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.
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
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.
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
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.
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Another room has been set-up as a control center for the base, with an original console and regional maps.
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
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 climbsuphill, while keeping beneath the surface of the hill side slope. The lower end is guarded by an original CCTV camera.
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
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.
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
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.
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
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.
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Showers and sinks for washing, as well as canister for disposing of contaminated clothes, are located in the same area.
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
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.
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
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.
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
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.
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
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.
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
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.
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
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.
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Original explanatory schemes showing the basic features of the БАРС system are on display in that area – in Russian!
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
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).
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
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.
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
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.
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
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.
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
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!
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
The visit proceeds then to the lower floor, which can be reached through a flight of metal stairs.
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
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.
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Sensors for the level of contamination of the bunker air can be found in different rooms. Much material here is standard Soviet-made.
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
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.
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
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.
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
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.
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
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.
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
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).
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
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.
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
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.
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
Wollenberg БАРС Bunker 301 – GDR vs. USSR communication facility
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
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War actions in Scandinavia constitute a crucial stage in the unfolding of WWII events in Europe. The strategic position of the Scandinavian peninsula was not overlooked by strategists in the Third Reich and the USSR, and by the Western Allies. As a matter of fact, the German invasion of Denmark and Norway took place as early as the Spring of 1940, starting just weeks before the invasion of Holland, Belgium and France.
History & Remains – A Quick Summary
For Germany in WWII, the long and impervious coast of Norway constituted an ideal strong point to carry out raids over the North Sea, Norwegian Sea, the northern Atlantic and the Barents Sea, interfering with resupply convoys from Britain and the US. Especially after the start of the war against the USSR in 1941, the polar routes going to Murmansk – the only non-freezing port on the northern coast of the USSR – were within range of German warships and aircraft operating from the north of Norway. Control over Norway and Denmark meant total control on the access to the Baltic Sea, thus protecting the northern coast of Germany from direct attack by the Western Allies, allowing unimpeded action against the Soviet Union on that sea. Of the greatest importance in the northern European territory was also the abundance of raw materials – mainly metals for industrial production – so desperately needed by the Third Reich.
For the Allies, keeping Scandinavia was an objective of great relevance in the early stages of the war, since this territory could be a convenient springboard to launch attacks against the flat and easy coast of Germany. In the rapidly changing complex alliances and diplomatic relationships of the early stage of WWII (1939-40), Norway and Sweden tried to keep out of the war. Finland fought the Winter War against the USSR (itself one of the results of the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact, albeit not to the knowledge of the Finns), loosing part of its territory and strengthening its link with Germany for some years to come (see this post). The Third Reich attacked Norway by air and sea in April 1940, and help was sought especially in Britain. King Haakon VII of Norway left for exile in England, and the initial battles of WWII between the Reich and the UK were fought – mainly at sea – in proximity of Norwegian ports.
The Atlantic Wall
Possibly the most impressive military trace of WWII in Europe, the Atlantic Wall – a defense line stretching from France to northern Norway – was designed and built in Denmark and Germany, immediately following the successful push of the Third Reich into these Countries. Actually, those are the Countries where the most relevant remains of this interesting trace of war can be found today. A very ambitious project both in purpose and required resources, the Atlantic Wall never reached completion. Despite that, the geography of Norway, with a coastline featuring only limited access to the inland area, allowed to create an effective barrier against a potential enemy landing. Hundreds of gun batteries, complemented with anti-aircraft artillery and radars, constituted a powerful deterrent against any invasion. As a matter of fact, after the unique episode of the Battle of Narvik in the early stages of WWII, no Allied forces ever landed in Norway from the sea for the rest of the war.
A complete visit to all sites of the Atlantic Wall in Norway is a really immense task, due to the number of installations and their geographical remoteness. However, a few impressive highlights can be found in convenient locations, and can be easily visited by everybody. In this post some of them are presented – the colossal battery ‘Vara’, the southern fortified area of Lista, the forts of Fjell and Tellevik near Bergen, and the massive cannons of Austratt.
War Museums
But other fragments of the rich legacy of WWII in Norway can be retraced also away from the preserved installations of the Atlantic Wall. An interesting page is that of naval warfare deployed by the Navy of the Third Reich – the Kriegsmarine – to counter Allied shipping activities. Names like Tirpitz, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau are frequently found in history books as well as in movies or scale model shops, and they are just a few of the mighty vessels linked to the Scandinavian war theater. Dedicated exhibitions can be found in little but impressively rich museums on these topics. In this post, the Tirpitz Museum in Alta, the War Museum of Narvik and the exhibition in the visitor center of North Cape are covered.
Special interest sites
Heroic actions involving the Norwegian resistance organization are proudly remembered all over the Nation. A particularly interesting location being the Rjukan hydroelectric power-plant, which produced heavy water, a key-component in the research leading to the preparation of fissile material. This strategic asset was highly needed by the German nuclear program. On the other hand, its possession by the Third Reich was seen as a clear and present danger by the Allies, who tried to have the plant destroyed in several instances. The Norwegian resistance was clearly much involved in sabotage missions, due to the difficulty in targeting the place through air bombing raids. The power-plant is today a nice museum, covered in this post.
Photographs in this chapter were collected on a visit in August 2022.
Sights
The map below shows the location of the sites mentioned in this chapter. Their listing in the descriptions roughly follows a clockwise sense, starting from the southernmost point of Kristiansand (Vara battery). Red items are in disrepair, whereas blue ones are official tourist destinations.
The Vara battery was built as the core of the strongly fortified area around Kristiansand. Thanks to its position close to the southernmost tip of the Norwegian territory, this port town is still today very busy with passenger and freight traffic from nearby Denmark.
The Third Reich military started to lay sea mines as soon as it gained control of both sides of the Skagerrak strait. The coast around Kristiansand was reinforced with several coastal artillery pieces, and production of a set of special 38 cm caliber guns – called Siegfried -was started by the Krupp ironworks in Essen in 1940. The aim was that of controlling access to the Baltic sea by means of two batteries of long-range naval guns, one to the south in Denmark (Hanstholm, see here), and one to the north in Kristiansand.
The cannons should be capable of revolving by 360 degrees, and special concrete rotundas were prepared for the scope in a location called Møvik, on the southwestern end of the gulf of Kristiansand. The complex morphology of the terrain in this site led to a smaller than desirable area for the battery, where all technical buildings – including ammo storages – had to be built relatively close to one another. These massive constructions alone, built by the same ‘Organisation Todt’ responsible for the implementation of the coastal defense positions all over Europe, make for a remarkable work of engineering, carried out with the help of local builders, working relentlessly around the clock to have these emplacements ready as soon as possible.
In the event, only three of the four Siegfried cannons made their way to the battery in Kristiansand, one being apparently lost when the transport ship carrying it was sunk on the Baltic Sea. Transporting these 110 ton, around 60 ft long barrels by rail from Germany into the narrow valleys of Scandinavia was not an easy task. However, two cannons were test-fired in May 1942, and the third in November the same year.
The battery received the name ‘Vara’, after a high-ranking official killed in Guernsey in 1941.
Battery Vara went through the war without seeing an involvement in any major war action, and was mainly test-fired only. The whole installation, comprising target detection points, analog computers for target aiming, ammo storages – including more than 1.400 shells! – and many other service buildings, was inherited intact by the Norwegian Armed Forces in 1945, similar to many other installations along the coast of the Skagerrak and the North Sea. It was incorporated in the Norwegian coastal artillery between 1946 and 1954, being later placed in reserve having by then become obsolete for Cold War warfare standards. Two cannons were scrapped, whereas one – the only entirely surviving battery Nr. 2 – was luckily kept. The site survived subsequent stages of demolition works over the next decades, but in the early 1990s it was finally re-opened as a museum.
