Bornholm – Military History of a Contended Danish Island

The small island of Bornholm is today a popular destination for vacation time. Especially in the summer, the small and picturesque towns along the coast, as well as the curvy roads unwinding over the gentle slopes in the countryside, become increasingly crowded with cars, motorbikes, campers and bicycles – however, without reaching the point where a tourist who is looking for relaxation may feel uncomfortable.

The quiet and relaxed aura of this enjoyable piece of land, halfway between the German-Polish coast and that of Sweden – and nonetheless part of Denmark – hides a history pointed of battles and turmoil, lasting from the early era of the vikings until the Cold War.

Quick historical facts

Between the medieval times and the 17th century, the island was often seized by the Hanseatic League, binding together coastal towns in the Baltic and protecting trading routes. During the 17th century, Sweden became a major player in the area, and wars between Denmark and Sweden meant the island changing landlord more than once, with the locals always playing militarily in favor of a union with Denmark, to an extent made possible by their own forces, yet meeting with final success.

A largely forgotten war between Britain and Denmark, taking place in the years of total confusion brought about by Napoleon’s endeavors all over Europe, meant that Bornholm was attacked by the British fleet in more instance between 1808 and 1810, basically without any success.

World War II

The invasion of Denmark by the Third Reich and the capitulation of the Danish government, militarily unable to counter the irresistible march of Hitler’s military forces in April 1940, resulted in Bornholm being occupied by the Germans. The local Danish commander annotated the order not to resist the German take-over with disappointment, feeling that a firmer military response to the invaders was indeed possible. The island was fairly well organized and armed against an air-launched invasion.

The capitulation of Denmark without engaging in a military struggle allowed to obtain less harsh conditions from the occupants, including a limited independent military activity for the first years of WWII. However, a strong anti-German feeling fueled the growth of a resistance movement, including locally in Bornholm.

Similar to what happened to the Danish mainland (see this post), the military planners of the Third Reich included Bornholm in the coastal defense structure on the outer border of the newly acquired German territory – the so-called Atlantic Wall. In particular, construction of a fortress for four 38 cm cannons started on the south-eastern corner of the island, in Dueodde (similar to that in Hanstholm, Denmark, of Vara, Norway). The very efficient Organisation Todt had the first two emplacement largely complete by April 1941. By the attack on the Soviet Union in June 1941 however, and with the rapid expansion of the Third Reich to the east, the fortress in Dueodde was deemed of little use. In the event, construction works never reached completion.

Further significant war-related construction projects on Bornholm included observation posts and several radar stations (Würzburg and Freya types), which could profit from the location of the island on the route taken by bomber groups on their way back to Britain from raids over Berlin or the surrounding region. The proximity with respect to the facility for the development of experimental weapons at Peenemünde (see here) made of Borhnolm a natural place for the installation of measuring equipment. Furthermore, the main coastal town of Rønne – still today the largest center of the island, where most of the commercial and ferry sea traffic goes through – was largely employed as a base for the Kriegsmarine. Actually, more than 600 different German submarine units called this port during the war years, about one half of the entire German submarine fleet!

Diplomatic relations between the Third Reich and Denmark deteriorated rapidly in August 1943, when the Germans – now at a turning point of the war – launched operation Safari, trying to capture all assets of whatever military value from Denmark, thus also destroying its military capability. As a response, Denmark scuttled 32 of its own vessels, and sent a handful to Swedish or to even more distant friendly ports. In Borhnolm all Danish troops were disarmed and taken away from the island.

Somewhat paradoxically, the most tragic events of the war struck Borhnolm at the very end, when the island found itself off the coast of Poland, now taken over by the Soviet Red Army advancing from the east towards Berlin (see this post). As the fear of defeat and imprisonment grew among the ranks of Third Reich forces, following the heavy losses on the eastern front in Spring 1945, many German troops reached Bornholm to prepare for an escape further west, or north to neutral Sweden. This presence was noticed by Soviet intelligence, who intercepted communications mentioning several thousands of German military troops on the island – their actual number has been estimated at around 20’000 by May 1945. The war officially ended in Denmark on May 5th, 1945. However, at that time the chain of command and the communication system in the Third Reich had collapsed, and the local German commanders on Bornholm still retained the order to repel the Soviets with any possible means, without permission to surrender. As a result, the Soviets bombed the island twice, severely damaging Rønne and the port town of Nexø, unharmed up to that point, on May 7th and 8th, 1945.

Soviet Occupation

Following the two Soviet bombing raids, a group of six Soviet torpedo boats sailed from Kolberg, Poland (now Kolobrzeg, see this post), landed and reclaimed control of the island of Bornholm on April 9th, 1945. At that time, about 16’000 German troops and refugees were still on the island, trying to flee to the West or to Sweden by any possible means. Reportedly 700 boats of any kind were involved in this desperate evacuation operation, and about 5’000 Germans (military and civilian) had fled by sea just the day before the Soviet landing.

The anti-German resistance movement on Bornholm joined forces with the Soviets, trying to search for trapped German troops and prevent their escape to the West. The airfield in Rønne was captured on May 9th in one of these joint actions – specifically stopping a German aircraft already taxiing for take-off, after some others had already successfully got airborne! These operations went on until May 20th, and due to the very significant number of German troops still on site, they required drafting people in the Soviet-backed group of ‘freedom fighters’, which afterwards remained the only official local para-military group on the island, besides the Red Army (conversely, members of the the original voluntary resistance movement soon returned to their pre-war civilian occupation).

The Soviet presence on Bornholm constituted a potentially explosive problem. The agreement at Yalta between the US, Britain and the USSR in February 1945, months before the actual capitulation of the Third Reich, had defined that Denmark would remain independent, and specifically not within the Soviet-controlled territories in Europe. The British government, at that time still led by Churchill, was extremely worried by the Soviet capture of Bornholm, and after unofficially questioning the Soviets, the answer was even more appalling – according to Soviet diplomats, the island had to stay under Soviet control indefinitely, through the support of a military contingent of 9’000, soon to reach those already on site!

This led to the beginning of a peculiar page in the history of Bornholm, and of the diplomatic relations between the USSR and the West, which would soon get worse on a global scale, leading to the Cold War. Relations between the local Danish government and the Soviets were generally good at an official level, thanks to the skills of the local leading figure on the Danish side, von Stemann. To keep the public eye on this unsolved issue, he managed to organize an official visit of the Crown Princess of Denmark, who met the Soviet top staff on Bornholm. The day-by-day coexistence with the Soviets was less idyllic, with increasing incidents due to the misconduct of the bored Soviet troops stationed on the island, and the growing discontent among the locals. Uncertainty about Soviet plans fostered fear over a possible long-term occupation.

Finally in December 1945, Britain officially questioned the Soviet government about the case of Bornholm, and Molotov answered that the Soviet Union did not intend to have any permanent base in Denmark (as per the Yalta accords), yet the island was to be retained by the USSR as a guarantee, due to the presence of British troops on the Danish mainland.

The Danish government reacted preparing to retake full control of its own territory, correspondingly asking all foreign troops – from any nation – out of its borders. In March 1946 it was announced that the Soviet troops would leave the island of Bornholm, as Denmark prepared to install its own military forces back on it. In good order, the Soviets actually left the island, the last ship departing Rønne on April 5th, 1946.

The Cold War

Denmark joined NATO as a founding member in 1949, the result of the action of the then prime minister Hans Hedtoft, a former member of the resistance in Denmark, who had got a clear insight of the line of action followed by the Soviet Union, at that time still led by Stalin.

The support given by Denmark to NATO was not obvious for that country, since the proximity to the Eastern Bloc – especially Bornholm, geographically located close to the (by then) Soviet-controlled Polish coast – made Denmark extremely vulnerable and militarily untenable in case of a potential Soviet attack. The policy adopted by the Danish government over the decades of the Cold War in support of NATO was sincere but always carefully calibrated, to reduce the risk of Soviet intervention, which would possibly result in an extremely dangerous escalation.

Consequently, no international NATO base nor any nuclear warhead was ever permanently based in Denmark. Yet highly defended coastal strongholds were established, which can still be seen today (see this post).

Bornholm hit the headlines in the early phase of the Cold War, when the first-ever jet-propelled fighter from beyond the Iron Curtain defected to the West. This happened on March 5th, 1953, the very same day of Stalin’s death. The Polish pilot, 21 years old Franciszek Jarecki, had departed Slupsk airbase in northern Poland on a training mission, when he suddenly left his group and flew as fast and low as he could to Rønne, where he safely landed his aircraft, asking for asylum. The aircraft was a MiG-15, and that was the first time this new type of aircraft, which played havoc against propeller-driven machines in the early phase of the Korean War, could be inspected by Western powers.

The case was treated very carefully from a diplomatic standpoint by Denmark, to avoid provoking a violent reaction on the Soviet side. A technical inspection was carried out in a well-coordinated, highly secretive mission set up by the British and the US, ending with the restitution of the reassembled machine to Poland. Finally, the pilot was granted asylum in the US, where he had a remarkable military career (his flight suit from the defection mission ending up in the Smithsonian collection, at Udvar-Hazy Center, close to Dulles airport in Washington, D.C.). This topic is well covered in the excellent book ‘The secret MiGs of Bornholm‘ by Dick van der Aart (see the bookshop section).

Jarecki’s escape was not an isolated case, since in 1953 and 1956 two more Polish fighter pilots successfully landed (or crash-landed) their aircraft on Bornholm (while another made it all the way to Sweden). Then the Soviets had Polish fighter units relocated further south, where Bornholm was out of range, and took over control of the northernmost bases.

Defection to Borhnolm by air on a jet fighter was rare compared to the overall cases of people reaching Bornholm to flee either communist Poland or the GDR, similarly close to the island. For all the years of the Cold War, Bornholm constituted the goal of dozens of escape attempts, some of them successful, carried out mostly by sea.

The location well within the Soviet area of influence was exploited with the construction of a prominent intelligence base by Denmark, to the advantage of NATO forces. This was again in the Dueodde. The base was very effective and was updated to keep up with upgrades in electronic communication technology over the years until the end of the Cold War. It was later kept in service, and shut off only in 2012.

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A visit to Bornholm today will likely be for relaxation and for enjoying this nice country. However, for those with an interest for its peculiar history there are some very interesting collections and rare sites to visit. They allow to retrace in particular the rich military history of the island, without much effort and with great satisfaction for either researchers or the general public. This post covers five of them, four of which are museums. They were all visited in the summer of 2024, and all photographs were taken in that occasion.

Sights

Bornholm’s Defence Museum, Rønne

A good place to start the exploration of the military history of Bornholm, the Defence Museum (Bornholms Forsvarsmuseum in the local idiom) is located to the south of the town center of Rønne, the busiest seaport and the capital city of the island.

The museum is hosted in two old military buildings, including the local kastellet, a massive tower with a round base, built for coastal defense.

The collection is housed in the courtyard and on the two levels of the first building. For the relatively little area it covers, this collection is extremely rich and informative, with panels covering in depth some specific events, offered in multiple languages including English.

On the ground floor, an interesting exhibition on the evolution of the artillery in Bornholm starts with a display of very old cannons – including possibly the oldest preserved exemplars of some types – and insignia dating from the wars against Sweden.

Then more modern exemplars from the 19th century, and reaching to an American type 105 from WWII, employed on Bornholm in the Cold War period, allow to follow the evolution of this type of weapon.

For more curious visitors, little artifacts interspersed between the larger exhibits on display add much value to the collection. Training material for anti-aircraft artillery from the WWII era, including down-scaled fake aircraft targets, as well as various types of grenades and shells employed with the artillery pieces stationed on the island can be found on display between the big guns on the ground floor.

An original German aiming device has been positioned such to be still usable – you can see outside through the optical system. Note the eagle and swastika marking on the label.

A particularly interesting item, not easy to find in a museum, is a complete launching device for the Stinger missile. This type of ground-to-air anti-aircraft missile, albeit rather rudimentary compared to other offensive missile platforms, has turned out very effective in actual war scenarios, especially against slow-moving aircraft or helicopters. The compact launchpad, operable by a single gunner, features two launching tubes. Aiming is via a visor, and the trigger is placed on two pistol-like grips.

Many radio transmitters and receivers, including a sizable console with stacks mostly made in the US (look at the labels and tags!), are on display together with a rare computer, a Compucorp 625 Mark II, a standalone machine which was employed from the late 1970s to run a software for ballistic computations.

On the top floor of the same building, an exhibition covering some specific military episodes from the 19th century serves as an introduction to the rich collection of memorabilia from WWII and the Cold War.

Decorations from the Third Reich, as well as insignia, uniforms and personal everyday items belonging to the Wehrmacht troops, or to some specific people in the German staff living on the island, are on display, in most cases along with explanatory panels telling their peculiar stories.

Unusual items include a table with mottoes in German, an embroidered napkin with emblems from the winning powers of WWII.

As said in the introduction, Bornholm found itself on the trajectory of allied bombers returning from raids on today’s northeastern Germany (including Berlin). In more instances, bombers damaged by flak fire or by German fighter aircraft, hence unable to make their way home, were forced to crash-land on Bornholm. The detailed history of two of these bombers and their corresponding crews is told in a dedicated set of display cases, showing even the track followed by each of the crew members as they tried to flee Bornholm (occupied by the Germans). Some interesting memorabilia items are on display from those episodes, including personal belongings of the crew members, and cash notes in diverse currencies, with their names written on them. These notes were given specifically to crew members, to help them in case of landing in a foreign country in Europe.

From the same era is a perfectly preserved Enigma machine. This is presented together with a detailed story, which could be retraced by war historians in Bornholm. Actually, this specific machine was made in 1937 and largely employed on the Eastern front in the actions against the Soviet Union. When German troops were fleeing the northern coast of Poland and Germany in the last days of the war (May 1945), the machine arrived to Bornholm, where it was little employed, since the chain of command of the German Army had collapsed by that time. The machine was ditched in the water by the surrendering troops, but it was soon to be found, taken to a private house, and largely forgotten afterwards. Finally, it was donated to the museum decades later.

