spotted on this relatively small reinforced concrete building. A M4 Sherman tank has been placed on top of the bunker as a memorial.

Getting there and moving around

The barracks can be visited only on Sunday during the warm season. A view of the outside may be interesting, especially if you have already an idea of what a Maginot fort looks like from the inside. The place can be spotted easily on the side of D-28 less than 1 miles southeast of the small village of Hatten, some 15 miles north of Strasbourg. Information through the website of the larger Schoenenburg fort. For the outside, a tour of 15 minutes should be enough.

Abri de Hatten

This site is actually an extremely interesting WWII and Cold War museum, centered on the reinforced barracks in the village of Hatten, part of the Maginot Line. Inside the barracks, which can be toured on your own, you can find some of the original rooms rebuilt with their original furniture, especially a dormitory, a kitchen, medical facilities, air filters and power generators.

Due to the big size of the bunker, some rooms have been used to host extremely interesting exhibitions. These are about the life in the area in the times of the German occupation. Pictures and rare original artifacts with Nazi insignia are part of the collection. A unique German map of the world from 1941 is displayed – showing with the Swastika as the national flag of Germany, and many borders in Europe looking very different from now!

A room is dedicated to the wreck of a Messerchmitt Me-262 Schwalbe, the worlds first operative jet engined fighter. This aircraft was downed nearby the fort in the closing days of WWII. The two jet engines make for an interesting sight, plus there are many components of the avionics system originally on board this very aircraft, really futuristic at the time.

Another room showcases detection and communication gear from the Cold War years, and from both sides of the Iron Curtain. This recalls the fact that, soon after WWII, France decided to keep the largely untouched Maginot Line as a defensive installation against the Soviets. Having grown obsolete after nuclear stockpiles had begun to be produced also in France, the line was finally decommissioned by the early 1960s.

The premises of the reinforced barracks are scattered with further interesting items, including cannons of several makes and bores, anti-tank, anti-aircraft and heavier field cannons, from France, Germany, the US and the Eastern Bloc.

There are a MiG-21 and a Mil helicopter from the communist German Democratic Republic (GDR), a French Dassault Mirage, several antennas, a Soviet surface to air missile, more trucks from the GDR. There is also what appears to be a partly authentic border control booth with national insignia from the former border between possibly West Germany – maybe somewhere in Berlin – and the GDR.

There is a small memorial building dedicated to a group of soldiers of the French Army which after the armistice with Germany in 1940 were integrated in the Wehrmacht, and later sent to fight on the side of the Germans against the Soviets on the European Eastern Front. Due to the very harsh conditions of that sector of the front, many would never come back.

There are also two further buildings in the museum. The first is about the Maginot Line, with a comprehensive – and very interesting – collection of models of its various types of forts and reinforced structures. The second is on WWII, with remains of a downed Republic P-47 Thunderbolt, German transport vehicles, and many artifacts and weapons.

Among the most peculiar items on display there is a parachute for pigeons. These birds were extensively used for communication between occupied France and Britain. British birds were parachuted in France. If they fell in the right hands, they could be loaded with a message and launched. Their instinct would then guide them back to their home base across the Channel. Some of these birds even received military decorations for their bravery in this vital service!

Finally, a small collection of heavy army vehicles are kept in operative conditions by a local society of enthusiasts. These include US half-tracked vehicles, trucks, an American M60 and a Soviet T-34 tank!

Getting there and moving around

This unique, one-of-a-kind collection can be visited on a self-guided basis. Depending on your interest, a visit may take from 45 minutes to more than 2 hours. A website with some visiting information is here. There location is on Rue de l’Abri, immediately to the west of the village of Hatten, 15 miles north of Strasbourg. Most explanations are in French and German, plus scant signs in English. Please note that they accept only cash.

Fort de Mutzig – Feste Kaiser Wilhelm II

While not a part of the Maginot Line, the history of this fort is interesting, for it was erected by the Germans at the end of the 19th century, when the regions of Alsace and Lorraine – now part of France – had been lost to the German Reich following the French defeat in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870. It was designed and built as the most technologically advanced fort of its time. The construction was based on concrete instead of masonry, which made it capable of withstanding heavy shelling from the most modern and powerful howitzers of its age. It was made of three sectors, erected on top of a hill not far from Strasbourg, and was part of a defensive line built around that city against the French. It was dedicated to Kaiser Wilhelm II.