Cannon Nr. 2
Today, the centerpiece of the visit is constituted by a walk around the perfectly preserved building of cannon Nr.2. This bunkerized building is composed of a set of technical rooms, for ammo assembly and storage, as well as for services like Diesel power generators, and an adjoining rotunda, where the big cannon revolved around a pinion, and could be pointed to its target, following instructions from the battery control center. The latter elaborated target data from detection, identification, measuring and range-finding positions scattered around the battery perimeter.
Access to the back of the concrete building is via the original hatch, closed by iron doors. You can see the narrow-gauge railway track leading in. This linked the cannon buildings with the ammo storages around, and allowed to supply the cannon with ammo parts (the explosive cartridge and the shell are not assembled in a single unity for larger cannons, unlike for lighter weapons). The hatch drives you into a long corridor, the backbone of the bunkerized quarters behind the cannon rotunda. Here some shells have been put on the original railway trolley for display.
The cannon building hosted a permanent watch of a few men, which manned it permanently in shifts. A living room with some berths is the only one offering some comfort in the building.
A number of rooms in the bunker are dedicated to the power generator plant. A primary and a back-up generator share the same room. Of special interest are the labels on all machines and mechanisms, proudly made in Germany – in some cases, by brands still existing today.
Electric power was required for the motion of the cannon, besides for smaller appliances like lights and radios. The cannons could make use of the regional grid, but since an unstable supply might have damaged the cannon motors, aiming operations were often carried out on the controlled internal power grid, fed by the generators, and producing an optimal output.
Beside the generator room, the air conditioning plant (not for comfort, but to slightly pressurize the bunker in order to repel and pump-out poisonous or exhaust gas), the Diesel tank and the water tank for cooling the generator can be seen in adjoining rooms.
To the far end of the corridor, a radio room was used to maintain a link with the battery command post, located more than 1 mile away from Vara battery. Actually, by design the electric signals to orient the cannon could be given by the control post, and the radio communication system was there for backup.
On the other side of the corridor with respect to the generator rooms – i.e. towards the cannon rotunda – are four adjoining rooms, used to store the components of the explosive cartridges and shells. The shells and cartridges prepared for firing were moved via a crane to a tray, and from there sent side-wards to the rotunda, where they were loaded on a trolley. The cranes, trays and slots linking these rooms to the rotunda can be found around the area of the bunker closer to the rotunda.
The cranes moved along tracks hanging from the ceiling. These tracks had some switch points, allowing to allow the crane to move across different rooms in the bunker.
Inside these rooms, today you can find much original material of special interest. Specimens of high-explosive (yellow) and armor-piercing (blue) shells are displayed. The weight of the shells was around 800 kg, where the cartridge could feature different weights, roughly from 100 to 200 kg.
The top range of these cannons and shells was around 43 km. Smaller 500 kg shells could alternatively be fired by Siegfried cannons, with a longer range of 55 km. Furthermore, the cannon could be test-fired during drills with smaller caliber shots, by reducing the bore of the cannon. This was a very useful feature, since the estimated loss of barrel metal due to attrition was a staggering 0.25 kg per shot, implying a life of the barrel of only around 250-300 shots, firing with sufficient accuracy. Shooting smaller shells allowed to spare barrel wear and extend the time between overhauls of the cannon.
The sealed canisters for the explosive cartridges, with original markings in German, can still be seen piled in a room!
More material on display includes a rare example of fire direction computer. Actually, that on display is smaller than the one originally used for the long-range cannons of Vara battery, but it provides a good idea of the level of sophistication of this mechanism. Data like target distance, velocity, orientation, wind speed and direction, etc. were set as input to this analog computer, producing fire direction variables to point the cannon. An incredible masterpiece of engineering and craftsmanship, this type of computer is difficult to find in museums, and allows to appreciate the level of development of warfare back in the 1940s.
Data including range of the target was found with the help of special instrumentation. A stereoscopic range-finder was installed in the battery command post, with an arm of 12 m, which allowed good accuracy for very distant targets – required for the long range of the cannons of Vara battery. Smaller instruments with the same principle are displayed in one of the rooms.
Among the special features of this bunkerized building are the restored, original writings from German times, as well as a one-of-a-kind painting made by a Soviet prisoner of war.
From the bunkerized room, you can get access to the rotunda. Cartridges put on trolleys moved along a circular railway track all around the rotunda. This way, cartridges could be taken to the cannon whatever the direction it was pointing. Once to the base of the cannon turret, the explosive charge and the shell were lifted separately by means of two special elevators, up to the level of the gun shutter.
An impressive feature of the rotunda is the ring cover for the circular railway. In order to protect the railway passage from above, while allowing the cannon to rotate, a roof made of thick metal scales was implemented. When revolving around the pinion, the cannon turret would automatically lift the scales on its passage. The sound of the scales being lifted and released while the cannon body was revolving must have been really an experience!
Here the back of the barrel dominates the relatively large firing chamber. The shutter has been left open, so you can see the sunlight through the barrel.
The shell and explosive charge were received from the two elevators on a special tray, and here they were finally aligned one before the other. Somewhat in contrast to the top-notch technology level of the installation, the cartridge had to be pushed from the back into the barrel by hand. A long wooden stick was used for the task. Actually, it was so long that it protruded from the back of the cannon turret, thus requiring a small hatch to be pierced in the metal armor correspondingly. On one side of the barrel, instrumentation for measuring the pointing direction is still in place.
The position of cannon Nr.1 was prepared unusually close to that of Nr.2. As said, this was due to the limited available area on the uneven coast section where the battery was put in place. However, Nr.1 never received a cannon. Conversely, it was modified later in the war, when experimenting with cannon protection from air-dropped high-yield bombs. The rotunda was capped with a very thick concrete roof, sustained by sidewalls which limited the side-wards rotation of the cannon to 120 degrees.
The rotunda can be walked freely. The central pinion is still in place. Inside, the ceiling is covered in original metal panels. The round corridor for the trolleys can still be seen, but there is no access left to the bunkerized part.
Following the railway around the site is a great way to find what remains today of the original installation. There are two bulky ammo storages. These were reportedly more thickly armored than usual, in view of a higher risk of getting hit, due to the unusual proximity with the cannons – designated targets for the enemy.
Furthermore, other smaller buildings are scattered around, which may have served as storage for lighter weapons.
The positions of cannons Nr. 3 and Nr. 4 have been largely demolished, and access is permanently shut to the bunkerized part. However, you can easily climb to the top level, to get a nice view of the rotunda.
Vara is in the top-five list of the most famous surviving installations of the Atlantic Wall in Europe, and a visit to this destination is in itself a good reason for a detour to Norway for war historians and like-minded people. Due to its proximity to the port of Kristiansand, just minutes apart by car, and the relatively easy-to-reach location in the most populated part of Norway, it is also a top destination for any tourist in the area. As a matter of fact, the place is run as a top-level museum, with great reception capability, and is visited by thousands of visitors per year.