Another unusual display is about the relics of German experimental weapons landing in Bornholm, and the espionage operations related to their find. Due to the proximity with the island of Usedom and the research center of Wehrner von Braun in Peenemünde, launches from the polygon where V-1 and V-2 were being tested could be spotted sometimes from Bornholm. Actually, early exemplars of a Fieseler Fi-103, aka V-1, first stranded on Bornholm in July and August 1943. They were first discovered by two local Danish citizens belonging to the police, who took quick sketches and pictures, and passed them to the British through the anti-German resistance links. These turned out to be the first photographs of that new weapon to reach the western Allies. The two were captured and imprisoned by the German occupants, but eventually they managed to flee to Sweden.

Some relics of the V-1 crashed on Bornholm are on display, as well as memorabilia items belonging to the two Danes who found the relic. The latter include a British decoration presented for their service.

Additionally, interesting pictures show the contrail of a V-2 photographed over Bornholm, and the picture of another V-2 crashed in Sweden!

Further remains from the era include gauges from the cockpit of German fighter aircraft, captured by the Soviets as they were trying to takeoff from Bornholm and escape, and a ribbon from the ill-fated German passenger ship Wilhelm Gustloff. She was sank by a Soviet submarine roughly 60 miles east of Bornholm in January 1945, while enroute to mainland Germany from former possessions of the Third Reich in nowadays Poland, lost to the advancing Red Army. Losses are estimated in the range of 10’000, making this largely forgotten episode by far the worst-ever naval disaster in history.

Another rich section documents the presence of the Soviets on the island. Artifacts on display range from flags and direction signs for the stationing troops, written in Russian, to many personal items left behind by the Soviets.

Typical propaganda posters are on display as well, similar to more official and non-public items, like transcripts of communications between the local Danish and Soviet commanders from the age of the Soviet occupation of Bornholm in 1945-46.

Many evocative pictures are on display from that time as well, and similarly from the Cold War. Among them, pictures of the Polish MiGs landed on Bornholm, of the many ELINT and COMINT centers put on Bornholm during the decades of the Cold War (including the tower in Nexø, see here), and copy of the Soviet attack plan in case of war against NATO.

A final chapter documented in this nice museum is the service of the Danish Armed Forces within the UN in Cyprus. Tasked with border surveillance between the two regions on the island, Danish forces were involved in action – with some casualties – at the time of the Turkish attack in 1970. They only left the island in the early 1990s.

The kastellet is today mostly empty, and once inside, it is possible to appreciate the original architecture of this bastion, which saw action against the many attempts by foreign attackers to land on Bornholm.

On the outside and in a small depot on the side of the inner courtyard, further items are on display. Propellers from the WWII aircraft crashed in the area represent both the German Luftwaffe (Do-17 bomber) and the Western Allies (B-24 and Halifax bombers).

A Chaffee-type small tank and two armored vehicles are on display, together with naval guns, radar antennas, land robots and artillery aiming gear.

A peculiar sight is one of the observation turrets originally scattered on the territory of the island, for spotting aircraft or other flying stuff and promptly report it.

On display are also sea mines, sonobuoys, radar scopes and parts of torpedoes, some of them interesting Soviet models, likely recovered from the Baltic Sea during the Cold War.

Ahead of the entrance to the museum, a memorial stone has been put more recently by an association of veterans.

Getting there and visiting

The museum is located close to Rønne downtown, from where it can be reached with a short walk (about .3 miles south from the central touristic area). The address is Arsenalvej 8 – 3700 Rønne. There is a little parking area on site. The museum is professionally run, and it has its own dedicated website here (also available in English).

Visiting is strongly recommended as a first stop for an exploration of the military history of Bornholm. For war buffs, WWII and Cold War historians, this place has much in store, and a visit may easily take 2 hours. Less is required for a more basic visit, made easy also by the compactness of the display.

Bornholm’s Museum, Rønne

Bornholm’s Museum is the main facility dedicated to the history of the island. Located in a former hospital, you can immediately notice the presence of a bombing raid shelter in the courtyard. This is an original relic from WWII.

The museum takes all floors of a small building, and it is dedicated to the history of the island in all its aspects, and with artifacts from all ages, including Roman coins and viking accessories.

Of particular interest from the time of the vikings is a collection of golden plates. They are smaller than a human fingernail, and decorated with human figures and other subjects. Plus, they are really many! They are of special interest also due to the fact that nobody knows what they are. Archaeologists found them mostly on Bornholm, and in a much lower quantity elsewhere in Scandinavia.

Fast forward to the 20th century, the museum has on display interesting memorabilia from WWII and from the era of the Soviet occupation.

Among them are original decorations, documents and photographs, from both the German and Soviet sides.

From the early Cold War period, a small piece from Jarecki’s MiG-15 is preserved in a display case, with a picture of President Eisenhower receiving at the White House the first pilot defecting from Eastern Europe (apparently, a young John F. Kennedy appears to stand behind them).

Shop signs and indication signs in Russian, the original working desk of the Danish governor of the island at the time of the Soviet occupation, and everyday working tools belonging to the Soviet staff are among the displays in this museum.

A – perhaps – non-permanent exhibition is dedicated to the Soviets on the island, including the two air bombing raids they carried out in the closing days of WWII, which caused much destruction.

An interesting exhibition on the Cold War in Bornholm examines it from different perspectives. Among them, it is shown how preparations for a nuclear attack included the institution of a civil defense system, similar to most western Countries.

Similarly, the conspicuous wave of defections, of both military staff and civilians, from beyond the Iron Curtain to Bornholm is fully documented. Being located relatively close to the GDR and Poland, Bornholm was a natural target destination for those trying to leave the Baltic coast by sea. On display are documents of seamen asking for asylum, as well as a small dinghy employed for a successful escape attempt. A rather impressive full list of the successful and unsuccessful escape attempts towards Bornholm from the communist world is provided.

In another part of the museum, dedicated to everyday items and business activities, it is possible to find toys and other common tools from the Cold War era, as well as beautiful models of several vessels in service at that time – as well as today.

Getting there and visiting

The museum is one of the major attractions in Rønne, the capital city of the island. It is located within the perimeter of the historical center of the town, and you will be probably visiting it if you are interested in any aspect of the history of Bornholm. The address is Sankt Mortens Gade 29 – 3700 Rønne.

For those with an interest for the military history of the 20th century, the collection of this museum makes for a nice complement to that to be found in the Defence Museum (see above).

For a complete visit, 1 to 2 hours are likely enough. Less than 1 hour is needed if you are mostly interested to the WWII and Cold War part, including the nice exhibition on the Soviet presence.

The museum has regular opening times and a fully documented website here (also available in English).

Bornholm’s Tower, Nexø

The tower is an authentic relic from the Cold War. The intelligence site in Dueodde (close to the major town of Nexø, itself close to the southeastern corner of Bornholm) was originally established in 1958, in the facilities of an old lighthouse from 1876, which is still standing besides the new tower.

The task was that of intercepting communications from Soviet channels, primarily to the aim of knowing of any potentially offensive maneuver against Denmark or NATO in advance. The geographical location of Bornholm made it ideal for installing such a plant, since this territory is significantly farther east than the Danish mainland, hence closer to the Eastern Bloc and the Soviet Union.

Soon after the take over of the lighthouse by the Danish intelligence and the installation of the first technical gear, continuous improvement started around that facility, leading to the construction of a dedicated tower, which stood until the mid 1980s, and was extensively employed for gathering useful intelligence. Among the most notable information obtained in favor of NATO forces were the reports witnessing the preparation of an attack by the Warsaw Pact forces on Czechoslovakia, at the time of Dubcek’s attempted reformation of the communist system in 1968 – an invasion which eventually took place, tragically putting an end to a new political course in that Country.

The relevance of the site in Dueodde in the panorama of NATO intelligence is further shown by the decision to substantially upgrade the technical installation, demolishing the existing infrastructure and building anew a more modern and massive tower in 1986.

The new tower was operated continuously until 2012, when the installation was finally shut down, and the facility was partly demolished and sold. It is since then privately owned, and it has now reopened for visitors.

A visit allows to explore the foundations of the tower, where cables and pipelines – including compressed air and coolant fluid – can still be seen. Compressed air was employed for keeping in shape the special ‘shells’ where the technical stuff used to be put.

These shells were arranged hanging vertically from the concrete tower, which is the only part remaining today (the shells are gone, you can see two of the original platforms in the courtyard, close to the original cooling station). Coolant fluid was employed for the big servers which hosted and processed data. A wind monitoring cabinet – made in USA – can be found at the ground level of the tower.

By taking the original elevator, it is possible to climb to the top, where the view ranges in all directions, and allows to see the beautiful white dunes for which this area is mostly famous.

Inside the facility, mostly empty today, it is possible to see some remnants of the server rooms. Most of the empty rooms have been employed for a display of electronic cabinets and communication gear. A reconstruction of some of original technical rooms has been attempted, and the display is completed with historical pictures of the site.

Server rooms are among the preserved original parts of the tower.

Further rooms host displays related at large to WWII and the Cold War.

An interesting addition to the visit is an original MiG-15, presented in the colors of the Polish Air Force, and resembling those which fled from Poland to Bornholm, at the commands of brave early Cold War defectors. Photographs and copies of newspapers documenting those episodes are on display.

Interestingly, what appears to be a control surface or the part of a wing of an authentic Soviet aircraft can be seen on the side of the display, likely only provisionally.

Scattered along the walls in the exhibition are original pictures, with close-ups of intercepted aircraft from the Soviet bloc.

Getting there and visiting

The tower (Bornholmertarnet in the local idiom) is located close to the white dunes of the strand of Dueodde, on the very southeastern tip of the island, about 4 miles south of the major town of Nexø. The exact formal address is Strandmarksvejen 2 – 3730 Nexø. Large parking on site.

Visiting may take about 1 hour for the interested visitor. The tower can be climbed to the top with an elevator. Visiting the facility and exhibitions does not take much, since most rooms are basically empty.

The official website of this installation is here (multiple translations available).

Bornholm’s Technical Collection, Allinge

This incredible museum has been constituted through the merge of several private collections. In most cases they are very specialized selections of technical items. These range from tractors to airport vehicles, from pocket lighters to radios, from personal computers to naval radar scopes, and much more!

Besides well-stuffed collections, which strike for their size and range, there are also some specialties, like unusual items – typically relics or one-of-a-kind exemplars. Especially the latter include some items from the Cold War chapter of the history of Bornholm.

Actually, possibly the biggest item on display is a SAAB Draken aircraft. This excellent Swedish-made attack aircraft used to fly in the colors of the Danish Air Force (see this post). The exemplar on display comes with some of the accessories, including wing pods, the parachute for brake assistance, etc.

Close by the Draken, it is possible to find several aviation-related displays, like jet engines, optical gear, radar-receiving consoles. There is also the map of the scenic flights offered from an airport which does not exist any more, and which used to be close to the northern coast of the island (the only airport is today that in Rønne).

One of the jet engines looks like an evidence from an aircraft accident, involving a Learjet business jet crash-landed on Bornholm.

Not far from the Draken, another rare aircraft on display is a SAI KZIII, designed and manufactured in Denmark in 1946.

Further finds in the museum are a stop light, which was employed for stopping road traffic on local roads close to the runway, when an aircraft in need of a shallow approach path was landing in Rønne, and the doors originally in an airport building, with stickers of flight associations from all over the world.

A military trailer with radio communication gear is on display, as well as an old truck, which happens to be the very same truck seen boarded by young Soviet soldiers, at the time of the Soviet occupation of Bornholm!

A little collection is made of GDR-made items.

A small room is dedicated to marine detection gear and the corresponding scopes.

Bulky elements on display include a one-of-a-kind locally assembled truck, a monster roadworks machine made in the Third Reich and which never returned to Germany, and trucks for removing snow from the road. They have two engines, one moving the truck, the other moving the spool. The arrangement is rather involved, with an articulated (angled!) shaft carrying mechanical power from the engine to the spool.

Airport gear includes a SAAB car with a runway friction tester in the back, and a truck for spreading anti-ice fluid.

Other rich hi-tech collections include one with radio receivers, another with cameras and video-recorders.

Even one centered on personal computer consoles can be found.

The collection of tractors on display is really impressive, with machines coming from diverse nations and makers.

Other parts of the museum are basically old shops moved in, and in some cases with fully working machinery (like the blacksmith).

The list of collections is really huge! There is surely something for everybody on display.

Getting there and visiting

The museum can be found in the countryside, on the road 159 connecting Rønne to Allinge-Sandvig, one of the biggest settlements on the northern coast, about 1.5 miles from the latter. The exact address is Borrelyngvej 48, 3770 Allinge-Sandvig. Large parking on the premises.

The museum is very peculiar, it features rich collections and it is run by knowledgeable people who are willing to provide descriptions and information also in English. A visit may appeal to everybody including children, and not only to war historians. However, it is duly listed here especially for the war- and aviation-related collections in it. A visit to the entire museum may easily take about 2 hours, especially when talking with the locals. Much less is needed for a quick look at just some parts of it.

The website can be found here.

Soviet War Cemetery, Allinge-Sandvig

Even though Stalin’s USSR finally withdrew from the occupied territory of Bornholm, the conquer of the island by the Soviets in 1945-46 meant the construction of a Soviet war cemetery, similar to those to be found scattered on the territory of the former countries of the Eastern bloc.

A very unassuming and rather intimate monument was inaugurated close to the local Danish graveyard in Allinge-Sandvig. By agreement with the local government, the cemetery is still maintained today.

A central obelisk, with prominent emblems and writings in both Russian and Danish, is placed ahead of a large memorial stone, with the names of fallen Soviet soldiers on it.

Getting there and visiting

The cemetery can be conveniently reached uphill of the village of Allinge-Sandvig. The exact address is Pilegade 18A, 3770 Allinge-Sandvig. Parking is possible on the road in the immediate vicinity of the cemetery. The site is open-air and not fenced, therefore it can be accessed 24/7. Visiting may take 15 minutes.

German coastal gun site, Dueodde

The coastal guns in Dueodde, close to the southeastern corner of the island and the Cold War tower (see above), are not open as a museum, yet they are fairly easily accessible to the general public. They are the most sizable remains of the planned installation for four 38 cm coastal guns, part of the ambitious coastal defense program of the Third Reich known as Atlantic Wall. This particular fortress became pointless after the break-out of hostilities between Hitler’s Germany and the USSR in 1941, since the line of the front shifted significantly towards the east, far away from Bornholm. Since construction works were correspondingly halted, only the unfinished emplacements of two of the cannons remain today, respectively Nr.3 and Nr.4.