This immense structure featured two batteries of four heavy 150 mm howitzers and fourteen 105 mm cannons in specifically designed turrets, plus lighter observation and firing turrets. About 1’000 men stationed in the fort, which saw limited action in WWI and was ceded to France in 1918. Correspondingly, it changed name to Fort de Mutzig. At the beginning of WWII, it was regained by the invading German Army, which occupied it but later sent the cannons to the Atlantic Wall. It was bombed by the Luftwaffe in the closing days of WWII, but it basically went through the turbulent first half of the 20th century without sustaining any major damage. It was later abandoned and re-opened as a museum, frequently updated as more sections are restored.

It is today one of the largest and best preserved examples of early concrete forts – actually a good example of WWI military architecture, as construction techniques remained very similar until after WWI.

Visiting is possible only in guided groups. The visit will take you to the northern sector, where you can see the firing chamber for defending the gate, and a series of rooms including the living quarters of the troops stationed there. There are a the dormitories, a medical room and even a bakery. Most writing from the time is in German, and most machines bear the name of a German brand! You can visit the original toilet – even there, no privacy was allowed, to prevent the troops from committing suicide by always keeping a watch on them.

Inside the many empty rooms, there are exhibitions of artifacts like models of the turrets, reinforced observation posts and weapons from the original supply of the fort.

Interestingly, the original electric generators have been carefully restored together with the power-plant control panel – very nice, really from an older age!

The tour of the exterior will take you to the top of the fort, where observation and firing turrets can be seen from the outside.

Finally, a battery of four 150 mm howitzers is approached and visited.

Getting there and moving around

The fort can be reached on top of a hill about 12 miles west of Strasbourg. The road going uphill starts between the villages of Mutzig and Dinsheim-sur-Bruche. The guided tour – the only way to visit – takes about 1.5 hours. The visit will be extremely interesting for the general public and more technically minded people as well. Website with information here.

Jüterbog/Niedergörsdorf – Abandoned Flight Academy in the GDR

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The area around the small town of Jüterbog – located 60 miles south of Berlin – has a long military tradition, with storages, barracks and training installations in place since the years of the Kaiser and Bismarck, about mid-19th century.

The region was selected for building one of the first flight academies in Germany before WWI, and flight activities with airships and other exotic flying material from the early age of aviation took place in those years.

Much was forcibly dismantled following the defeat of Germany in 1918, but the place regained primary attention with the advent of Hitler and the Nazi party to power. Among the various military installations built in the area, a modern flight academy was erected anew – baptized ‘Fliegertechnische Schule Niedergörsdorf’.

Initial technical training for both ground and flying staff of the Luftwaffe was imparted here until the break out of WWII and the conquest of Poland, when the academy moved to Warsaw.

The extensive group of buildings in Jüterbog retained a primary role in the advanced training of flight officers and engineers, aircraft and engine technicians. Technical personnel were trained to operate innovative weapon systems, in collaboration with research centers of the Luftwaffe.

With the end of the war the region fell under Soviet rule, and the military facilities – including the academy, which survived the war largely intact – were reassigned to various functions.

Info is available in less detail about this part of the story, as typical with military bases in the territories occupied by the Soviets… Part of the buildings of the academy were used again for training staff of tank divisions, but also a KGB station was reportedly activated there. As with most Soviet installations, it was given back to reunified Germany by 1994.

The place is since then abandoned, but differently from other sites formerly managed by the Soviets, it has been inscribed in the registry of landmark buildings, being an interesting specimen of Nazi military architecture.

Following WWII, the nearby airbase of Jüterbog – about a mile south of the academy complex – was operated both by East German (GDR) and Soviet air combat groups, until the Russians left in 1992. Soon after, the airport was permanently closed and partly dismantled. Unlike other Soviet bases in the GDR, flying units there never upgraded to MiG-29, so the aircraft shelters you can see there are of the oldest types.

I would suggest visiting the site for two reasons, a) the uniqueness of the architectural composition, with much of what you see dating back from the Nazi era – you can clearly notice the typical Nazi ‘sheer grandeur’, differing from the often poor and shabby Soviet military architecture… b) the very famous mural of the Soviet Soldier, which apart from the result of a little attack by an ignorant writer, is still in an almost perfect shape.

The following photographs were taken in late August 2016.

Sights

Niedergörsdorf Flight Academy

It should be pointed out that this place is actually off-limits, and there are clear prohibition signs at least on the front gate. Furthermore, it is not an isolated installation, but surrounded by other buildings, close to a small but active railway station and not far from a supermarket. Accessing the site via the blocked main gate is clearly not possible.