Visiting can be performed on a self-guided basis, with an explanation leaflet which allows to get much from your visit, especially if you are not new to installations of the Atlantic Wall (which are mostly standardized, despite Vara having really oversized guns!). A tour of the main features – cannon Nr.2 and the building of Nr.1 – may take 1 hour at least, for an averagely interested person. For an in-depth visit and a quick tour of the premises including other remains, more than 2 hours are needed. Thanks to the exceptional level of conservation and the explanation of whatever is on display, the visit is not boring and may be very rewarding even for younger people.
Large parking on site, picnic tables and warm reception are available – as usual in Norway! Website with full information here.
Nordberg & Marka Batteries – Farsund
Located in the southwestern corner of the Norwegian territory, about 100 miles south of the port of Stavanger, the municipality of Farsund encompasses a number of small coastal villages, around the landmark represented by the lighthouse of Lista.
Two batteries were set up by the German occupation forces as part of the Atlantic wall, both fully operative by 1942. The northern one is called Nordberg fort, where the southern one, very close to the shore line, is known as Marka fort. Between the two, the Germans installed a full-scale airbase, with a runway of roughly 1.5 km, complemented by hangars and shelters largely standing today. Following the end of WWII and the withdrawal of the German military, all these installations were converted for military use by the Norwegian armed forces, which also developed the original airfield into a more modern airbase by stretching the runway.
Today, Nordberg fort is a museum. The German Navy was in charge of the station, which had as centerpieces three 150 mm cannons, with a range of around 23 km. The cannons have been scrapped (with the exception of a lighter piece of Russian make). However, the firing positions are still there, linked by a semi-interred trench.
You can see also the original control point for the battery, developed by the Norwegians more recently, and the concrete base for a radar antenna originally on site.
Several original buildings for services – canteen, hospital,… – are still there, making for a an interesting opportunity to see how this installation looked like back in the 1940s.
The Marka fort was assembled around six 150 mm guns, located very close to the sea, grouped in two batteries of three firing positions each. A huge bunkerized command post was built in the premises of the fort. Today, after the Norwegian military left at the end of the Cold War, the Marka battery is basically a ghost site, despite being still in a relatively good shape.
The control bunker is especially interesting, since you can access the top level and watch the sea from the very same room and windows originally used by the German Navy troops! The general arrangement of the bunker is similar to other command posts you can find on the Atlantic Wall – especially in Denmark (see here).
Marka Battery Lista Farsund – Atlantic Wall – WWII – Norway
Marka Battery Lista Farsund – Atlantic Wall – WWII – Norway
Marka Battery Lista Farsund – Atlantic Wall – WWII – Norway
Marka Battery Lista Farsund – Atlantic Wall – WWII – Norway
Marka Battery Lista Farsund – Atlantic Wall – WWII – Norway
Marka Battery Lista Farsund – Atlantic Wall – WWII – Norway
Marka Battery Lista Farsund – Atlantic Wall – WWII – Norway
Marka Battery Lista Farsund – Atlantic Wall – WWII – Norway
Marka Battery Lista Farsund – Atlantic Wall – WWII – Norway
Marka Battery Lista Farsund – Atlantic Wall – WWII – Norway
The positions for the coastal guns can be reached close to the control bunker. They are uncovered round areas, slightly below the level of the ground, framed by a circular reinforced sidewall.
Marka Battery Lista Farsund – Atlantic Wall – WWII – Norway
Marka Battery Lista Farsund – Atlantic Wall – WWII – Norway
More Atlantic Wall remains, like bunkers, foundations for radar stations, or emplacements for lighter guns, can be be found scattered in the area of Farsund – which kept its military site status well after the Germans had left.
Marka Battery Lista Farsund – Atlantic Wall – WWII – Norway
Marka Battery Lista Farsund – Atlantic Wall – WWII – Norway
Marka Battery Lista Farsund – Atlantic Wall – WWII – Norway
Marka Battery Lista Farsund – Atlantic Wall – WWII – Norway
Marka Battery Lista Farsund – Atlantic Wall – WWII – Norway
Marka Battery Lista Farsund – Atlantic Wall – WWII – Norway
Marka Battery Lista Farsund – Atlantic Wall – WWII – Norway
Marka Battery Lista Farsund – Atlantic Wall – WWII – Norway
Visiting
The museum of Nordberg keeps some of the buildings on the respective site open. However, the majority of the site is open 24 hours, and can be walked freely. A visit may take about 1 hour. A convenient parking can be found right ahead of the modern and welcoming visitor center, from where you can effortlessly reach most of the points of interest in this installation. Website with full information here.
The site of Marka – not part of any museum – can be approached at any time with some walking in the rural area along the coast line. A good starting point for an exploration is here, where you can leave your car and move along an easy trail to the command bunker and the gun rotundas about 0.5 miles west.
Fjell Fortress – Bergen
Bergen was a strategic base of the German Navy, which received a fortified submarine deck among the largest, most active and longest lasting in the history of WWII. The complex morphology of the territory around this port town allowed to effectively protect the access by means of a network of nine firing emplacements. One of them – Fjell – was of exceptional power and range.
It was built between 1942-43 diverting one of the batteries of battleship Gneisenau, which had been damaged beyond repair by an air raid while in port at Kiel (Germany). The battery was composed of three 28 cm guns in a single turret. The latter was very compact in design, a real masterpiece of naval engineering, but nonetheless it featured a rather tall substructure, with all that was needed to operate the guns – protruding from the relatively sleek top of the turret, surfacing on the ground.
Placing this special battery in Fjell required carving the rocky coast, creating a cylindrical underground pit, inside coated with concrete, to host the turret. The turret, an assembly of around 1.000 tonnes with the guns on top, was then transported up to this elevated site, and lowered into the pit. The battery was test fired in the mid of 1943. It acted as an effective deterrent, and reportedly never used in combat.
The battery was incorporated in the Norwegian coastal defense after WWII, and sadly scrapped in 1968, since by then obsolete, but not yet considered an historical landmark.
Clearly, the battery was in the middle of an off-limits military area in wartime, where bunkers for several services and for the the troops, at least two radar antennas and many emplacements for lighter defensive weapons were installed to protect the battery from ground and air attacks.
Today, the bunker-pit where the turret used to rest is the centerpiece of a visit to the site. Starting from the visitor center on top, where the guns used to be, you can descend to the base of the cylindrical pit – roughly 30 ft in diameter and 75 in depth! Here you can see the rooms originally employed for storing the explosive cartridges and the shells for the cannons. These were supplied on trolleys and slides, and sent inside the metal turret, to be lifted up to the level of the cannons for firing.
Most of the original German mechanical and electrical systems is still there to see, including wiring, phones, cranes, trolleys, and examples of shells and cartridges.
Back then, you got access to these storage areas from an entrance on the same level (i.e. not from the top of the turret, but from the base). You can see this entrance, as well as the curved corridor leading from the gate to the ammo storage area. Here, examples of sea mines and other war material can be found. The corridor has narrow-gauge railway track, which was used for resupplying the ammo storage from outside.
The corridor is curved, and firing positions are strategically placed to cover it, in order to counter enemy intrusion.
The bunker gives access to the living quarters for the troops. These are well preserved, and feature brick walls to help insulating the inside from the wet rock of the walls and ceilings.
Services, like toilets, sauna, washing machines and more, are original from the German tenancy. Especially the water basins appear very stylish, a good example of German design from the era.
Besides the main turret bunker, as said the Fjell site offers other constructions on a vast area, which can be checked out from the outside – also since the premises are at least formally military grounds still today.