The emplacement Nr.3 is easily accessible from the road. You can see the large round base prepared for the revolving gun. The central pinion is still there (note the big diameter of the metal screws, compared with the cover of my wide lens!).

The circular corridor for moving the shells and taking them to the gun can be easily walked.

The construction to the north was planned to shelter the troops manning the station, as well as with a technical part for storing the shells and the explosive cartridges. Many rooms can be accessed – albeit a torchlight is mandatory in this area. However, they are completely empty, and there is nothing more than bare concrete.

The second site, Nr.4, is more secluded within a group of private homes. However, it can be accessed fairly easily by walking. It is basically a twin of the other emplacement, and the state of conservation (including, unfortunately, tons of stupid graffiti) is the same.

Getting there and moving around

The two emplacements are geographically extremely close to the Cold War tower described above. It is possible to park at the tower, in the large parking areas closer to the white dunes strand, or along the road in proximity to these installations.

The coordinates for parking and getting a quick access are for Nr.3: 55.00058432993301, 15.080803777073971, and for Nr.4: 55.00255210231893, 15.084640862385443.

Both sites are not fenced and accessible 24/7. Visiting may take 15 minutes for each of the emplacements – the condition is unfortunately not ideal, with many graffiti likely such to spoil your pictures.

The Wollenberg Bunker – Linking East Germany and the USSR

Heading to Berlin or the former GDR? Looking for traces of the Cold War open for a visit?

A Travel Guide to COLD WAR SITES in EAST GERMANY

Second Edition - 2024

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The events taking place on the geopolitical stage during the last decade of the Cold War – the 1980s – gave little indication of the imminent collapse of the Soviet-led Eastern Bloc (1989-1991). Correspondingly, looking at the amount of technology developed and deployed in the military field during the late, hi-tech stage of the Cold War, it is easy to notice that opponents on both sides of the Iron Curtain dedicated a significant (and even increasing) budget in preparation for a possible total confrontation. Reading papers and specialized books from the time, the outbreak of an open conflict, such to put a violent and abrupt end to years of opposition between the two opposing systems by recurring to nuclear warfare over the territories of Western Europe (most of them belonging to the NATO alliance, and all being substantially more militarized than today), was not deemed just likely, but more as a matter of time.

The БАРС system – The tropospheric network of the Warsaw Pact

In that era of extreme tension, it is not surprising that one of the most sophisticated and expensive assets developed and deployed jointly by all Nations in the Warsaw Pact, of course led by the USSR, came alive. History would cut its life short though, and as soon as the Warsaw Pact disintegrated, as a result of the opt-out from communist dictatorship of all Countries in Eastern Europe, this asset was decommissioned. This system was the tropospheric communication system ‘БАРС’, a Russian word reading ‘BARS’ and meaning ‘snow leopard’. The name stands as an acronym for four words in Russian, which translate into something like ‘Sheltered autonomous radio communication system’.

The idea put forward by the Soviet top-ranking military staff in the early 1980s (prior to the onset of Gorbachev administration) was that of a system capable of transmitting complex orders (not just simple signals, like for opening a bunker door or silo, but articulated messages) in a safe encrypted way, at a long distance and minimizing the chance of a complete breakdown even in case of an enemy nuclear attack. Despite being not new, the concept of a resilient and reliable system, such to allow exchanging significant amount of data without relying on cables, had been tested in earlier stages of the Cold War only for short-radius operations. Mobile transmitters/receivers, loaded on purpose-designed trucks, allowed for a reduction of the risk of a direct hit from an attacker, and for a quick redeployment in case of need. However, for the amount of data and range required for the coordination of a war scenario, involving many different Countries, and geographically encompassing an entire continent, a different system was required, capable of transmitting more massive data flows on longer distances, with a reduced risk of a sudden or complete interruption.

The БАРС system was based on a certain number of stations, scattered over the territory of the Countries of the Warsaw Pact. Each node was built as a bunkerized, manned military installation, featuring high-power, high-frequency fixed antennas emerging from the ground, and an underground shelter protecting all the technical gear required for manipulating the data to be sent or received, interfacing with the other existing local (i.e. national) networks for military and executive governmental communication, and of course managing the tremendous amount of energy required to pump a long-reaching signal into the ether.

Laying on the front line with the West, hosting a Soviet contingent of some hundred thousands troops (see here and links therein), aircraft (see here), missiles (see here) and nuclear warheads (see here), and being a key-ally of the USSR in case of the outbreak of an open war (at least until late 1989), the German Democratic Republic (or GDR, or DDR in German) was clearly included in the БАРС network from the initial drafting phase. Similarly, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Bulgaria, and of course the Soviet Union (which included Belarus and the Baltics, and stretched west to Kaliningrad), all had БАРС stations on their territory. Stations were located at a range of a few hundred miles from one another, thus within the range required for each of them to communicate with one or more of the other nodes. Data (e.g. orders, reports or authorizations) input locally could be relayed along the network through intermediate nodes, down to the intended destination node. There were 26 nodes in total, of which four were in the USSR.

The Wollenberg site – Bunker 301 ‘Tushurka’

The GDR in particular had three stations built, all along the border with Poland, and located east of Berlin – namely Station 301 in Wollenberg, at the same latitude of Berlin, Station 302 in Langsdorf, towards the Baltic coast, and Station 303 in Röhrsdorf (near Königsbruck), not far from Dresden in the southeast of the GDR territory. The first among them, the Wollenberg site (codenamed ‘Tushurka’) could communicate with the other two national stations, as well as with Station 207 in Poland, from where data would be transmitted further down the network, towards the USSR.

The site was built by the GDR state, with technical hardware coming from several Countries within the Warsaw Pact, and most of the military hi-tech components manufactured in the USSR. The actual site (similar to its sister sites) was built in the frame of a highly secretive operation. The staff comprised about 60-70 men, the majority of which were military, where about 15% were civil technicians. Maximum security clearance was required, due to the top-secret nature of the installation and of the overall БАРС system. The bunkerized part of the installation was only a component of the larger premises of the base, camouflaged within the trees on the side of low-rising hill.

As pointed out, the immense spending required for setting up this multi-national hi-tech military communication system, which was extensively tested and completely commissioned (as a network) by 1987, did not save it from a quick demise and disappearance. In particular, Station 301 went definitively offline as early as August 1990.

However, the fate of the Wollenberg site was not so sad as that of many former Soviet or NVA (i.e. the East German Army) installations in the GDR. The high-power antennas were torn down, but except from that, little material damage was inflicted to the buildings and bunker on site. The place was basically shut-off and left dormant, until when a society of technically very competent local enthusiasts started a plan to preserve and open it to visitors, as a memorial specimen of the technology of the Cold War years.

A visit to the Wollenberg bunker site reveals a tremendous deal of interesting details, very uncommon to find elsewhere in the panorama of Cold War relics around Europe. Thanks to a careful preservation and restoration work, the bunker has most of its original systems still plugged to the grid and lit-up – some of them are reportedly still working! Even though the communication networks have been severed, the experience in the bunker is really evoking, and the atmosphere – with all the lit-up cabinets, lights, CCTV cameras, 1980-style screens, etc. – closely resembles that of the bygone era when БАРС was operative!

This report and photographs were taken during a private visit to the bunker, carried out in the Summer of 2023.

Sights

A visit to the the installation in Wollenberg starts from the original high-security access gate. As you may quickly notice when passing through it and getting a first view of the site, the state of preservation is exceptional. Except for the lack of military staff around, everything looks mostly like in the years of operation.

A group of soft-construction service buildings and a reinforced multi-entry garage constitute the first – and visible – nucleus of the installation. All buildings are painted in a camo coat.

A former building for the on-site staff has been turned into a permanent exhibition, with memorabilia items from the Cold War years, when the Nationale Volksarmee (or NVA, the Armed forces of the GDR) cooperated with the Soviet Red Army and the national Armed forces of other Countries in the Warsaw Pact.

A meeting room, now employed also for small gatherings, is especially rich of interesting and diverse items, including emblems, books, memorial plates and pennants, as well as TV screens, hi-fi systems and and beamers from the era.

Another room has been set-up as a control center for the base, with an original console and regional maps.

Compared to military bases (for aircraft or tanks), the Wollenberg installation is rather compact, with a main road giving access to most of the (not many) buildings on site, as well as the bunker. Actually, the bunkerized part was built under a low-rising hill, with the antennas originally standing on top of it. Access to the bunker is possible either by climbing uphill on the main road, or through a suggestive original pedestrian tunnel. The latter starts from within the service building itself, and – somewhat unexpectedly, for an underground installation – it climbs uphill, while keeping beneath the surface of the hill side slope. The lower end is guarded by an original CCTV camera.

At the top end of the tunnel you can find the actual access to the bunker. The design and reinforcement level conferred grade ‘D’ protection according to the military standard in use at the time, with grade ‘A’ being the strongest. Access is through an airlock, constituted by two tight doors at the opposite ends of a small vestibule built in concrete. This design allowed protection from the blast of a nuclear device.

Notably, the locking mechanism of the tight doors is Soviet military standard, which can be found in high-value installations like nuclear depots elsewhere in the Eastern Bloc (see for instance here in Poland, and here in Czechoslovakia).

To the visitor with some experience of Cold War installations, it will be apparent from the very start of the tour that the state of conservation of the bunker, including the systems in it, is exceptional, similar to the rest of the Wollenberg site. The original warning lights and the CC-TV camera for identifying people at the entrance are still in place.

Next to the entrance, a control room with technical gear for checking-in can be found – including original dosimeters for radiation and chemicals, mostly Soviet-made. Looking inside these devices is possible, and reveals a great deal of sophistication in the design and realization of the military-grade material from the time.

Showers and sinks for washing, as well as canister for disposing of contaminated clothes, are located in the same area.

Upon getting access to the sealed area of the bunker and passing by the decontamination facility, you find yourself on the top floor of the underground bunker. The high-technology gear required for the transmission/reception of data on the БАРС network, as well as the interface with other national communication systems, required for receiving data, issuing orders, etc. over the territory of the GDR, were located on this floor.

Two symmetrically placed rooms host two twin transmission centers for the БАРС system. A single manned console can be found in each of them, surrounded by electronic cabinets and switches. At a closer look, all the material herein is Soviet made, and labeled in Russian only.

On the wall ahead of the console station is a set of cables, communicating with the antenna and allowing to set the orientation and monitoring its status.

The actual signals transmitted to the antenna, or received from it, traveled along special hollow ducts, with an almost rectangular section. Bundles of these ducts can be found in the ‘Sender’ (which means ‘transmitter’ in English) room, immediately next to the room where the manned console is.

The modulation and demodulation of the signals going out and coming in respectively through the antenna on top of the bunker required some special pieces of electronics, which included the Soviet-designed KY-374 klystron (codenamed ‘Viola’), a component to be found in the cabinets of the ‘Sender’ room.

Following the hollow ducts, it is possible to find where they finally exit the usually manned part of the bunker, bending into receptacles and leading outside. Piping related to other systems, including air conditioning, can be seen as well crossing or running in the same narrow technical corridors.

Beside the consoles monitoring the antenna and the data flowing through it, a kind of operative room for communication can be found, where consoles allowing to receive and forward data and communication to/from all systems are on display. This largely original room features consoles of different levels of technology.

Original explanatory schemes showing the basic features of the БАРС system are on display in that area – in Russian!

An adjoining room features the cabinets required for making all these system work. The cabinets are really many, with a significant share of material manufactured in the USSR. The sight of all these cabinets together is really impressive, and tangibly provides the feeling of a high technology, sophisticated and expensive design. It compares well, but in a largely up-scaled fashion, to the electronics to be found in some special communication bunkers on the western side of the Iron Curtain (see here).

Interspersed with the original arrangement of the cabinets and consoles are some displays of original material. These include specimens of different types of cables for signal transmission – some of them hollow and pressurized, others featuring impressive bundles of thinner wires – the KY-374 klystron, and other once top-secret core components of the БАРС transmission system. Also on display is one of the few remaining parts of the original system of antennas, once on top of the bunker. The antennas were the only part to be physically torn down when the system was decommissioned, upon the demise of the Warsaw Pact and the end of the Cold War.

The bunker was manned by military and technical staff 24/7. Furthermore, as typical for bunkers from the Cold War era, provision was made at a design level to allow the staff to live isolated within the bunker for an extended period of time, in view of the eventuality to face a nuclear fallout scenario.

On the same floor as the technical rooms, the commander of the station had his own private room. This is still adorned with typical Soviet iconography, as well as everyday material from the age when the bunker was operative.

A small canteen, with a kitchen and a modest living room, can be found at the same level. An original storage room has been employed to gather examples of everyday products, like soap, skin care cream, etc., as well as canned food, cocoa, and beverages of all sorts.

This represents a very rich catalog of now largely defunct and forgotten labels, from the age and regions of the Eastern Bloc (and especially from within the GDR). Also on display are bottles of spirits, likely still very good!

The visit proceeds then to the lower floor, which can be reached through a flight of metal stairs.

The lower floor host the plants required for the regular operation of the entire bunker, such to guarantee operational ability even in case of an enemy attack carried out with nuclear, chemical or biological warfare. The air filtering and conditioning system is very modern. Beside typical filtering drums for particles, to be found also in other bunkers (see for instance Podborsko here), you can see a bulky filtering and climate conditioning system, neatly arranged within two parallel square-shaped ducts. Filtering against chemicals as well as biologic agents was carried out employing special active filters.

Sensors for the level of contamination of the bunker air can be found in different rooms. Much material here is standard Soviet-made.

Systems for water pumping and compressed air can be found as well, including compressors, pumps and reservoirs. Looking at the always interesting factory labels in this area, it is easy to find export products of Bulgaria, Romania and other communist dictatorships of the era. Of course, much hardware is also manufactured in the GDR.

Electricity was supplied from the outside grid, yet capability for self-sustaining in case of a grid loss (for instance in case of war) was implemented as well. Three big German-made Diesel generators have been put in place, and are still in an apparently good condition.