Finding an easy way in is not difficult, but standing to the signs on the gate, the place is also actively guarded, so you should be quick and concentrated when moving around. In order to shorten your time in, I suggest turning your attention to the northernmost part of the site.

Walking along the northern perimeter inside the base some Cold War, not very artistically significant murals can be spotted on the external wall made of the usual Soviet concrete slabs.

From there you can easily reach the semicircular building of the grand hall, probably the most notable of the base, and the one where the famous mural of the Soviet Soldier is.

When moving around the corner from the back to the front façade of the building, you find yourself on the road leading to the blocked main gate. You may be spotted from outside the base, so be careful.

Once in the area in front of the semicircular building, you can see to the south a nice perspective of the other buildings of the academy, surrounding a large inner court.

The inside of the main semicircular building – which should not be accessed – is in a state of disrepair.

There are two main floors and a less interesting third attic floor.

The beautiful mural of the Soviet Soldier can be easily found close to the stairs.

Here are some other details of this nice and sober example of Soviet monumental art.

Many other parts of the lower floors are covered in painted decorations, but these were probably of lower quality with respect to the Soviet Soldier – which appears to be a real fresco – and are today falling from the walls.

Another highlight of the visit to this building is the grand theatre. You should consider going with a tripod and/or a powerful torchlight for getting better photos than these, for the room is totally dark. Very creepy, btw…!

On the former part of the sports arena to the west of the building complex it is possible to spot a new little gym. Possibly to your surprise you will find the place is still run by a sporting club – this is nice, also for getting a better idea of how the place looked like when it was an active training center. On the cons side, walking around undercover is not easy, and maybe you are violating a private property ‘no trespassing’ instruction – even though I didn’t notice any.

An interesting part of the sports arena is the abandoned pool, which I guess was already part of the Nazi construction plan too – check photographs of postcards of the time on the Internet.

To get an impression of the complex from above, you may have a look to aerial pictures taken during a dedicated flight, reported here.

Jüterbog Airbase

A quick visit to the airbase south of the academy can reveal some interesting sights, including aircraft shelters from the early Cold War era which have been converted to hay storages or garages for agricultural vehicles. Many former taxiways can be freely accessed by car, some of them have been turned into ‘official’ roads. Also the apron in front of the large maintainance hangars can be accessed with a car with no restriction.

A small aeroclub operates with trikes from a new narrow grass runway in the northwestern part of the field, so access to this part of the field is restricted. Interestingly, much of the external fence with barbed wire is still in place around this area.

Other activities on site include go-karting. To the east of the base, part of the shelters are occupied by a private collection – Shelter Albrecht – centered on WWII and Cold War relics (covered in this chapter).

For a comprehensive set of aerial pictures of the base, taken during a flight over the area, have a look to this post.

Compared to other Soviet bases in East Germany, Jüterbog doesn’t offer much to the curious urban explorer today. Yet due to the vicinity of the flight academy it’s surely worth a visit. Furthermore, the countryside around is nice – apart from the unpleasant sight of a real forest of wind turbines! – so you may choose to have a walk around just for pleasure.

The area of Jüterbog is actually full of other interesting sites related to military history, documented in this post.

Getting there and moving around

Reaching the former flight academy is an easy task. The main gate is on Kastanienallee, Niedergörsdorf, and it can be accessed with a 0.1 miles walk from the Altes Lager railway station, again in Niedergorsdorf, Brandenburg. There is a convenient small parking besides the railway station. In case you want to explore the site, I would suggest considering this as a trailhead.

The area of Niedergörsdorf and Jüterbog can be reached in about 1 h 15 min from downtown Berlin by car. This is my preferred way for moving around – I hate having tight schedules when exploring! – but reaching the ‘operational zone’ by train from Berlin would take probably a bit less.

For visiting the base at Jüterbog you will need a car. Driving on the former taxiways is part of the fun when touring the base!

There are aircraft shelters both on the northern and southern sides of the runway, which is oriented in an east-western direction. The most convenient to come close to are those on the northern side, but be careful not to interfere with the many private businesses around. Barb wire fence can be found on the northwestern corner of the base.

I would suggest having a quick look at the Google map of the area for deciding how to move around. I wouldn’t rate these two ‘attractions’ difficult to visit in terms of physical barriers or when it comes to keeping the right course.