The road reaching the site from the parking, gently climbing uphill, is reportedly the original main access to the Third Reich site. An interesting tank-stopping device can be seen to the lower end of the road – heavy stones on top of light pillars on the sides of the road. The pillars could be blown, and the stones would fall cutting the road, in case of a potential intrusion.
The fort of Fjell, about 15 miles west of central Bergen, is professionally run as a museum. Parking is only possible to the base of the cliff where the turret used to stand. From there, a 0.8 miles road climbs to the entrance. The scenic location and the nice rural area around make for an enjoyable walk. Visiting inside is only possibly on guided tours, offered also in English (an possibly other languages). A small restaurant can be found on top, where an observation deck has been built in place of the battery.
The location of the parking is here. A visit may take around 45 minutes, excluding the time needed to climb uphill and descend to the parking. Website with full information here.
Tellevik Fort – Bergen
The coastal fort of Tellevik, on the eastern head of the Norhordland Bridge, 15 miles north of Bergen, was part of the lighter defense artillery put in place by the German military to defend any access by water to Bergen. The battery was built by order of the Third Reich, profiting from the forced labor of Soviet prisoners of war.
Lighter howitzers were enough to cover the narrow water passages in proximity of the town. The elevation of the emplacement is low, slightly above the water surface.
The battery of Tellevik was centered on two such howitzers, placed on open-top positions. The two guns can be seen still today, on round concrete firing positions. The giant bridge today largely obstructing the field of sight was not there at the time of the German occupation.
A monument to Norwegian seamen victims to sea mines laid by the German to protect the access to Bergen is concurrently located on the site of the Tellevik battery.
Tellevik is an open air memorial, which can be walked freely 24/7. It can be reached by inputting these coordinates to a GPS navigation app.
A visit may take about 15 minutes, a nice detour from exceptionally crowded downtown Bergen.
Austrått Fortress – Austrått
Similar to Bergen, the major port of Trondheim was a strategic base for the German Navy. Protected by a long firth, the port was an ideal base for submarines and warships, to intercept convoys in the North Sea, Norwegian Sea, the Atlantic Ocean and the Barents Sea. Correspondingly, a number of coastal forts was prepared by the German occupation forces to counter any unauthorized access to the waterways leading to Trondheim.
The most powerful and impressive of these batteries is the Austratt Fort. Similar to the fortress of Fjell near Bergen (see above), Austratt received one of the turrets of the ill-fated battleship Gneisenau, damaged while moored in Kiel, in February 1942. A control and aiming position was put in place a few miles apart along the coast, whereas the battery was surrounded by an off-limits area, stuffed with bunkers for the troops, ammo storage bunkers, and lighter guns for protection against an attack by land.
A major difference between the two ‘sister sites’ of Fjell and Austratt is that in the latter the cannons are still there!
Following the installation of the turret, test fired in September 1943, the fort saw little action, acting as a deterrent, and effectively preventing any serious intrusion by the Allies towards Trondheim from the sea. After the demise of the Third Reich, the fort was taken over by the Norwegian coastal defense, stricken off in 1968, and restored as a museum in the early 1990s.
The cannons are on top of a hill. From the outside, the massive three-barreled turret is really impressive in size!
The barrels can be seen besides the original range-finder – with its impressive arm, granting good measuring accuracy even at a large distance from the target. This item, with its bell-shaped cover, was originally part of the control point, located southwest of the battery, in a location currently very close to an active base of the Norwegian Air Force (Orland).
Despite access to the the firing chamber being possible through a hatch to the back of the turret, the tour follows the way a shell would travel from storage to firing. Hence you start your tour from an entrance to the side of the hill, at the same level of the bottom of the cylindrical tower supporting the guns. This metal tower was taken from the Gneisenau together with the cannons, and put in a pit carved in the rock for the purpose in Austratt.
Access through the side of the hill is protected by a smaller gun. Once inside, you find yourself in a curvy corridor, with a narrow-gauge railway track for the trolleys needed to carry the shells and cartridges inside. A firing position behind an embrassure points against the entrance, for further protection of the site against an intrusion.
The bunker in Austratt – but the same happened to many installations of the Atlantic Wall in Norway – was plagued with severe humidity problems. Immediately besides the entrance, a room with a water basin is fed by natural water dripping from the ceiling and from the rocky walls around.
Original machines for tooling, put in place for maintenance purposes back in the Third Reich years, are still there and working. Similarly, a primary and a backup Diesel generators supplying the fort are still in place, with all ancillary plants, like big Diesel and water tanks for cooling. This is original machinery too, as witnessed by the tags of the mechanical components, all made in Germany.
Living quarters were at the bottom level too. Trying to supply some comfort, the rocky walls were covered with bricks and wood, especially against humidity. These rooms have been partly refurbished with a good resemblance to the original ones. They include the kitchen and some of the sleeping quarters for the troops. However, since humidity was really extreme, troops spent limited time here especially for sleeping, and provisional barracks were built outside of the installation instead.
Hygienic services were reportedly extremely advanced compared to Norwegian standards of the time. Fully working toilets, lavatories and showers were taken as a blueprint by the Norwegian Army after the war. The electric water heater put in place in the Austratt battery was apparently among the first installed in the whole Country – it can still be seen.
Explosive cartridges, fuses and shells arriving from the bunker entry you have walked through at the beginning of your tour would be eventually lifted upstairs. Shells, either high-yield explosive or armor-piercing, would be stored in a chamber featuring cranes hanging from the ceiling, used to put the shells on trolleys. These trolleys transported the shells to the lower level of the turret. The chamber where the shells were stored is physically separated by the turret by means of a concrete wall.
Tight compartments are often found in war bunkers of the Atlantic Wall, and this can be explained by the fact that the deadliest effect of an enemy shot (either a cannon shell from a warship, or an air-dropped bomb) would be that of an overpressure wave (shockwave), capable of killing many in just moments. Overpressure effects can be effectively reduced by putting physical obstacles on the way the shockwave would travel – walls, tight doors, etc. – or by forcing it into smaller passages, like hatches or smaller doors and windows. Therefore, bunkers like Austratt are built in rather small rooms, connected only through narrow hatches and doors.
Again in the storage chamber for the shells, extensive writing in German can be found on many of the mechanisms and electric plants. Everything is original and exceptionally well conserved, just like the Germans had just left!
The lowest level of the turret, where the shells would arrive from the storage chamber to be loaded on elevators going to the upper levels, is a masterpiece of engineering. The technical problem here was that of connecting the slides from the storage chamber, which are anchored to the ground, to the receiving slides on the turret, which could pivot around 360 degrees. The designer of the turret solved the issue by placing an intermediate ring, revolving independently, and capable of connecting the fixed slides from the storage chamber to the revolving platform on the turret. The extremely compact size of the overall design, originally prepared for fitting into a warship, and the elegance and precision of the mechanism resemble those of a pocket watch from the 1920s more than a cannon!
On the turret, you can see three elevators for the three barrels, which were therefore fed independently.
Going upstairs, you meet the storage room for the explosive cartridges. These used to be stored in sealed canisters on display, original from the time. This storage room is placed to the side of the corresponding level in the turret, in a similar fashion to the shells storage below.
Climbing up one more level inside the turret, you reach a platform with the motors for moving the battery around its vertical axis, and for lifting or lowering the three monster barrels. The motion involved high-pressure mechanisms, rather complex and requiring many valves and extensive piping.
To the back of each of the barrels, you can see a large empty volume for recoil. The battery rested on a ball bearing – one of the pretty sizable metal balls is on display.