Another example of the high technological standard reached in the late Cold War era is represented by the control room for the plants within the bunker. A manned control station, with a console and a direct view of lit-up cabinets, reporting the status of the various systems running in the bunker, compares well with control rooms of large industrial plants in operation today.

Carefully kept in its original status, with many of the electric links and cabinets still working, the sight of this room is especially evoking.

Also on the lower floor are the sleeping rooms for off-duty staff. Typically, this was not employed except for drills, when the bunker could be sealed to simulate operations in case of the outbreak of hostilities.

Back to the upper floor, it is possible to exit the bunker via a stairway and through a side gate. You will find yourself on top of the low-rise hill where the bunker has been dug. Here the concrete base of the crane where the БАРС antenna used to sit are still visible. Notably, these antennas were much smaller than the tropospheric antennas employed for the TROPOSCATTER system of NATO. This was the result of a different bandwidth employed for transmissions. Therefore, even in the days of operation, the antennas on top of the bunker were not as sizable as those of TROPOSCATTER installations (which were enormous in size).

Looking closely, in the top area of the installation, the duct for supplying the Diesel oil tank of the bunker can be found, similar to sensors for radiation and other atmospheric parameters (similar to what can be found also in other nuclear-proof bases, for instance here). These allowed to monitor the conditions of the outside air, detect an attack and trigger or manage the sealing of the bunker in case of need, by locking all the tight doors.

This access to the bunker is fenced by the original electrified fence, severing this area from the rest of the installation through a further layer of security.

All in all, a visit to the Wollenberg bunker offers an incredible insight in a fascinating and crucial field of warfare – data and communication exchange – as well as a lively and evocative display of a late Cold War hi-tech installation from the Soviet side of the Iron Curtain!

Getting there & Visiting

The German name of the Wollenberg bunker is ‘Militärhistorisches Sonderobjekt 301 Wollenberg’. It can be reached very easily with a car. It can be found in the open countryside along the regional road 158, driving about 35 miles (about 1 hour) northeast from downtown Berlin towards Poland. The exact location is between the small village of Höhenland (~4 miles) and the more sizable Bad Freienwalde (~6 miles). There is a large parking area immediately next to the road, giving direct pedestrian access to the premises of the former military installation. Despite being placed very conveniently, the site is rather elusive when passing by, since it is hidden in the trees and not directly visible from the road. The address corresponding to the place in Google Maps is Sternkrug 4, 16259 Höhenland. The inconspicuous village of Wollenberg, giving the name to the installation, is just nearby, but it is not crossed by the regional road, and it should not be employed for pointing this destination with a nav.

The Wollenberg bunker is a listed historical installation. It is perfectly maintained, privately managed, and it can be regularly accessed with guided tours. These are offered typically one day per week in the summer, or by prior arrangement. Possibly the best option for getting the most out of your visit is getting in contact with the group of very knowledgeable enthusiasts running the place. The official website is here (do not be discouraged by the ‘static’ appearance of the website, they are very active, and they shall typically answer your inquire).

My visit was planned by initiative of Dr. Reiner Helling (see also here), and we visited in a group of three, including the guide (Dr. Michael Schoeneck, a former engineer, with a profound knowledge of any technical aspects related to this installation), which happened to be a perfect option for touring also the narrowest receptacles of the bunker. Visiting in groups too big may be not advisable, since the rooms and corridors are rather narrow, and the place may turn overcrowded for interacting with the guide and for taking good pictures. I think the visit – including the technical content – may be tailored to the needs of the audience. For technical-minded subjects, historians and former military, a visit may take about 2-3 hours (the latter was my experience). In my case, the guide could understand but not speak fluent English, yet Dr. Helling could translate with ease all the explanations. Of course, if you have at least a basic knowledge of German and of the technical material you are looking at, this may simplify your visit, which is in any case highly advisable for those interested in military technology and the Cold War.

Heading to Berlin or the former GDR? Looking for traces of the Cold War open for a visit?

A Travel Guide to COLD WAR SITES in EAST GERMANY

Second Edition - 2024

DON'T LEAVE IT AT HOME! AVAILABLE in PAPERBACK or KINDLE from your national Amazon store!
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Preserved Cold War Bunkers in Northern England

The central role taken by Britain in WWII, firstly containing and then countering the expansion of the Third Reich, is duly and proudly celebrated all around the Country, with memorials and thematic exhibitions, often hosted in historical locations, regularly open for a visit.

The United Kingdom joined NATO as a founding member in 1949, and had already been at the forefront of a European anti-Soviet alliance with France since 1947. The strategic political and military ties with the US, pivotal in putting and end to WWII in Europe, were kept over the following decades, against the menace constituted by the Eastern Bloc. Thanks to its geographical position, and bolstering a nuclear arsenal, strategic bombers and submarines of its own, Britain was a major player of the Cold War.

Despite that, the Cold War left behind comparatively less memories than WWII, with only a handful installations open to the public, and somewhat out of the spotlight. In this regard, this reflects an attitude generally widespread in Europe towards the traces of the second half of the 20th century.

However, for people with an interest in the Cold War age, and more in general for those with a thing for (especially nuclear) warfare technology, there are two really unmissable sights in Northern England, which make for a vivid hands-on experience of the ‘era of Soviet threat’.

One is the Hack Green Secret Nuclear Bunker, with a fascinating history starting in WWII and spanning the entire duration of the Cold War. Here one of the finest collections of nuclear-war-related material in Europe can be found, together with much additional material from the era, in a largely preserved historical site.

Another is the York Cold War Bunker, built in the Cold War age to provide protection to the staff of the Royal Observation Corps (ROC) in case of a nuclear attack, as well as the ability to help coordinating fundamental public functions – health, transportation, food and energy supply, etc. – in a post-attack nuclear fallout scenario.

Both sites are regularly open for a visit, and provide a vivid testimony of civil and military plans and facilities seriously prepared in England for a nuclear apocalypse scenario.

Sights

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Hack Green Secret Nuclear Bunker

The Hack Green site is located deep in the Cheshire countryside, about one hour driving south of Manchester. Actually, it is in a really secluded location, far from any sizable urban center, and away from major roads. Even today, when this facility is working as a top-level museum, some attention to the signs is needed to reach the site.

Once by the gate, you are immediately driven back in time by the appearance of the tall military-style external fence with official government signs, and by the blunt and in impenetrable appearance of the big concrete bunker – what you see is only the part above ground level! – with a big antenna protruding from the top. Nearby, you can see an apparently still off-limits area, with a now-dead radar antenna and an old Jet Provost trainer in RAF colors.

History

The history of the Hack Green site dates to as back as WWII, when it was established as one of the 12 most developed Ground Controlled Intercept (GCI) centers, out of 21 total nodes in Britain. Essentially based on the airspace scanning radar plants available at the time, the so-constituted ‘Chain Home’ surveillance system was operated by the RAF, and intended to track intruding German aircraft, thus directing air force planes against them. Radar aerials appeared on site at the time, suitable against relatively slow moving propeller-driven aircraft of those years.

With the start of the Cold War, and the need to reconfigure the defense against the USSR and Warsaw Pact forces operating with jet-powered aircraft of increasing speed, several modernization plans were started in Britain, aimed at implementing more effective detection and threat-countering radar technology, like ‘Green Garlic’, and later ROTOR. The latter called for the institution of a chain of detection nodes, not much dissimilar in concept from the older ‘Chain Home’ of WWII, but much more articulated, efficient and technologically advanced. At the time one of the most expensive government-funded operations ever, 66 installations were implemented all over Britain within ROTOR before the mid 1950s, with different roles in the network. The bunker you see today on the Hack Green site was one of them.

Keeping up with the fast-developing offensive technology of the 1950s and 1960s required a continuous update of the defensive network, in particular asking for the addition of intercontinental missiles to the enemy arsenal to counter. The US-led ‘Ballistic Missile Early Warning System’ (BMEWS) included 12 early-warning radar stations around the Atlantic, including a single station in the UK (RAF Fylingdales, Yorkshire, still in operation today). Before BMEWS went operational (early 1960s), triggering a re-organization of all other defense radar systems by the time obsolete, Hack Green took an interim role as one of only 4 radar stations operated by the RAF monitoring all military and civilian traffic through the British airspace, coping with new fast jetliners. The name of the Hack Green radar site in that stage was ‘Mersey Radar North’. Finally, in 1966 the RAF released the site to the government, which put it in mothballed status.

It was in 1976 that a new life began for Hack Green. Starting in 1958, the Home Office invested much in the preparation of an emergency structure, capable of keeping of managing a post-nuclear attack scenario, and keeping the basic public functions active. In the event of a total nuclear war, a failure of the national hierarchy and military chain of command was forecast, as a result of an extensive damage to the infrastructures and communication systems. In order to recover as fast as possible in such an emergency, the UK would split in 11 regions, each with a regional seat of government (RSG). In the region, a civil Regional Commissioner would take a leading administrative role, and would be responsible for coordinating disaster recovery operations, like supplying medical resources, food, water, and reconstructing infrastructures, while waiting for the national government to reactivate its functions. The Commissioner would be aided by the UK Warning and Monitoring Organization (UKWMO), which took over the function and organization of the older Royal Observation Corps (ROC) established during WWII. This structure was further potentiated in the 1960s and 1970s, also introducing a similar regional scheme for the military in case of a nuclear attack.

The seat of the RSG was in the Regional Government Head Quarters (RGHQ). Following some years when it was hosted in Preston, then in Southport, north of Liverpool, the RGHQ for the 10th region (then 10:2, following a split in two halves of this large region) found its home in Hack Green. The former radar facility was potentiated enormously, and set up with the ability to host 160 civil and military staff for 3 months without resupply in case of a nuclear attack on the UK.

Within the framework of the emergency plan for a nuclear attack, the RGHQs all over the UK went on operating until the demise of the USSR in December 1991, to be soon deactivated over the following years. Hack Green was scrapped of all content, and put up for sale in 1993. It was privately acquired in the mid-1990s, and carefully restored in some parts, or being stocked with interesting material from the Cold War era in some of the many rooms.

A tour of the bunker

Access to the bunker is via a concrete slide, and through a metal gate. Originally the male civil servants dorm, the first room you meet is now a kind of storage for items recently incorporated in the collection. These include a jeep, a model of an Avro Shackleton, and interestingly a nuclear warhead. The original system to activate the rooftop antenna is in a cabinet along a sidewall.

The ticket office and canteen are now in the original canteen area of the Hack Green site. Restored to a 1960s appearance, parts of the kitchen furniture are original from the site. Along the sidewalls are several memorabilia items, including some original Soviet emblems, not unusual today in museums on the other side of the Iron Curtain (see for instance here), but hard to find in the UK.

An adjoining room reproduces the environment where the ROC would have worked in case of a drill or real nuclear attack. Among their function was the pinpointing of nuclear explosions. The forecast and monitoring of the fallout is strongly bound to the local weather and winds. This was kept under surveillance through reporting stations scattered on the UK territory (more than 1 thousand), which transmitted information to Hack Green and other RGHQ and UKWMO bunkers (see the York bunker later in this post). They could then coordinate recovery operations, avoiding extreme exposure to radiation of the emergency staff.

Monitoring was through dedicated sensors, and communication through specific transmission gear. Two display cases in the same room feature interesting instruments, training documents, and memorabilia items from the rich history of the ROC, documenting also their activities in WWII.

Ground floor

The Hack Green bunker largely retains its original arrangement. It is composed of a ground and an underground floor. Along the main corridors are interesting examples of the papers produced by the UKWMO, and by the civil defense service during the Cold War. Among them, are leaflets for the population, with best practices in case of a nuclear attack.

Also interesting are more technical posters from the era, either outlining the role of the public organizations monitoring a potential nuclear apocalypse scenario, or providing technical details on the effects of nuclear weapons – what to expect in terms of damage or health issues, depending on the type and local condition of a nuclear explosion.

For sure a focal point in the exhibition of Hack Green today is the display of nuclear warheads, and nuclear-related material. Hosted in a room previously employed by emergency staff, the exhibition retraces with original material, mock-ups, rare pictures and videos, the history of the British nuclear arsenal, managed by the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE).

The WE177 was designed to constitute the backbone of the air-dropped nuclear deterrent of the UK. Examples of this bomb are on display together with technical material employed to monitor their status and manage launch or drills. In service between the 1960s and the 1990s in association with larger strategic bombers like the Vulcan, or smaller fighter-bombers like some versions of the Harrier or Jaguar, it could be assembled in some different versions, sharing the same baseline construction, but with nominal yields ranging between 10 to 450 kilotons.

Also on display are pictures and mock-ups of the old Polaris warhead, together with the original casing employed to transport this 200 kilotons item! A US design, the Polaris was acquired by the UK in 1963, to supply the Royal Navy and constitute the UK underwater deterrent. The Polaris missile featured a three-warheads fuse, bearing a total yield of 600 kilotons.

A very rare artifact is the warhead of project Chevaline, a British design to improve the potential of the Polaris, which saw limited service with the Royal Navy in the 1980s. The Polaris/Chevaline was replaced by the Trident missile system, still employed today in the nuclear deterrent role.

Besides the central exhibition of nuclear warheads, the display cases in the same room offer a wealth of super-interesting technical gear and memorabilia related to nuclear weapons. These include components and cabinets of radio and radar systems, to be transported on board aircraft or to be employed on the ground. These parts come from different ages, and from several Countries, including the Eastern Bloc – for instance, a very rare Soviet suit to work on high-power radar antennas for maintenance. Powerful radars actually emit rays with a high power-over-volume (power density) ratio especially in the vicinity of the emitting apparatus. This may even turn deadly for humans (roughly like being in a microwave oven would be!), and precautions are needed when working in such environment.

A really unique collection on display is related to Geiger counters and dosimeters. These include environmental and personal use devices, from various ages and nationality.

Two display cases are dedicated to material coming from beyond the Iron Curtain, most notably from the USSR and the GDR! It is really hard to imagine how this material could manage to come to Hack Green.

Part of the display is dedicated to the civil defense corps of different Countries, with helmets, emblems, papers and uniforms, showing how similar actions in preparations for a nuclear war were carried out in many Nations of continental Europe, also in the Eastern Bloc. Actually, a very close relative of the UKWMO RGHQ control center, with a totally similar function, can be found in a perfectly preserved condition in Poland (see this post).