Finally, the firing chamber can be found on the top level in the turret. Here the shells and cartridges were received, aligned and loaded from the back into the barrels by a pushing mechanical arm. Three independent mechanisms were put in place for the scope in the firing chamber.
You can exit the turret from the hatch to the back of the turret, concluding your tour. In the video below you can see a portrait of the battery from the air, made with a drone.
All in all, similar to the Vara battery (see above), Austratt is in an exceptional state of conservation in the Norwegian and European panorama of artillery engineering from WWII, and a visit may be super-interesting for any public.
Visiting
Despite being relatively close to Trondheim on a map, as usual in Norway, Austratt is a more than two hours drive from the town, and reaching requires taking at least one ferry. However, as noted, this location is a pinnacle in the Atlantic Wall, and surely deserves a visit for technicians and non-technical public as well, and of course for the kids.
Access to the exterior is possible at any time, but visiting inside is only possible on guided tours. The guide is very knowledgeable and makes the visit interesting also for a technically-minded public. The visit inside may take around 1 hour, more if you make questions and show some interest. Convenient parking by the gate of the fort, easy access to the area around the battery. Moving inside can be requiring for non-fit people.
As pointed out in the introduction to this chapter, Norway is rich of memorials from WWII. Even close to some of the attractions in this wonderful Country which are must-see stops for other reasons, features recalling memories from war actions are offered to a curious eye.
Two notable examples are the visitor center of the Arctic Circle along the E6, as well as that of North Cape.
Scandinavia has been a bloody and extremely active theater of war all along WWII, and Norway was directly involved in significant war actions since the first year of the conflict. As a matter of fact, most of the impressive line of fortifications constituting the Atlantic Wall was erected by deploying forced laborers, typically prisoners of war from the Eastern Front, primarily including Russians, other people from the USSR, and Balkan prisoners.
Soviet troops attacked the northernmost German-occupied region from the North, together with the Finns, after the latter negotiated a separate peace with the USSR in late 1944. The retreating Germans opposed a fierce resistance, and it was in this latest stage of the war that most physical damage to towns and installations was caused in Norway, since German troops were ordered to burn up all positions they had to leave.
These facts explain the many Soviet monuments and war cemeteries scattered especially in the northern part of Norway still today – commemorating Soviet soldiers fallen either in war actions or as prisoners of war in the harsh conditions of northern Norway.
One such monument, albeit overlooked, is prominently placed besides the visitor center of the Arctic Circle.
Soviet Memorial – Arctic Circle Visitor Center – WWII – Norway
Soviet Memorial – Arctic Circle Visitor Center – WWII – Norway
Soviet Memorial – Arctic Circle Visitor Center – WWII – Norway
The interest of Germany for Norway was primarily for its strategic position, which became an asset of special value after the start of the war against the USSR in mid-1941. The convoys feeding vital material to the USSR from Britain and the US had to go to Murmansk (see here) and the Kola Peninsula, i.e. over the Barents Sea. This was conveniently controlled by the German occupants, operating from the Norwegian coast.
In the visitor center of North Cape some panels are dedicated to this topic, showing an impression of the structure and routes followed by Allied convoys going to the USSR.
Polar Convoys to the USSR & Scharnhorst Exhibition – North Cape – Nordkapp – WWII – Norway
Polar Convoys to the USSR & Scharnhorst Exhibition – North Cape – Nordkapp – WWII – Norway
Polar Convoys to the USSR & Scharnhorst Exhibition – North Cape – Nordkapp – WWII – Norway
Polar Convoys to the USSR & Scharnhorst Exhibition – North Cape – Nordkapp – WWII – Norway
Polar Convoys to the USSR & Scharnhorst Exhibition – North Cape – Nordkapp – WWII – Norway
Polar Convoys to the USSR & Scharnhorst Exhibition – North Cape – Nordkapp – WWII – Norway
Polar Convoys to the USSR & Scharnhorst Exhibition – North Cape – Nordkapp – WWII – Norway
Detailed panels with maps and pictures recall the last battle of the German battleship Scharnhorst, which was confronted by the group of the British battleship HMS Duke of York, in an epic battle relatively close to North Cape. The massive German battleship, deployed to Norway with Tirpitz (a sister ship of the famous Bismarck) to block the resupply traffic to the USSR, was hit several times and finally sunk in the freezing last days of 1943. The battle was posthumously named ‘Battle of North Cape’. A detailed scaled model of the German battleship is similarly on display in the visitor center.
Polar Convoys to the USSR & Scharnhorst Exhibition – North Cape – Nordkapp – WWII – Norway
Polar Convoys to the USSR & Scharnhorst Exhibition – North Cape – Nordkapp – WWII – Norway
Polar Convoys to the USSR & Scharnhorst Exhibition – North Cape – Nordkapp – WWII – Norway
Polar Convoys to the USSR & Scharnhorst Exhibition – North Cape – Nordkapp – WWII – Norway
Polar Convoys to the USSR & Scharnhorst Exhibition – North Cape – Nordkapp – WWII – Norway
Visiting
The visitor center of the Arctic Circle on the road E6, with a small Soviet monument, can be found here. The monument is open 24/7.
The visitor center of North Cape is… at North Cape! The inside can be accessed during opening times, and the tables with information on WWII convoys and battles are on an underground mezzanine. Website with full information here.
War Museum – Narvik
The port town of Narvik was founded in the 19th century as a commercial base for exporting iron ore from Sweden. A small town by the sea, surrounded by steep-climbing mountains, and in a remote location well north of the Arctic Circle, Narvik was turned for about two months into a though theater of war for the Germans, following their occupation of Norway.
It was here that the British started a battle to stop the German push to the north, as soon as the 10th of April 1940, basically at the same time as the Germans had reached the town during their conquering campaign.
What resulted was a complex, multi-stage operation, lasting until early June 1940.
At first, the British fleet mounted a naval attack, carried out with a flotilla of five destroyers. This force clashed with the local German complement of ten destroyers. The British operation met with mixed success, and was finally repelled by the German navy operating in the narrow waters around Narvik, at the price of two destroyers on each side – plus several cargo ships destroyed in the battle. Three days later, on the 13th of April, a new force, composed of the British battleship HMS Warspite and 9 destroyers, launched another assault, resulting in the complete loss of the German destroyers fleet in the region – German warships were either sunk or scuttled.
The Germans however kept control of the town. A mixed force of British, Polish and French troops, together with the Norwegians, started an operation to conquer the town by land. The operation was successful, and the German troops had to retreat along the coast, away from Narvik. However, the start of the Battle of France – the invasion of France by the Third Reich – on the 10th of May, 1940, resulted in a rapid loss of priority of Narvik as a strategic target for the Allies. It was decided in Britain to withdraw from Norway, and to evacuate all previously landed military forces from Narvik. The town fell under German control on June 8th, basically concluding the conquer of Norway by the Third Reich.
The Allied landings around Narvik in 1940 where the first on the European continent in WWII, carried out without the participation of the US, more than three years before operations in southern Italy or Normandy.
The town of Narvik is still today an active commercial port of primary relevance in the region. The heritage of war actions is preserved in a purpose-installed museum, modernly designed and easy to visit.
On a first floor, the naval operations around Narvik are described by means of technological 3D board with virtual projections – very nice and lively. Around the board, memorabilia from the British and German warships taking part to the operations back in the Spring of 1940 have been put on display.