More memorabilia items come from the history of civil defense in the UK. Among the most rare artifacts are the only surviving example of the ‘Queen’s telephone’, which was employed for enforcing the Emergency Power Act, which among other things may have transferred power to the Regional Commissioner. There used to be one such phone in each of the RGHQ, but all were destroyed for security reasons following the shut-off of the bunkers, except this one, and the one at the other end of the line – in the Royal residence.

An adjoining room hosts a reconstruction of the radar screen room from the age Hack Green was employed as a radar station managed by the RAF. All panels are lit, providing a vivid, pure Cold War experience!

To the end of the main corridor, you can reach another entrance to the bunker, which is nowadays normally shut. However, this used to be the main entrance, and close to it are the control room of the bunker and the decontamination area.

The control room is not accessible, but the large windows allow to take a glance to its original appearance. It is still employed to control electric power and air conditioning. Manned nuclear-proof bunkers are customarily pressurized, sucking contaminated air from the outside, which is carefully filtered for poisons and radioactive particles, and pumping unfiltered bunker air to the outside (see this post for another example in a Soviet bunker).

People entering after work out in the fallout-polluted environment were decontaminated through showers, and used anti-radiation suits were left in an isolated sink still on display.

Before leaving the ground floor, you can find on the ground level the female dorm for the staff of the RGHQ bunker. In the same room, an original system for communicating on the very low frequency bandwidth has been put on display. This Cold War relic could be employed to issue orders to the strategic submarine force. This very cabinet was employed by Prime Minister Thatcher for ordering the attack against the Argentinian ship General Belgrano.

A final room on this floor is the sick bay, sized for the staff of Hack Green only, but equipped to manage health issues resulting from the exposition to a nuclear attack.

Underground floor

Descending to the underground floor is possible via the original stairs. The first room you meet features an exhibition of original Soviet uniforms, belonging to some high-ranking officials from various branches of the Red Army. Really hard to see in this part of the world, their origin is well documented.

Close by, is a small display of military material from the Soviet bloc, ranging from original weapons, to communication systems, emblems and instructional posters for the troops (similar to what you can find in dedicated museums in former Warsaw Pact Countries, like here or here).

Nearby is a communication room originally employed by the military staff of the bunker, working in parallel with civil servants in the management of the nuclear emergency. Original radio transmission gear of military standard is still in place.

Before entering the core preserved area of the bunker, i.e. the rooms of the RGHQ, you can find the original water and air supply systems, and the corresponding technical cabinets, in a big room on the underground level.

The rooms of the RGHQ are all interconnected, and located to the side of the corridor on the underground floor. The way they look is from the days of activity of Hack Green as a RGHQ, i.e. the 1980s. Typical Cold War technology from the time is featured in this area.

Firstly, you enter the warning room, which used to be the contact point of the RGHQ with the national surveillance system. By design, the BMEWS at Fylingdales should have picked up an incoming ICBM within 30 seconds from launch, spreading an alert signal at all levels. This would have been received here and by the entire civil defense system within 90 seconds. This would leave roughly 4 minutes (out of a total of around 6 minutes for the missile to come to Britain from the Eastern Bloc) to tell the population of the incoming missile, which would happen through some thousands sirens scattered around the UK. The physical alarm signal management system was called HANDEL, and was employed from the 1960s to 1992. The apparatus on display at Hack Green, a node of HANDEL, is notably still working, albeit disconnected.

The warning room can be accessed directly from the Commissioner’s room, both an office and private room. Original maps and furniture can be found in this room, the only private one in the bunker. Immediately next to it is the cipher office, a communication office connecting – at least in non-emergency conditions – the center with the external world. Ciphered language was employed for safe communication with governmental offices, both domestic and abroad.

Next are a conference room, for meeting within the staff of the RGHQ, and a broadcast studio. The latter was focused on radio broadcast instead of TV, since the latter would not work in case of a nuclear attack. The idea was for the Commissioner to communicate directly with the administrative region, possibly repeating messages of national significance, or instructing about local disaster recovery actions, evacuation operations, etc.

The tour goes on with a very interesting area, stuffed with original electronic and communication material. Communication from the bunker to the other similar bunkers withing the UKWMO was possible through a dedicated system called Emergency Communication Network (ECN). The main function was that of constantly updating the map of the fallout and of the operations taking place at all levels, including all surviving infrastructures. Many maps and teletypewriters, original components of the system, are part of the display.

The ‘brain’ of the system was the Message Switch Exchange (MSX). A top-tier system elaborated by British Telecom in the 1980s, it looks exceptionally complex. The lit cabinets and modules provide a really vivid impression of how it should have looked like back in the Cold War years. The electronic cabinets and wiring driving to the rooftop antenna are still lit as well.

A rare, incredible portable satellite communication antenna is on display. This was employed in peacetime condition, and stored inside the bunker when under attack.

The screens where the meteorologists and nuclear scientists displayed all the information gathered and prepared forecasts are another unusual Cold War sight.

Perhaps unexpectedly in a 1980s hi-tech environment, a purely analog, wired telephone exchange system is on display. This is original as well, and was kept in service as a ‘last line’ backup system within the ECN until 1992, should the futuristic MSX system fail under an attack.

A complement to the exhibition of the RGHQ is the fire control room, where a big screen and several communication consoles were employed for directing firefighting actions at a regional level. Following the experience of Nagasaki and the extensive nuclear tests of the 1950s, it is known that fires resulting from the extreme temperature and radiation intensity associated with a nuclear explosion are possibly even more dangerous to buildings and infrastructures than the shock-wave itself.

A display which is not original from Hack Green, but found an ideal home in this bunker, is made of a reconstructed room from the Regional Air Operation Center (UKRAOC), which would gather information from the BMEWS. The material on display used to be at RAF High Wycombe, where the UKRAOC facility was located in the Cold War years.

Fed by the BMEWS early warning station at Fylingdales, the apparatus in this room was constantly updated on the defense situation. A Soviet ICBM attack would be detected here, and from here the alarm signal to the entire national civil and military defense system would be triggered. This really one-of-a-kind reconstruction is really evoking, with the original panels all lit, and a dim light background!

A final room on the underground floor hosts a reconstruction of a Soviet missile launch room. Perhaps not accurate as a reconstruction, it is however centered on original material and memorabilia items from the Soviet bloc. This area has been employed as a set for movies.

At the base of a second stair well ascending to the ground floor you can find a reconstruction of one of the more than 1 thousand peripheral posts of the ROC. Such posts, scattered on the UK territory, gathered information for the RGHQ, and constituted the ‘sensors’ of the nuclear attack detection network. The technical gear includes over-pressure and radiation intensity transducers.

Getting there and visiting

The bunker is in a very secluded location, about 25 miles west of Stoke-on-Trent, and roughly 60 miles from Liverpool and Manchester. Very little advertised in the area, and not much known to the general public even in the UK, this hidden gem can be reached very conveniently by car, not much conveniently with public transport. The exact address is French Ln, Nantwich CW5 8BL, United Kingdom.

The bunker was built far from the crowds. Do not be worried as you see the road getting narrower and you feel like your NAV is taking you to nowhere – you are probably on the right path! Once there, you will find a large inside parking, and a top-level management of the entire facility.

Visiting is on a self-guided basis, with tons of explanatory panels and illustrations allowing to make the most out of your visit even if you have just a normal interest and preliminary knowledge of the topic. For a specialist, this super-interesting, one-of-a-kind site may require at least 2 hours for capturing the details, and possibly take pictures. Website with visiting information here.

York Cold War Bunker

Besides the impressive Minster and the beautiful historic town, York has the distinction of being the seat of one of the few Cold War bunkers preserved in the UK. Differently from Hack Green (see above), the bunker in York was installed relatively late in 1961, in the middle of the Cold War. Since then and until the collapse of the USSR, it acted as a node in the UK Warning and Monitoring Organization (UKWMO), collecting information and coordinating emergency actions around York in the event of a nuclear attack. A cluster of reporting points was linked to the bunker in York, which took the name of Headquarters of the N.20 Group within the UKWMO.

An eminently intelligence collection and information relay facility, the bunker was manned by the Royal Observation Corps (ROC), who provided voluntary civilian staff to support the monitoring and communication functions of the bunker in the UKWMO network. The bunker ceased operations and was basically sealed in 1991. Until that time, the ROC ran the facility, carrying out regularly scheduled drills and simulations. The bunker was designed and sized to offer its staff a self-support ability of a few weeks in a nuclear fallout scenario. Besides all supporting facilities, including water tanks, pumps and power generators, the facility was centered on a set of sensors for nuclear blast detection, as well as provision for fallout forecast and monitoring.

The bunker has been taken over by the English Heritage, a structured nationwide historical conservation association, which restored the site and opened it to the public.

The York Cold War Bunker is not far from the historical center, yet in a quiet residential area. Access is from a small parking area among low-rise buildings. The greenish paint of the concrete walls and the tall metal antenna on top cannot be spotted from much farther away than the parking itself. Curiously, the pedestrian door of the bunker stands some feet above the ground, and can be reached via a concrete stairway. Then once on top and inside, you need to descend some flights of stairs to get underground.

Compared to the Hack Green bunker, the York group headquarter is more cramped, with smaller rooms, lower ceilings and narrower corridors.

The first part of the visit covers the supporting facilities. These include a ventilation system, which as customary for nuclear-proof bunkers (but the same is true for older bunkers dating from WWII) filtered the incoming air and ejected the inside air, basically pressurizing the bunker environment with respect to the outside atmospheric pressure. This avoided passive ingestion of contaminated air from the outside.

A power generator and a water pumping system are also visible. A control panel for all the plants has been preserved, similar to the machinery in this area, dating from the time of construction.

The centerpiece of the visit is of course the reporting room. The reason for putting a headquarters in relatively low-sized York was the presence in the area of significant food production industries, as well as of a major railway node in Northern England. Furthermore, military facilities like the only BMEWS station in the UK happened to be in Fylingdales, northern Yorkshire. These features would make York a valuable strategic target for an attacking enemy. The main function of the bunker within the UKWMO was that of ascertaining the position and intensity of a nuclear explosion on the territory covered by its jurisdiction.

Anticipated by the early warning ballistic missile detection system protecting the UK, the hit could be recorded by the sensors available in the bunker or in other reporting points scattered around in the country. The bunker would then try to predict and follow the evolution of the fallout. This would allow coordinating emergency and recovery actions including fire suppression, medical evacuation, water and food transport and supply, etc.

The central reporting room looks mostly like an operations room in a military headquarter. It is structured on two levels, with large maps and boards for visually updating the situation and writing information. Batteries of telephones and teletypewriters allowed obtaining communications and sending updated information to allow emergency services as well as decision centers to carry out post-attack operations. This system was not dissimilar from the counterpart beyond the Iron Curtain (see for instance this center in Poland).

Nearby the reporting room, the components of the sensor suite allowing to detect the position and intensity of a nuclear explosion are on display.

The first is the bomb-power indicator (BPI). The working principle is that of reading the over-pressure caused by the shock-wave invariably produced by an explosion, and particularly intense for a nuclear explosion, releasing an immense amount of energy in a small volume and within a very short time. The supersonic traveling shock-wave is responsible for the mechanical breaking of building and superstructures, like antennas, suspended power lines, bridges, piers, etc. Being a wave of pressure, its intensity can be measured by pressure transducers, which for the BPI show the reading on a simple analog dial.

The transducer, seen handing from the ceiling in the exhibition, would stand on the rooftop of the bunker, exposed to the explosion. This type of sensor was also installed in smaller reporting points scattered over the territory of the UK.

A second sensor was the ground zero indicator (GZI). Here the working principle was also very simple. The main element in the GZI is a metal drum with a small hole in the side, and a piece of photographic paper covering the inside surface of the cylinder. An explosion would send a high-energy light beam through the hole, producing an impression on a precise point on the paper. By positioning in a very accurate way the drum on its pedestal on top of the bunker, according to a precise fine-tuning, it was possible to retrieve the direction of the incoming beam. By composing the reading of more than one precisely-located drum, it was possible to pinpoint the position of the explosion by triangulation, both in terms of geographical position and altitude. The latter is a very relevant practical information, since for instance the quality and hazard of the fallout are strongly related to the proximity of the explosion to the ground.

The GZI, a purely analog sensor, had the odd feature of requiring collection of the photographic paper by venturing outside of the bunker after and explosion, i.e. facing the fallout.

The third and most evolved system on display is an AWDREY computer. The name stands for Atomic Weapon Detection Recognition and Estimation of Yield. This artifact is very rare to see, and a quite refined piece of engineering for the time. It was supplied to 12 headquarter bunkers of the UKWMO, including York, and was operative from the early 1970s. The computer is the computational part of the system, whereas the detection system was based on a sophisticated transducer put outside, on top of the bunker. The working principle was much more sophisticated here, and related to the evolution of the intensity of the radiation coming from the core of the explosions in the first instants of the detonation process. Several stages of a nuclear explosions happen in a row on a scale of a few millionths of a second. These include a predictable oscillation of the intensity of radiation. The exact features of this oscillation are correlated to the yield of the explosion. The ability of AWDREY to collect and interpret data from the early stage of the explosion would allow it to reconstruct the position and yield of the explosion at once.

Tuned on experimental data from nuclear testing in the field, this system delivered good general performance, with some inaccuracy in case of intense atmospheric phenomena taking place – or during fireworks, when the York system was apparently misled in one occasion, interpreting it as a Soviet attack!

The tour is completed with a view of the dorm for the civil servants of the ROC, and with a short exhibition on some historical and political aspects of the Cold War.

Getting there and visiting

The York Cold War Bunker is professionally managed by the English Heritage. Visiting is only possible with a guide. Please note that as of 2022, pre-booking is strictly necessary, since there is no ticket office on site. The guided tour lasts about 45 minutes, including a well-crafted introductory video. At the time of writing, only the first underground floor is open for a visit, but plans for an expansion of the visible part of the facility are being drafted.

The tour is very interesting and detailed, with some educated humor to make it more enjoyable! For specialists, it will be too quick, especially if you like to take pictures. However, the site indeed deserves a careful look also for the more technically-minded people, especially considering the little number of similar facilities open in Europe – and of course in the UK, where it is a one-of-a-kind destination, and a true must for Cold War historians.