War Museum Narvik – WWII – Norway
War Museum Narvik – WWII – Norway
War Museum Narvik – WWII – Norway
War Museum Narvik – WWII – Norway
War Museum Narvik – WWII – Norway
War Museum Narvik – WWII – Norway
War Museum Narvik – WWII – Norway
War Museum Narvik – WWII – Norway
War Museum Narvik – WWII – Norway
They include an original Nazi eagle from one of the ships. Since the campaign around Narvik included also air and land operations, war traces including parts of aircraft, guns, mortars, machine guns, first-aid kits and many uniforms are also on display.
Uniforms are from the many corps which took part to those actions – they are British, German, Polish and even French.
War Museum Narvik – WWII – Norway
War Museum Narvik – WWII – Norway
War Museum Narvik – WWII – Norway
War Museum Narvik – WWII – Norway
War Museum Narvik – WWII – Norway
War Museum Narvik – WWII – Norway
War Museum Narvik – WWII – Norway
War Museum Narvik – WWII – Norway
War Museum Narvik – WWII – Norway
War Museum Narvik – WWII – Norway
War Museum Narvik – WWII – Norway
War Museum Narvik – WWII – Norway
War Museum Narvik – WWII – Norway
War Museum Narvik – WWII – Norway
War Museum Narvik – WWII – Norway
On a second floor, you are offered displays of artifacts retracing other aspects of WWII in Norway. These include land mines – put in place by the Germans along the coast, similar to Denmark, to impede Allied landings – an Enigma coding machine, Third Reich memorabilia, a section of the Tirpitz armored hull, radio machinery supplied to the resistance, as well as personal items belonging to former prisoners of war.
War Museum Narvik – WWII – Norway
War Museum Narvik – WWII – Norway
War Museum Narvik – WWII – Norway
War Museum Narvik – WWII – Norway
War Museum Narvik – WWII – Norway
War Museum Narvik – WWII – Norway
War Museum Narvik – WWII – Norway
War Museum Narvik – WWII – Norway
War Museum Narvik – WWII – Norway
War Museum Narvik – WWII – Norway
War Museum Narvik – WWII – Norway
War Museum Narvik – WWII – Norway
War Museum Narvik – WWII – Norway
War Museum Narvik – WWII – Norway
War Museum Narvik – WWII – Norway
War Museum Narvik – WWII – Norway
War Museum Narvik – WWII – Norway
War Museum Narvik – WWII – Norway
Finally, on the last floor heavier weapons are put on display, including torpedoes, light armored vehicles and more, even for post-WWII times.
War Museum Narvik – WWII – Norway
War Museum Narvik – WWII – Norway
War Museum Narvik – WWII – Norway
War Museum Narvik – WWII – Norway
War Museum Narvik – WWII – Norway
War Museum Narvik – WWII – Norway
War Museum Narvik – WWII – Norway
War Museum Narvik – WWII – Norway
War Museum Narvik – WWII – Norway
War Museum Narvik – WWII – Norway
War Museum Narvik – WWII – Norway
War Museum Narvik – WWII – Norway
Visiting
The battle of Narvik is one of the best known from WWII in Norway, and the little museum in the town center duly retraces its timeline, through an elegant exhibition, sufficiently rich to satisfy even the most exigent experts, but not so extensive to be boring for the general public. A really well designed museum, surely worth a visit, which may last from 30 minutes to 1 hour depending on your level of interest.
The location is right besides the town hall, and can be found here. Parking opportunities on the street nearby. Website with information here.
Tirpitz Museum – Alta
The German battleship Tirpitz was laid down as the only sister ship to the well-known Bismark. Eventually, she underwent developments which made her the heaviest battleship built in Europe. Her actions were concentrated along a limited time frame, between January 1942 and November 1944, when she was finally sunk by British Lancaster bombers, making use of Tallboy high-yield bombs.
She spent her operative life along the coasts of Norway, where she constituted an effective deterrent against a sea-launched Allied invasion, and was employed tactically against resupply convoys going to the USSR.
Tirpitz was a strategic target for the Allies, which tried to get rid of her by no less than seven war operations, meeting with limited success until the last one.
With an armor more than 30 cm thick, Tirpitz was marginally maneuverable especially at lower speed, but the hull was very difficult to penetrate, and the four turrets and eight 38 cm barrels, plus twelve side-shooting 15 cm barrels, complemented by many more defensive weapons, made it a dangerous asset against land and sea targets.
The ship capsized and sunk in shallow water in the bay of Tromso, and following the end of the war, she was largely dismantled. Original pieces of the ship could be collected, as well as some personal belongings from the crew. Some more were taken out from the water over the years.
The museum in Alta is dedicated to the memory of the ship, and offers an extremely rich collection of items connected with Tirpitz. Furthermore, by means of memorabilia items, it retraces the history of the war years in the northernmost region of Norway – Finnmark. The reason for installing the Tirpitz Museum in Kåfjord, near Alta, is bound to the fact that the battleship was based here for a period, as witnessed by some historical pictures. The museum has a rich guestbook, which includes top-ranking military staff from several Countries.
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
The small museum is home to some of the finest and largest scales models portraying Tirpitz. The level of detail and the accuracy of the reconstruction is really stunning.
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Some smaller diorama models portray scenes from the life onboard, or details of special interest. An unusual one portrays the capsized hull of the ship, following the sinking!
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Besides the scale models, original instrumentation, shells, wooden slabs from the deck, and more parts of the ship are put on display.
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
A room is dedicated to the operations carried out against the battleship. The ship was reportedly attacked several times without substantial damage. One of the attacks was carried out by the British, recurring to mini-submarines. Among the artifacts on display are the decorations to the men involved in these operations.
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Extremely interesting artifacts in the museum include material from the crew, taken away after the sinking over the years – sometimes found in the area as recently as the year 2000.
These include typewriters, cutlery with swastika emblems, musical instruments, sport suits with prominent Third Reich insignia, and many personal belongings.
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
In one case, the cabinet or wallet of a crewman revealed cash and stamps from the time.
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Among the countless items in this exhibition are original material – including radio stations – employed by the resistance movements in Norway, as well as light weapons, uniforms and decorations of the Soviet troops who operated in the Finnmark region, helping in repelling the Germans in the last stages of WWII.
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
On the outside, the anchor and parts of the armor of Tirpitz can be seen, together with an official memorial stone.
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Tirpitz Battleship Museum Alta – WWII – Norway
Visiting
The museum is located some five miles from Alta, in the small settlement of Kåfjord. It is hosted in a single, small wooden building – possibly a former canteen – to be found here, with a small parking nearby. A website with full visiting information is here.
Visiting the museum may take from 30 minutes to 1 hour depending on your level of interest.
Vemork Hydroelectric Power Plant & Heavy Water Facility – Rjukan
The nuclear program of the Third Reich is still today a matter for researchers, since – mysteriously enough – most documentation disappeared by the end of the war. Among the ascertained facts were the excellence of nuclear scientist in Germany at the time on the one hand, and the total lack of adequate quantities of raw material, or plants for processing it, to actually build real nuclear weapons on the other.
The latter is witnessed by the great strategic value attributed to the plant in Rjukan, hidden in a scenic deep valley in the region of Telemark, in southern Norway, about three hours by car from Oslo. A hydroelectric plant there – the exact name is Vemork power-plant – was employed to produce heavy water through a dedicated electrolysis separation process, which requires huge amounts of energy. Heavy water is a key component for the production of Plutonium – in turn required for atomic weapons – in heavy-water reactors.