The location is about two miles west of York Minster. Convenient to reach by car, several public parking lots are available in front of the gate or in the neighborhood. The exact address is Monument Cl, Holgate, York YO24 4HT, United Kingdom. Website with full information here.

Soviet Nuclear Bunkers in the Czech Republic

History – In brief

After the end of WWII and the collapse of the Third Reich, the territory now belonging to the Czech Republic fell on the Soviet side of the Iron Curtain. Together with today’s Slovakia, it formed the now disappeared unitary state of Czechoslovakia. Despite laying right on the border with the West – including Bavaria, which was part of West Germany and NATO – communist Czechoslovakia enjoyed a relative autonomy from the USSR, until the announced liberally-oriented reforms of the local communist leader Dubcek in the spring of 1968 triggered a violent reaction by the Soviet leader of the time, Leonid Brezhnev (see here). About 250’000 troops from the Warsaw Pact, including the USSR, landed in the Country. As a result, the Soviets established a more hardcore and USSR-compliant local communist regime, and largely increased their military presence.

Similar to the German Democratic Republic (see here for instance), Hungary (see here) or Poland (see here), since then also in Czechoslovakia the local national Army was flanked by a significant contingent of Soviet troops, who left only after the entire Soviet-fueled communist empire started to crumble, at the beginning of the 1990s.

Consequently, for the last two decades of the Cold War, Czechoslovakia was a highly militarized country similar to other ones in the Warsaw Pact (see here). Its geographical position on the border with the West meant it received supply for a high-technology anti-aircraft barrier (see here). Two major airbases in Czechoslovakia were taken over for use by the Soviets and strongly potentiated (see here).

Soviet Nuclear Depots in Czechoslovakia

Beside conventional forces, also nuclear warheads were part of the arsenal deployed in this Country. Where in the late 1960s Soviet strategic nuclear forces were already mostly based on submarine-launched missiles and ICBMs ground-launched from within the USSR’s borders, tactical forces were forward-deployed to satellite countries, to be readily operative in case of war in Europe. Missile systems like the SCUD, Luna (NATO: Frog) and Tochka (NATO: Scarab) were deployed to the Warsaw Pact, supplying either the local Armies or the Soviet forces on site. Typically armed with conventional warheads, these systems were compatible with nuclear warheads too, making them more versatile, and of great use in case of a war against NATO forces in central and western Europe (see here).

Irrespective of their employment by a local national Army or a Soviet missile force, nuclear warheads were kept separated from the rest of the missile system for security, and invariably under strict and exclusive Soviet control. Bunker sites were purpose built in all components of the Warsaw Pact for storing nuclear warheads – see page 46 of this CIA document, showing with some accuracy the location of the corresponding bases.

Granit– and Basalt-type bunkers were typically prepared on airfields or artillery bases, for short-term storage of soon-to-be-launched nuclear weapons. Instead, top-security Monolith-type bunkers (the triangles on the map in the CIA document) were intended for long-term storage of nuclear ordnance.

Monolith-type bunkers were built by local companies on a standard design in the Soviet military inventory, and were implemented in satellite Countries in the late 1960s. Czechoslovakia received three such sites, which took the names Javor 50, by the town of Bílina, Javor 51, close to Míšov, and Javor 52, close to the town of Bělá pod Bezdězem. All three locations are in the north-western regions of today’s Czech Republic.

The Soviet military started withdrawing the nuclear warheads from satellite Countries in 1989, months before the collapse of the wall in Berlin. As for Czechoslovakia, by 1990 all nuclear forces had been moved back to the USSR. Following the end of the Cold War, Monolith-bunkers – similar to most of the colossal inventory of forward-deployed military installations formerly set up by the Soviet Union – were declared surplus by the Countries where they had been implemented.

These primary relics of the Cold War have known since then different destinies. Some of them have been hastily demolished, and together with their associated fragments of recent history, they have almost completely disappeared into oblivion. Luckily, a few are currently still in private hands, and still in existence (see here and here) – specimens of recent military technology, and a vivid memento from recent history, when the map of Europe looked very different from now. Two can be visited, of which one is Javor 51, in the Czech Republic, the main topic of this post. This has been turned into the ‘Atom Museum’, which has the distinction of being the only Monolith-type site in the world offering visits on a regular schedule (the other open site is Podborsko, in Poland, covered here, which is open by appointment).

Also displayed in the following are some pictures of the now inaccessible site Javor 52 in former Czechoslovakia. Photographs were taken in 2020 (Javor 52) and 2022 (Javor 51).

Sights

Javor 51 – The Atom Museum, Míšov

An exceptionally well preserved and high-profile witness of the Cold War, the nuclear depot Javor 51 is a good example of a Monolith-type installation. These bases were centered around two identical semi-interred bunkers for nuclear warheads.

When starting a visit, you will soon make your way to the unloading platform of bunker Nr.1. The shape of the metal canopy, and the small control booth with glass windows overlooking the platform are pretty unique to this site. The metal wall fencing the unloading area is still in its camo coat outside, and greenish paint inside. Caution writings in Russian are still clearly visible. Concrete slabs clearly bear the date of manufacture – 1968. This site was reportedly activated on the 26th of December, 1968.

Even the lamps look original. Some of the – likely – tons of material left by the Soviets on the premises of this site has been put on display ahead of the massive bunker door.

The opening mechanism of the latter is a nice work of mechanics. Four plugs actually lock or unlock the door. They can be moved by means of a manual crank, or likely in the past via an electric mechanism (some wiring is still visible). The thickness of the doors is really impressive (look for the cap of my wide lens on the ground in a picture below for comparison!).

Each bunker had two ground-level entrances to the opposite ends, each with two blast-proof doors in a sequence. Warheads were transported by truck, unloaded beside the entrance of one of the two bunkers, and carried inside through the two doors, which constituted an air-tight airlock.

Today, you can see the inside main hall of the bunkers from the outside during a visit. This was likely not the case in the days of operation. The opening procedure required a request signal to travel all the way to Moscow, and a trigger signal traveling in the opposite direction. Once past the first (external) door with the warhead trolley, that door was shut, and the procedure was repeated for the second door, giving access to the inside of the bunker.

A security trigger told Moscow when the door was open. It can still be seen hanging from top of the door frame.

Once inside, you find yourself on a suspended concrete platform. The warhead trolley had to be lowered via a crane – still in place – to the bottom of the cellar ahead, i.e. to the underground level. The stairs now greatly facilitating visitor’s motion around the bunker were not in place back then, and descending to the underground level for the technicians was via a hatch in the floor of the suspended platform, and a ladder close to the side wall.

On the platform, an original Soviet-made air conditioning system can be seen – with original labeling – and signs in Russian are on display on the walls.

The platform is also a vantage point to see the extensive array of heat-exchangers put along a sidewall of the central hall – atmosphere control was of primary importance for the relatively delicate nuclear warheads. Each of them traveled and was kept in a pressurized canister. However, also the storage site was under careful atmospheric control.

To the opposite end of the bunker, the inner tight door of the second entrance can be clearly seen, ahead of another suspended platform. The warheads left the bunker for maintenance (they might have left also for use, but this never happened, except possibly on drills) from that entrance, which had a loading platform outside for putting the warheads on trucks (this can be better seen in other Monolith sites, like Urkut in Hungary, or Stolzenhain in Germany).

Down on the lower level, the main bunker hall gives access to one side to four big cellars, where the warheads spent their time in storage, and to the other sides to technical rooms. The pavement in the storage cellars features the original metal strongpoints, used to anchor the trolleys for the warheads to the ground. This was in case of a shockwave investing the site in an attack, to avoid the trolleys moving and crashing against one another. The original hooks with spherical joints to link the trolley to the strongpoints are also on display.

The storage cellars today have been used to display informative panels, with many interesting pictures and schemes. These include some from major sites connected with the history of nuclear weaponry in the Soviet Union (like from the test site of Semipalatinsk) and the US (like the Titan Museum near Tucson, AZ, covered in this post).

A few former technical rooms are used to store much original technical gear. This ranges from spare parts, tools and personal gear like working suits left by the Soviets (most with signs in Russian), to items ‘Made in Czechoslovakia’ or even radiation detectors from Britain and the West, gathered here for display and comparison.

Some of these spare parts are wrapped and sealed in Russian, looking like they were cataloged back in the time of operations.

In the main hall, many rare vintage pictures retrace the presence of Soviet military forces on this site as well as others in Czechoslovakia. Magnified copies of rare pictures portray the trucks, canisters and the very warheads likely involved in transport and storage in Javor 51. Actually, much mystery exists around the deployment of nuclear ordnance by the USSR outside its borders (not only to Czechoslovakia). Historical and technical information today made available, even to a dedicated public, is very limited, making this chapter of Cold War history even more intriguing.

Again in the central hall, cabinets for monitoring the nuclear warheads can be seen hanging from the walls, painted in blue. Each warhead used to be stored in a canister, which was periodically linked to these cabinets to check the inner atmosphere, temperature, etc., in order to monitor the health of its very sensitive content.

A large part of the technical/living rooms has been preserved in its original appearance. You can see parts of an air conditioning system, a big water tank, a toilet, a now empty bedroom for the troops. The bunker was constantly manned inside by typically six people, who operated in shifts. They did not sleep there, nor used the toilet much due to poor drainage. However, these facilities were used in drills, and were intended for the case of real war operations, when the bunker might have been sealed from the outside.

The electric cabinets take a dedicated room, like the huge air filters and pumps (Soviet made), installed to grant survival of the people inside the bunker in case of an attack with nuclear weapons or other special warfare. Clearly, the level of safety in the design of the bunker stemmed from the fact that it was considered by the Soviet as a a strategic target for NATO forces.

The last technical rooms host a big Diesel generator, supplied with air from the outside, and a big fuel tank in an adjoining room. Many labels bear writings in Russian, but the generator appears to be made in Czechoslovakia. The bunker was linked to the usual electric power grid of the region, and the generator was intended for emergency operations, in case the grid was lost or the bunker was isolated.

From the technical area, it was possible to access or exit the bunker, via a human-size airlock. The innermost tight door can be seen painted in yellow, with a locking mechanism resembling that of the major tight doors for the missile warheads. Outside the airlock, climbing three levels of ladders was required to get to the surface. This was the normal access to the bunker for the military technical staff, except when warheads arrived or left the storage (this was made via the major entrances, as explained).

Back outside, the second bunker, Nr.2, can be found at a short distance from the former. Nr.2 is being prepared for an exhibition on technology. At the time of writing, it can be toured except for the technical/living rooms. It is in a very good condition, and allows to get similar details as the previous Nr.1 on the construction of this type of facility – including the heating/air conditioning system.

The blue cabinets for plugging the canister for routine status checking and maintenance can be found also in Nr.2 in good shape.

Clearly visible here are the doors closing the technical areas and the warhead cellars. The latter were monitored for security just like the external airtight doors of the bunker, each with a sensor telling controllers whether the cellar was locked or not.

The airlock is covered in soot, possibly the result of a fire. Ahead of the entrance, the unloading platform is very interesting, having a unique set of light doors which had to be opened to allow trucks to come in. The concrete part of the platform appears slightly off-standard, with a short lateral concrete ramp, giving access to the main platform from one side. Parts of missiles – original – are being gathered in this area for display.

Monolith sites include two bunkers, which are the core of a strongly defended fenced area. In Javor 51, fences except the external one have been removed for the safety of visitors (rusty barbed wire can be very dangerous). These can still be found in other similar installations (see here). Similarly, the troops and technicians working on site lived in purpose-built housing, segregated from local communities. In Javor 51, this housing still exists, but cannot be visited.

Leaving the place, you can visit the nice visitor/gathering center, and even find some interesting souvenirs!

Getting there and visiting

All in all, the Atom Museum prepared at Javor 51 is a top destination for everybody interested in the history of the Cold War, nuclear warfare, Soviet history, military history, etc.

Credit goes to the owner of the place, Dr. Vaclav Vitovec, who is leading this remarkable preservation effort, and is a very knowledgeable and enthusiastic guide to the site for those visiting. Dr. Vitovec is also the owner of the border museum in Rozvadov, covered in this post.

The Javor 51 site is actually fairly well known at least to a dedicated public, having been visited by historians, scientists and notable figures – including Francis Gary Powers, Jr., who is very active in preserving the history of the Cold War.

The commitment of the museum’s managers is witnessed also by the nice website (also in English), where you can sign-up for a visit on pre-arranged days – as of 2022, all Saturdays in the warm season – or contact the staff for setting up a personalized visit. It is nice to see a good involvement by the local population (the great majority of visitors on regular visits are Czech), including many from younger generations. The exhibits tell much on the peaceful use of nuclear energy, and this is a major topic in the guided tour in Czech. Actually, the Czech Republic has a strong nuclear tradition, with many power plants in use, and a commitment for the development of nuclear energy in the future.

The location is around 25 miles southeast of Plzen, or 60 miles southwest of Prague. Easy to reach by car. The exact address is Míšov 51, 33563 Míšov, Czechia. Full info on their website. Visiting on a normal scheduled visit is on a partly-guided basis, meaning that you will get an intro (in Czech) of around 40 minutes, than you will be allowed to access the bunkers and visit on your own, for all the time you like. You might end up spending more than 2 hours checking out the site and everything is in it, if you have a special interest for the topic. Dr. Vitovec is fluent in English, and can provide much information upon request.

Javor 52 – Bělá pod Bezdězem

The Monolith-type site Javor 52 has been willingly demolished, likely by the Government of the Czech Republic, as it was the case for most other similar (or more in general, Soviet-related) sites in Poland and Germany.

However, it was hard to get completely rid of any trace of an installation so bulky and reinforced. Therefore, some remains can still be found and explored.

Some technical buildings still in use close to the bunkers may have been there from the days of operation.

Getting close to the bunker area, traces of the multiple fences originally around the site can be found, either in the trees or in the vicinity of unmaintained roads. Wooden or concrete posts with fragments of barbed wire are clearly visible. Also reinforced concrete shooting points can be spotted in the wild vegetation.

As typical, two bunkers were erected on site, and similarly to Javor 51 (see above), in Javor 52 they are aligned, with the entrances all along the same ideal orientation.

The bunkers in Javor 52 have been interred, so that they are now hardly noticeable from the outside, except to a careful eye. Looking inside the eastern one, it is possible to get a view of the open doors of the main airlock, providing a distant view of the inner main hall.

Descending through the lateral human-sized airlock is not possible except for a short length, from a concrete manhole on top of the bunker.

The western bunker is in a better general condition, and the main hall still retains a pretty unique writing in Russian. The ladder descending from the suspended platform has been substituted with a posthumous, regular ladder. Much metalwork has disappeared though, including the heat exchangers, the crane, and the tight doors.

Between the bunkers, a concrete pool can be found – still watertight! – with a function which is hard to guess. A pool for civil use was installed in Stolzenhain (and reportedly also in Javor 52, but I had not the time to watch out for it), but this was in the low-security of the site, far from the bunkers.

Getting there and moving around

Access to this place is possible without violating any property sign, but is clearly not encouraged. Going unnoticed is made tricky by the presence of a public facility nearby – a shelter for foreigners and some education activity. Parking out of sight is possible along the road 27235, north of the complex and to the west of the road – trailheads and corresponding parking areas can be found there. Check out some satellite map to find a way to the exact location of the bunkers – their respective entrances are approximately here (eastern bunker) and here (western bunker).

I visited the site in 2020, and the entrances appeared very dangerous and easy to seal in a permanent way. I do not have any further update, but would suggest to go prepared to find definitively interred and totally inaccessible bunkers.

Javor 50 – Bílina – Quick note

As of 2020, the site of Javor 50 is in a peculiar state of ‘conservation’. The place is closed to the public, but entering would be basically unimpeded, since the external fence to the former military base is mostly collapsed and interrupted. The Soviet quarters insider still have much to offer – including writing in Russian, a scheme of the base, and much more. Likely, the bunkers are also still in a relatively good shape.

Much surprisingly though, somebody is living there with watchdogs, in miserable conditions, keeping visitors out. It is likely that an official visit may be booked by getting in touch with the municipality, since it appears that the site is not used for anything. However I was not successful in connecting with anybody there, therefore I have no suggestion on this point. The of the main entrance is here.

The Atlantic Wall in Denmark

A pleasant country in northern Europe, Denmark is geographically surrounded by the North and Baltic seas, and shares its only land border with Germany. In the late 1930s, this meant having a very dangerous dictatorship as the only neighbor, and no possible direct help coming by land from other allies. Without natural defenses against and attack from the south, the Kingdom of Denmark was militarily occupied basically in one day, on April 9th, 1940. This happened through a joint operation carried out by the land, air and naval forces of Nazi Germany.

A quick historical overview

The interest of Germany in controlling Danish territory was mainly strategic. It served as a springboard to attack Norway further north. The latter was in itself more interesting to the economy of the Third Reich, as it was rich of natural resources, including raw materials not available in Germany. These were so needed by the Führer, who was dreaming of making Germany independent from international supply trade.

Furthermore, controlling both Denmark and Norway meant control over the eastern coast of the North Sea, and a chance to control the only access to the Baltic Sea. The USSR was not a declared enemy before 1941, but withdrawing from the mutual cooperation pact with Stalin – signed in a hurry just days before the invasion of Poland in September 1939 – at some point, and openly attacking Russia, had been in the mind of the Führer since he first put on paper his worrying geopolitical thoughts. By controlling the Baltic, Hitler could control sea trade to non-freezing ports of the USSR, which in 1940 had already taken over Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania in agreement with Germany.

As a matter of fact, the conquer of Norway was not without significant losses for Germany. This was also the result of Britain starting to militarily oppose Germany. The two countries had been already at war since September 1939, but without any serious confrontation having taken place for months.

Since then, the British – and later also the American – threat from the west had to be faced through the fortification of the western coast of the Third Reich, which by the end of the summer of 1940 extended roughly from the Pyrenees in southern France to Kirkenes in northern Norway. This highly visionary task was taken up very seriously by the German military-economic machine, and produced the ‘Atlantikwall’ – which translates pretty obviously into the ‘Atlantic Wall’. This long defensive line had to be built all along the coast, and was mainly based on a catalog of standardized reinforced concrete constructions, to be reproduced in great numbers. Construction was coordinated by the main contractor, the German ‘Organization Todt’, which made extensive use of subcontracted local companies in the various occupied states where construction had to take place.

Despite the majority of the elements in the line were reinforced barracks for troops watching the coastline, ammo and supply storages, command and communication bunkers, canteens, and other service buildings, there were of course also a number of heavier constructions. These included coastal gun batteries, to counter attacking ships, lighter gun batteries, to stop troops attempting a beach landing, aiming stations, to adjust the line of fire of gun batteries, anti-aircraft guns to defend the line from air attacks, and some technical buildings serving as bases for advanced radar systems. The latter were among the most useful and widespread items along the line, as German technology developed fast during the war, to produce powerful detection systems against air and sea menaces.

Needless to remember, similar to many pharaonic works conceived by the Führer and his entourage, the Atlantic Wall was never completed, and it failed to spare the Third Reich from total annihilation. The once-modern military installations along the western coast of Europe soon became obsolete, as war changed face at a quick pace following WWII, with new weapons and techniques. Furthermore, the front line of the new Cold War shifted geographically to the middle of Europe. A tangible sign of enemy occupation, the massive bunkers of the Atlantic Wall met different destinies depending on the country. However, albeit only rarely preserved, thanks to their bulkiness and sturdy make, they are in most cases still visible.

About this post

Being the first land along the western coast to fall under German control, work on the Atlantic Wall started in Denmark earlier than anywhere else. Today extensive traces of the line are still pointing the shores of the North Sea.

A few focal points are preserved as first-class museums. These include the strongholds of Hirtsthals and the huge battery at Hanstholm, in Northern Jutland. The latter had been designed around a cluster of four monster coastal guns, to the aim of controlling the passage through the Skagerrak channel, providing access to the Baltic Sea. A twin battery – Vara – was built to the north of the strait in Norway.

Closer to the German border, the area of Blavand – featuring also the famous ‘Tirpitz battery’ in its arsenal – is another example of a partly preserved portion of the line. Bangsbo fort in Frederikshaven has been partly refurbished and opened as a museum, after being used by the Danish military for a while. There you can find one of the few remaining examples of an Atlantic Wall installation with its original guns still in place.

Smaller strongholds, opened as smaller scale museums or left to more adventurous explorers, often feature unique special constructions, which justify a detour at least for more committed war historians. These include the Skagen battery, the disguised bunkers in Thyboron, and the complicated Stauning battery, built on two opposite coasts of a closed firth.

All these sites – and a few more – are covered in this post, which is based on photographs taken in August 2019. Denmark is officially protecting the installations of the Atlantic Wall as historical buildings – unlike France, for instance – so visiting even abandoned sites maybe rewarding, especially if they are out of the mainstream touristic routes. Unfortunately, many bunkers now closer to crowded touristic areas have been damaged by vandals.

Sights

Map

The sites covered in this post are listed on the following map. Sites opened as museums are pinpointed in red, wild sites are marked in blue.

The sites are listed in the post following the coastline of Jutland from its southwestern end.

Navigate this post – Click on links to scroll

Blavand – Shore Battery & Military Area

Located about 50 miles north of the German border along the coast of the North Sea, the small town of Blavand sits on a promontory protruding towards the sea, and protecting the access to the port town of Esbjerg – still today a major commercial port of Denmark.

The area of Blavand saw the construction of an incredible number of Atlantic Wall elements, which grew up in more instances during the war years.

Close by the parking ahead of the lighthouse on the very tip of the promontory, you can find trailheads leading to the southern and western shores of the promontory.

The southern shore makes for a typical North Sea landscape – an endless sand beach. What makes it different from others is the number of light bunkers placed along the shoreline. Despite little imposing, this model – type ‘F’ – was purpose built for the wide shores of Denmark in 1944, in view of a potential enemy beach landing. These firing positions were armed with machine guns, and placed at pre-determined intervals – about 1’500 ft – matching their accuracy range.

Many bunkers are slowly sinking in the sand, and only small parts of them can be seen emerging from the ground.

Others have been turned into strange sculptures, adding a horse head and tail.

Under favorable tide conditions, you may enter some of the bunkers. There you can appreciate their simple structure, with a defensive embrasure by the entrance (looking towards the coast) and loopholes to the sides of the firing chamber.

On the beach close to the lighthouse you can find a very big bunker with a wide hollow cave on the inland side, which used to support a searchlight.

Along the western shore you can find more massive bunkers. These include four former coastal gun batteries. These heavier constructions have assumed strange attitudes, after sinking in the sand somewhat irregularly over the years.

Looking towards the inland from the beach, you can spot an aiming/fire control positions, with a distinctive bulbous roof and a long curved slot on the facade.

Your walk along the northern shore may be interrupted by safety warnings concerning mine threat. As a complement to the defensive potential of the Atlantic Wall, extensive minefields were set up on most of the Danish beaches. This turned into a big issue soon after WWII, when an extensive demining action had to be carried out.

Furthermore, part of the Blavand promontory is occupied by a military firing range. When training exercises are taking place, special warning lights are lit and flags are raised, to delimit the territory where you should not venture.

In the dunes slightly inland from the shoreline, it is possible to find another big number of bunkers. They are not always visible from the distance, and entrance is in most cases from one side only – the only side emerging from the sand.

A very distinctive item is the colossal platform for a ‘Mammut’ type long-range anti-aircraft radar. This used to be operated by the Luftwaffe, whereas other bunkers in Blavand – like elsewhere along the Atlantic Wall – used to be run by other branches of the Germany military.

The base for the radar is in itself a rather complex bunker, with several cavities and extensive piping, once needed for power cables feeding the antenna, as well as other wiring.

Close by, a smaller radar base bunker used to be operated by the German Navy. Also here, holes and passages for cables can be found in the walls and roof.

It is noteworthy how many bunkers feature traces of original decorations, like painted walls, fake wallpaper, frescoes and small frieze lines. This is typical to many other installations of the Atlantic Wall.

Metal hardware can be found in the form of a bulky aiming turret emerging from a bunker.

In another instance, a mortar mouth pops out from the ground.

The underground bunker underneath the latter can be explored with some difficulty – there are also quite annoying bats inside -, but it reveals an aiming wheel with original markings in a reinforced concrete dome!

An interesting sight nearby the lighthouse is the tower once supporting a ‘See Riese’ radar. The protruding arms once sustained a wooden platform for military operators.

Getting there and moving around

The area of Blavand is rather extensive and rich of diverse installations, so notwithstanding the general bad shape of most of the bunkers, visiting may easily take 3-4 hours for a committed tourist, getting inside most of the items. A good starting point is the free parking by the lighthouse, provided you come early especially in summer, cause it tends to get more and more crowded along the day.

Blavand – ‘Tirpitz’ Coastal Guns

Despite at least some of the bunkers on the shores of Blavand being in a relatively good shape, there is a part of the Atlantic Wall which is officially preserved as a museum. This is one of the two unfinished bunkers intended to support a set of massive 38 cm coastal guns.

These guns – four, two for each bunker – were originally intended to be put on board battleship Gneisenau. The latter got damaged in port, and the guns were diverted to coastal use. The decision to build the Tirpitz battery to protect the port of Esbjerg came relatively late during the war, in 1944. As a result, construction of the battery supporting structures was not completed when the war ended, and the four never installed guns were scrapped – except one, which can be admired in Hanstholm (see below).

The name ‘Tirpitz’ attributed to this battery is of uncertain origin, and sometimes this installation is also referred to as ‘Vogelnest’.

The museum has been built only in the southernmost bunker. The installation is very modern (and crowded), and it has been designed as a thematic museum in five sections. Two of the most interesting are about the Atlantic Wall and its impact on local life, and on the extensive mining and demining operations on the shores of Denmark.

Other sections are related to amber trade and local seamen activities.

Finally, you can get access to the base of the gun turret. Photographs are bad here, due to very poor lighting and limitations on camera use.

You can see a central round dome, surrounded by an external corridor. Traces of a post-war explosion can be noticed looking at the metal part of the construction.

Outside of the museum you can find a cannon cut in pieces, plus rigs used for construction. The bulky concrete arms protruding from the roof were meant to support the crane for mounting the cannons.

With a five minutes walk from this bunker, you can get to the northern battery. This is not preserved, and the entrances have been bricked up. Yet you may better appreciate the size of the bunker from this exemplar than from the one turned into a museum.

Getting there and moving around

The museum is located east of Oksby along Tane Hedevey, a local road connecting Blavand to Esbjerg. There are signs along the road, and a large parking ahead of the entrance. The museum is very modern, and may turn very crowded in summer. Website with full information here. You can visit on your own with an audio-guide. The visit to the military-related sections may take about 1 hour.

Adding a walk to the northern battery will take further 20 minutes at most, as there is no chance to step in.

Stauning Battery

Construction of this battery started in the second half of 1944, and consequently it was only partially completed before the end of the war. The geography of the Stauning battery is rather peculiar. The intended design was based on four coastal guns to be placed on the inland side of the Ringkobing firth – basically a lake with a channel-like small mouth connecting it to the sea. On the other coast of the firth, i.e. very close to the North Sea in Hvide Sande, the aiming station for the battery was finally built.

In the event, only one of the reinforced concrete gun positions reached completion, whereas the other three cannons were kept on basic, not reinforced aprons. The gun bunker is the only exemplar of this model built along the Atlantic Wall, and was designed around a 19,4 cm gun manufactured in France.

Located far from the shore in a secluded area of the countryside, this battery is in a relatively good shape, and thanks to the hard soil its position has not drifted since it was installed. You can even walk on top.

More elements are scattered in the bushes and over the private pasture nearby. Among them, a firing position presumably for anti-aircraft or light field guns, and corresponding ammo storages.

There is also a reinforced concrete barrack or command post. This can be toured inside, revealing some metal piping still in place.

Traces of gun concrete platforms – likely gun firing positions – blown up after the war can be seen, similar to many smaller cubic buildings of uncertain purpose.

A couple of unattractive half-interred ‘living bunker’ can be found too, another design present only in Denmark – the type was named ‘Falkenhorst III’. Inside, traces of original wall paintings can be easily spotted.

There is actually a fire direction post of some sort in this part of the battery too. This is a square-based concrete booth, with an adjoining living bunker.