Also the Norwegians understood the value of the plant. As soon as the winds of war started blowing from Germany in early 1940, heavy water then in storage was taken away to France, and later to Britain following the invasion of France by the Third Reich.
After Norway had been occupied by the Reich, the plant was at the center of three sabotage operations. Extremely risky and partly ending in disaster, these operations were carried out both by Norwegian and British staff, parachuted from Britain.
It took until 1944 to mortally hit the plant, well protected by its own natural setting. Two dedicated bombing raids carried out by US bombers damaged the plant beyond repair – at least in the late war scenario, when the Third Reich reaction capacity was weakening every day. The final act in the Norwegian heavy water saga was the sinking of the small boat – named Hydro – loaded with the reserve of heavy water from Vemork, having just started its trip to Germany on Lake Tinn.
The plant was again in business in the years after the war, and remained operative until the early 1990s, involved in production of various chemicals.
Vemork Power Plant Heavy Water Rjukan – WWII – Norway
Vemork Power Plant Heavy Water Rjukan – WWII – Norway
Vemork Power Plant Heavy Water Rjukan – WWII – Norway
Vemork Power Plant Heavy Water Rjukan – WWII – Norway
Today, it is a much visited museum. Actually, the most impressive part of the plant is that of the hydroelectric turbines. Aligned in a single immense hangar, these now silent giant machinery send glimpses of the original, fashionable early-1900 industrial style.
Vemork Power Plant Heavy Water Rjukan – WWII – Norway
Vemork Power Plant Heavy Water Rjukan – WWII – Norway
Vemork Power Plant Heavy Water Rjukan – WWII – Norway
Vemork Power Plant Heavy Water Rjukan – WWII – Norway
Vemork Power Plant Heavy Water Rjukan – WWII – Norway
Vemork Power Plant Heavy Water Rjukan – WWII – Norway
Vemork Power Plant Heavy Water Rjukan – WWII – Norway
Vemork Power Plant Heavy Water Rjukan – WWII – Norway
Vemork Power Plant Heavy Water Rjukan – WWII – Norway
Vemork Power Plant Heavy Water Rjukan – WWII – Norway
Some of the turbines and generator assemblies – manufactured by AEG, as witnessed by the labels – are really huge.
Vemork Power Plant Heavy Water Rjukan – WWII – Norway
Vemork Power Plant Heavy Water Rjukan – WWII – Norway
Vemork Power Plant Heavy Water Rjukan – WWII – Norway
Vemork Power Plant Heavy Water Rjukan – WWII – Norway
Vemork Power Plant Heavy Water Rjukan – WWII – Norway
Vemork Power Plant Heavy Water Rjukan – WWII – Norway
Vemork Power Plant Heavy Water Rjukan – WWII – Norway
Vemork Power Plant Heavy Water Rjukan – WWII – Norway
A suspended platform allows to capture with a bird’s eye the entire hall. Here you can see also completely analog control panels, again in a very elegant style from the era.
Vemork Power Plant Heavy Water Rjukan – WWII – Norway
Vemork Power Plant Heavy Water Rjukan – WWII – Norway
Vemork Power Plant Heavy Water Rjukan – WWII – Norway
Visiting
The museum in Vemork can be reached in less than 3 hours driving from central Oslo. The power-plant can be approached walking from the parking (here) over a suspended bridge crossing the deep valley. The area is very scenic. The highlight of the show is the hall with the power turbines. A visit may take from a few minutes to more than 1 hour for more interested subjects.
A website with full information can be found here.
The armed forces of the German Democratic Republic (GDR), named NVA (‘Nationalen Volksarmee’, or National People’s Army), and the Western Group of Forces of the USSR coexisted on the territory of the communist-led GDR for the entire duration of the Cold War. They were basically independent from one another at least in terms of organization. The NVA was sized according to the interests of a highly militarized, but relatively small country in the core of Europe, and its vocation was mainly tactical. Nonetheless, the NVA boasted several branches, and in particular a land army, an air force and a navy.
Actually, the attack plan of the USSR in Europe – constantly updated over the years – foresaw a total, ‘one-shot’ massive attack aimed at reaching the North Sea coast in the shortest time possible, starting from the border with the West, thus primarily from the GDR, and making use of tactical nuclear weapons on key-targets in Western Europe. An involvement of all Armed Forces of the Warsaw Pact – beside the Soviet Red Army – was part of the plan, and as a result especially the good level of the military supply of the GDR was always a concern in the eyes of war planners in the Eastern Bloc.
When thinking of missiles and the Cold War, images of the parades on the Red Square in Moscow typically come to one’s mind. However, local national Armies of nations in the Warsaw Pact indeed had armed forces on their own, and usually also missile brigades incorporated in them.
This is the case of the NVA, which was fed by the USSR with the most advanced rocket technology, as soon as missiles grew in size and reliability to become significant warfare items. An excellence of Soviet rocket warfare has been the great care for the advanced deployment and ease of transportation of any assets, partly dictated by the infrastructural difficulties of a country so huge and so extreme in terms of terrain conditions and seasonal changes as the USSR. Actually, Soviet transport vehicles for missiles since the early 1960s matched missiles of virtually any sizes, of course including those for theater operations, which are intermediately compact and lightweight, especially when compared to larger, heavier and longer-range strategic missiles.
The arsenal of the NVA in terms of missiles was kept up to date between the early 1960s – as said, the beginning of serious rocket-based warfare and correspondingly war action plans, also in the West – and the end of the Cold War. Following bilateral Soviet-US disarmament treaties in the late 1980s, a transition period was started, obviously influenced by the 1989 anti-communist revolution and the starting of the German reunification process. The NVA was dissolved and its assets incorporated in the armed forces of Federal Germany in 1990. Due to the changed global relationships following the collapse of the USSR, most rocket forces in Europe, originally intended to fight a war on the continent, were significantly reduced or totally disbanded.
In its heyday, the missile forces of the NVA totaled two regular Brigades, incorporated in the land forces of the NVA, and eleven independent Brigades. They were supplied over the years with SCUD-A/B, Luna and Oka missile and corresponding transport/launch vehicles in various versions. The warheads supplied to the NVA were usually conventional. However provision was made for nuclear warheads, which were always kept under the direct control of the Soviets in two purpose-built nuclear depots (see this post).
An excerpt of the rich history of the rocket forces of the NVA can be reviewed visiting the nice exhibition of the ‘Militärhistorischer Verein Demen’, which translates into ‘Society of Military History of Demen’, located in the homonym village in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, the northernmost district of the former GDR. It is easily reachable less than one hour driving inland from Lübeck or Rostock on the Baltic Coast. The display of this society of enthusiasts reaches even further, documenting the presence of missile forces of the US and within the Bundeswehr of Federal Germany, supplied with American material during the Cold War.
This post covers this very nice and lively collection, really special both in terms of items on display, and for the fact that most vehicles there are still in working order – when visiting, you will have good chances to see them moving around!
Photographs were taken in 2021.
Sights
The base in Demen became active between 1975 and 1977, when the 5th Mobile Rocket Technical Base (BRTB-5) and later the 5th Rocket Brigade (5. RBr) of the NVA moved in with all their assets. The 5. RBr had been originally formed in 1962 with another name (Autonomous Artillery Brigade sABr-2), and supplied with SCUD-A missiles. In 1964 it converted to SCUD-B theater missiles. It was re-founded as the 5. RBr only in 1967.