The aiming position in Hvide Sande is rather easy to find, on top of a mound close to the city center. There are actually two concrete accesses on the eastern side of the hill. The one closer to the top gives access to the metal dome you can spot on top of the mound.

Climbing up to the dome is possible along a rusty ladder, going through a narrow vertical passage. Once there you can see the mounting of a telescope for measurements. There are side slots looking outside, and an original marked wheel to provide measurements. You can also spot small foldable wooden tables (or perhaps jump-seats).

Downstairs, there are a few panels explaining the history of the battery.

The second concrete entrance gives access to a ‘living bunker’ for the troops, with explanatory panels on the history of the place.

Getting there and moving around

The inland part of the Stauning battery with the gun station is located close to Stauningvej 55. You may park your car not far north from this address, on a wide lot close to the entrance of a local residential area. Most notably, this battery is about .5 miles from the beautiful Danish Museum of Flight (see this post). Exploring the battery may take 1-1.5 hours, as the place is totally wild and inconvenient to visit.

The Hvide Sande point is on the northern rim of the channel linking the firth to the North Sea. You can see the mound close by a major round about, where road 181 meets Troldbjergsvej. There are several parking options nearby. The place is technically not abandoned, but there was no ticket/staff, and it was totally dark when I visited. You would better take a small torch with you.

Sondervig

Just as an example of how extensive the construction of the Atlantic Wall was in Denmark, you may have a look to the beach in Sondervig, where people spending the day by the sea are accustomed to the view of the monstrous German bunkers pointing the shore.

Getting there and moving around

You may find a parking spot in Sondervig and access this famous touristic beach by foot.

Thyboron

The coastal battery at Thyboron has a unique place in the panorama of Atlantic Wall buildings. Here a sort of sample list of possible deceptive techniques were tested on otherwise normal bunkers. The usual constructions pointing the shore have a strange appearance here, thanks to the imaginative talent of a Danish architect – who turned out to be a spy working for the Allies.

At least two gun batteries bear a special roof, resembling that of a house. Also thanks to erosion, they now have even odder shapes, resembling some Star Wars spaceship.

An observation bunker bears a tiled roof. Surprisingly, an apparently original fragment of telegraph wire can be found inside.

Given the position of the bunkers – lying isolated on a deserted beach – it’s pretty difficult to suppose this kind of deception was ever effective…

There are also some more straightforward constructions around, some of them in a relatively good shape. The cusped lintels above most doors and openings are typical to elements of the Atlantic Wall in northern countries, and are made for protecting the passages against snow and icing rain.

Just inland from the ‘sample list’, you can find a large underground bunker, somewhat difficult to access – it is sinking in the sand. Conspicuous traces of original wall painting and even writings in German can be found on the walls.

The message in German is a warning message, telling to stay away of the walls in case of bombardment. This warning sign is rather ubiquitous in Danish bunkers.

Close to the the city center – and actually a part of the Coastal Center, a museum for children dedicated to the life along the western coast of Jutland – it is possible to find another bunker deceived as a wooden house! This deception technique is far more convincing than those on the shore…

Getting there and moving around

To visit the bunkers on the shore you can reach a convenient public parking at the southern end of Vesterhavsgade, southern Thyboron. Visiting these bunkers may take about 45 minutes for a committed tourist. To get to the Coastal Center you may follow the signs and park at your convenience ahead of the building. The deceived bunker can be seen from the outside of the museum, so getting the ticket is not needed if you are not interested in the rest of the installation.

Extra feature – Sea War Museum, Thyboron

Thyboron has a prominent place in WWI history, being the Danish village closest to the area of the Battle of Jutland, one of the very few naval battles of that war, and one of the top-ranking in history for the number of vessels and tonnage involved, and for the casualties – almost 9’000 seamen were killed.

The battle was fought between two major formations of the the German Kaiser on one side and the King of England on the other. Started almost by chance, as the two opposing factions appeared on the same sector unaware of each other, the fighting was so intense that cannon fire was heard along the shores of Thyboron for many hours. The battle ended with a tactical defeat on the British side, but the Kriegsmarine of the Kaiser avoided any other serious clashes with the British for the rest of the war – in this sense, this was a British strategic victory.

Today, a monument dedicated to those who perished in the Battle of Jutland occupies a wide area over a promontory in northern Thyboron, close by the Coastal Center (see above).

A nice museum dedicated to sea war has been put in place nearby. On the exterior you can find old mines, torpedoes and even parts of relics taken from the bottom of the sea.

Inside you can find many unique artifacts, including cannons, insignia, and everyday items from ships taking parts to the Battle of Jutland.

Also unique are parts of early submarines dating from WWI, recovered from the sea thanks to novel investigation and capture technologies.

The museum is at large dedicated to naval battles and ventures of WWI. A section is dedicated to the most modern sea archaeology techniques.

Outside of the museum, you may spot a few Atlantic Wall bunkers as well, likely converted into more modern military installations in a post-WWII period. They are apparently run as museums, but they were closed when I passed by.

Getting there and moving around

The Sea War Museum is located very close to the Coastal Center in central Thyboron. Dedicated free parking right ahead of the entrance. Visiting may take about 1.5-2 hours for more committed subjects, despite the small size. The museum is stacked with extremely interesting details, the exhibition is rich and well made. Really an interesting detour for anybody interested in sea war. Website here.

Agger

Agger is located north of the Thyboron Channel, and can be reached with a five minutes ferry ride from nearby Thyboron. The long, windy, wild and distressing beaches south of the village of Agger are not really welcoming, nor easy to visit. Yet here you can find some unique and imposing elements of the Atlantic Wall.

These include a firing control bunker of the Navy. A feature often found also elsewhere, you can see some of the concrete bunkers are made of joined blocks. Light can be seen coming from the thin slots between the blocks in some occasions.

Another special construction here is the support tower for a ‘Seetakt’ radar. The tall concrete tower is assembled together with a bulkier concrete base.

The assembly has slipped to the shoreline, and today it can be neared only in favorable tide conditions. Furthermore, it is sitting in a banked attitude, making it looking really derelict.

Thanks also to a rather bad weather, these elements of the Atlantic Wall looked really eerie when I visited!

Getting there and moving around

The Agger site is wild and not signaled. The area is part of a national preserve, and part of the endless beach is a stage for kites, surfing activities and other beach sports. There is an official parking at the western end of Lange Mole Vej, less than five minutes by car from the ferry terminal to Thyboron. From there you should go to the beach and walk north for about 15 minutes to get to the tower, the highlight of the show.

You may spot it from the distance. I could not get in the tower due to unfavorable tide conditions, but visiting inside may not take much time, for the expected condition is not good, with little left to see.

Hanstholm

The Hanstholm battery is one of the most developed of the entire Atlantic Wall. As pointed out in the introduction, together with the sister site ‘Vara’ in Norway – about 80 miles north – this battery was centered on four massive 38 cm cannons, installed to obstruct surface passage through the Skagerrak, and de facto controlling the access to the Baltic Sea.

An initial battery based on less powerful 17 cm coastal guns was put in place as soon as 1940. The gigantic 38 cm guns arrived only later and were tested, but never used in action. The metal parts of the firing stations, including the turrets and guns, were eventually scrapped in the early 1950s. Over the years, this huge installation, with more than 300 bunkers fell largely into private hands, and today many former storage bunkers are used as warehouses for machinery and goods by local owners.

Nonetheless, battery Nr.3 has been turned into a modern museum, after being largely refurbished to its original splendor. As such, it is a one-of-a-kind museum, with thousands of visitors per year. Two more turrets and a number of bunkers are left to explorers. While they are not actively maintained, they are still in a rather good shape, and responsible exploration is even supported with some indications.

The area of the Hanstholm is almost 4 square miles. In order not to get disoriented, a good starting point is the museum in and around turret Nr.3. There you are greeted by a pretty unique 38 cm cannon! This is actually from the Tirpitz battery (see above), but it is exactly the same item once installed in Hanstholm. The size is really remarkable, especially when compared to more modest and usual 15 cm coastal guns, on display.

The modern museum offers a quick recap of the history of the place, with memorabilia including everyday items, letters, maps and original weapons.

Once you are done with that, you can get access to the underground part, where you first meet the ammo storage rooms, on the side of a long corridor aligned along a narrow gauge railway track. This was used to connect the firing stations – i.e. the four bunkers with the guns – to larger ammo storages scattered around the are of the fort.

There are two major adjoining rooms along the corridor, each dedicated to a different part of the cartridge. The piercing part – the ‘bullet’ – and the exploding fuse were kept separated from each other. This is similar to naval guns, and typical to larger calibers. The complicated railings hanging from the roof were made to allow moving the parts of the cartridge by means of movable cranes.

In action, the bullets and fuses were loaded on a slide, and from there on trolleys which would enter the turret from below. Today, as the turret is not there any more, the trolleys are in an open air corridor, apparently without any sense. It is noteworthy that the inscriptions and frescoes are all original, albeit refurbished.

The structure of the firing station and of the Hanstholm fort can be better appreciated from the drawings and models below.

A second part of the firing station is the bunker for the complement of men needed to operate this complicated cannon. The place was permanently watched, with shifts spending the night in underground quarters. Those pertaining to firing station Nr.3 have been refurbished, and provide a vivid impression of the original appearance. There are sleeping and living quarters, as well as large, military style showers and toilets.

There is also a complete power station, with two Diesel generators, a mechanics shop, water tanks and more.

Out of the Nr.3 firing station you are encouraged to tour at least part of the site along a series of prescribed trails. Among the items you meet on this tour is one of the ammo storages. It is not dissimilar from the ammo storage part of the firing station. The ammo parts were loaded on a railway car passing through, and from there moved towards the gun turret.

There are also many smaller storage and service bunkers, some bearing interesting original inscriptions inside.

The Hanstholm fort was defended by field cannons and anti-aircraft guns. Emplacements for the latter can be spotted around in more instances.

Another suggested part of the visit is firing station Nr.4, which is not really preserved, but is not in a generally bad shape either. You can get in only if you have a torchlight. Visiting may offer something very similar to Nr.3, except everything is more derelict – but for this reason, may be more authentic.

In the living part, you can find inscriptions in German and traces of the original wall paint. With a general knowledge of the plan from the visit to Nr.3, you may easily recognize the corresponding rooms – power station, toilets, living rooms, etc.

To get to the ammo storage part, you can walk along the round corridor outside. No trolleys left here, differently from Nr.3.

Inside the ammo storage rooms, you notice that the inscriptions have been largely canceled for some reason, but the slides as well as the frescoes above them are still there.

Still part of the suggested itinerary, you can find a control station, in a rather bad shape, and more interestingly a very peculiar building, located on top of a cliff.

This was a fire direction station. Due to the high-tech nature of the Hanstholm battery, fire direction worked on what can be considered archaic computers! The building has many floors. There is provision for a permanent team of technicians, hosted in living and sleeping quarters downstairs.

The top floors used to host the computing machines, which were fed by measurements from instruments mounted in metal domes, facing on the roof of the building. The room for the computing machines is rather dark, and due to the black walls it is difficult to see anything even with a torch.

The Hanstholm site offers several ancillary bunkers open to the public. Among them, one for a generator, supplying the whole fort in case of a grid failure.

Another bunker is an ammo storage, with a big concrete arch outside, for a moving crane operating above railway cars. Narrow gauge railway tracks can be seen still today in this part.

The pivot in the middle of firing station Nr.2 has been interred after the war, but the living/sleeping quarters for the troops and the ammo storage parts can be visited, albeit they are not connected any more by a direct passage.

A visit to this firing station is very interesting, for writings are in a generally better shape than in Nr.4, even though this too has not been refurbished.

In the ammo storage part, writings are especially abundant. You can see also traces of the original telephone wiring.

The last firing station, Nr.1, is not accessible, even though not interred.

As said, there are many other bunkers an remains around, which are typically not accessible, especially the farther you go from the museum. They are now largely on private land and used for something else.

Getting there and moving around

The Hanstholm strongpoint is a must for everyone interested in the Atlantic Wall! The museum is modern, completely accessible, with a convenient parking and all usual facilities. Website here.

The refurbished part is basically only firing station Nr.3, but many other bunkers, like the fire control center, as well as firing stations Nr.2 and 4 are open for explorers, and they have not been spoiled by vandals. You need to go with a torchlight and proper clothing, but the visit may be very rewarding.

Many more bunkers around are closed to the public, as they are now private property and used for other purposes.

Due to the enormous size of the area, visiting may easily turn into a full-day or even multi-days business for an enthusiast. For the general public, a visit to the museum and one of the trails may take a 2-3 hours depending on the level of interest.

Hirtshals

Similar to Hanstholm (see above), the area of Hirtshals was soon selected by the Wehrmacht for a coastal fortification, thanks to its strategic position overlooking the mouth of the Skagerrak strait.

The first four 105 mm field guns were positioned here as soon as summer 1941. They occupied open-air concrete aprons, which still today bear trace of the original camouflage paint and deceptive net.

A peculiarity of this fort is its extensive network of trenches, which connect all the battle stations to the living quarters for the troops and the service buildings, like the canteen-bunker and the hospital-bunker.

On top of the steep cliff dropping to sea level, you can find the bunkers for the guns. These were moved from the open aprons in 1944, into purpose built reinforced concrete firing positions. A special feature here is the steep flight of stair giving access to the gun area from behind. This construction was made necessary by the particular morphology and rock type of the cliff.

You can spot significant traces of the original camo paint, and the letters ‘St’ on many walls, meaning ‘Ständig’, i.e. resistant in German. These letters were used to mark those buildings capable of sustaining shelling and bombing raids.

A bulbous roof allows to easily recognize the fire direction station.

A more rare item in Hirtshals is the base for the ‘See Riese’ radar. This is a hexagonal concrete hollow platform. The bunker underneath it would serve to host a Diesel power generator.

Back from the coastline, you may enjoy a long exploration of the trenches and of the many restored bunkers. Many bear original markings and paintings.

In some rare cases, you can also find original decorative paintings, likely made by the soldiers stationed in the bunkers.

Restored bunkers include a ‘living bunker’, but many other installations are in good conditions, like interred shelters, ammo storages, etc. Traces of cables, armored doors – some of them with glass lights – and telephone wires can be found in many bunkers.