In 1985 it was resupplied with the SS-23 Spider (aka Oka, or 9M714 in Soviet coding). The INF treaty signed in 1987 by President Reagan and Secretary Gorbachev targeted that type of missile, which was therefore short-lived, and disposed of as soon as 1990 in the NVA (later Bundeswehr).
The exhibition in Demen offers an insight in the missile types in use by the NVA. They have been placed inside a building of the former NVA military base on site, which following disbandment of the NVA has been converted into a multi-functional facility, with local companies and diverse businesses taking over the hangars, warehouses and residential buildings.
A complete 9P113 Soviet-made launcher for the old Luna (NATO: Frog) missile is on display, with the missile on top of it.
Soviet Luna Missile Launcher 9P113 – Militärhistorischer Verein Demen Germany (GDR)
Soviet Luna Missile Launcher 9P113 – Militärhistorischer Verein Demen Germany (GDR)
Soviet Luna Missile Launcher 9P113 – Militärhistorischer Verein Demen Germany (GDR)
Soviet Luna Missile Launcher 9P113 – Militärhistorischer Verein Demen Germany (GDR)
Soviet Luna Missile Launcher 9P113 – Militärhistorischer Verein Demen Germany (GDR)
Soviet Luna Missile Launcher 9P113 – Militärhistorischer Verein Demen Germany (GDR)
Right besides is a cutaway exemplar of the highly-successful Soviet BTR-60 armored personnel transport vehicle. The twin-engined propulsion system is clearly visible.
Soviet BTR-60 Armored personnel transport vehicle – Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
Soviet BTR-60 Armored personnel transport vehicle – Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
Soviet BTR-60 Armored personnel transport vehicle – Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
Soviet BTR-60 Armored personnel transport vehicle – Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
Soviet BTR-60 Armored personnel transport vehicle – Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
The collection in Demen is unique in having some fully working vehicles on display.
The bulkiest and most impressive is surely the movable launcher 9P71 for the Oka missile. This eight-wheeled truck can be seen in the pictures sheltered in a hangar, or moving around the premises of the former NVA base!
Soviet/East German Oka 9K714 Missile Launch Vehicle – Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
Soviet/East German Oka 9K714 Missile Launch Vehicle – Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
Soviet/East German Oka 9K714 Missile Launch Vehicle – Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
Soviet/East German Oka 9K714 Missile Launch Vehicle – Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
Soviet/East German Oka 9K714 Missile Launch Vehicle – Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
Soviet/East German Oka 9K714 Missile Launch Vehicle – Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
Soviet/East German Oka 9K714 Missile Launch Vehicle – Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
Soviet/East German Oka 9K714 Missile Launch Vehicle – Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
Soviet/East German Oka 9K714 Missile Launch Vehicle – Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
Soviet/East German Oka 9K714 Missile Launch Vehicle – Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
Soviet/East German Oka 9K714 Missile Launch Vehicle – Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
In this video you can see the vehicle displaying the movable crane – still perfectly operative – for maneuvering the missile.
In this other video you can see the launcher carefully coming back into the hangar, following a live display.
Another vehicle from the Eastern Bloc and still in fully working condition is this technical van UAZ-452. Not only it can move on its wheels and engine, but it looks still perfectly equipped!
Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
The collection in Demen is not exclusively devoted to the Eastern Bloc or the GDR either. Instead, you can find both static and ‘live’ items on display from the NATO side of the Iron Curtain. The latter include a M752 amphibious vehicle for transporting the Lance missile.
Lance Missile Transport Vehicle M752 Bundeswehr – Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
Lance Missile Transport Vehicle M752 Bundeswehr – Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
Lance Missile Transport Vehicle M752 Bundeswehr – Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
Lance Missile Transport Vehicle M752 Bundeswehr – Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
This vehicle with tracks was highly popular in the US and many NATO countries, including Federal Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. Another unusual living exemplar is that of a Swedish Hägglunds Bandvagn BV-206, aka SUSV in the US Army. A very versatile tracked vehicle with a trailer made for the snowy terrains of Scandinavia and the Polar continents as well, today running around the former NVA base in Demen!
Hägglunds Bandvagn BV-206 Transport Vehicle Swedish Army SUSV – Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
Hägglunds Bandvagn BV-206 Transport Vehicle Swedish Army SUSV – Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
Three warheads from US missiles deployed on the territory of the FRG are on static display, allowing for a nice size and shape comparison. They are a Pershing, Honest John and Sergeant warheads, all theater missiles from different stages of the Cold War. On the outside, a fully assembled Honest John is similarly on display.
Honest John Missile Bundewehr – Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
The Soviet-made missiles on display are a Luna, an Oka and a SCUD. The Luna, painted in gray, is partly cut to show the inside mechanisms and arrangement. Also the corresponding warhead has been cut to show the inside structure.
Soviet/East German Luna Missile (Frog) – Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
Soviet/East German Luna Missile (Frog) – Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
Soviet/East German Luna Missile (Frog) – Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
The pretty rare Oka missile has not been cut – a true icon from the Cold War in the mid-1980s!
Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
Soviet/East German Oka 9K714 Missile (SS-23 Spider) – Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
Soviet/East German Oka 9K714 Missile (SS-23 Spider) – Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
Soviet/East German Oka 9K714 Missile (SS-23 Spider) – Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
Soviet/East German Oka 9K714 Missile (SS-23 Spider) – Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
The SCUD has been separated from its warhead, and partly cut and cleverly lighted to show the inside plants and arrangement.
Soviet/East German SCUD Missile – Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
Soviet/East German SCUD Missile – Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
Soviet/East German SCUD Missile – Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
Soviet/East German SCUD Missile – Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
Soviet/East German SCUD Missile – Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
Soviet/East German SCUD Missile – Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
Soviet/East German SCUD Missile – Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
Soviet/East German SCUD Missile – Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
Soviet/East German SCUD Missile – Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
Soviet/East German SCUD Missile – Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
Soviet/East German SCUD Missile – Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
Soviet/East German SCUD Missile – Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
Besides the SCUD also some original parts of the guidance system have been put on display, together with some technical testing/monitoring material of Soviet or East-German make – note the writing in Cyrillic.
Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
Display cases all around host original technical material, many fantastic models mainly from the arsenal of the NVA and Red Army during the Cold War, as well as exceptionally detailed and informative panels concerning the history of the missile forces of the NVA (as well as specifically on some of the missile systems on display).
Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
Many evocative photographs and videos from the days of operation complete the display in the hangar.
Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
Some very rare artifacts are from the early stage of rocketry, and include components of von Braun’s first works – most notably the V2 – from the Third Reich era.
A second branch of the exhibition, physically hosted in another building of the complex, is composed of the two rooms packed with memorabilia items mainly from the history of the 5. RBr
Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
These include books, photographs, and beautiful memorial crests, especially from joint exercises carried out with the Red Army with live firing of the missiles in a dedicated polygon in Kapustin Yar. People taking part to these exercises – held back in the 1980s – are now volunteering in the Society, and you may be so lucky to meet them for a nice talk and for getting a more lively insight on the history of the NVA rocket Brigades. Staff from the 5. RBr deployed to the polygon by land, and the original map retracing their movements across the USSR is on display.
Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
Also on display are original technical boards displaying some operating concepts for the Oka missile – in Russian, a one-of-a-kind relic of the Cold War years!
Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
Militärhistorischer Verein Demen, Germany (GDR)
Getting there & Visiting
The small village of Demen is located in the northeastern quarter of Germany, about 25 miles from the Baltic shoreline, 45 miles from Rostock and 55 miles from Lübeck, both port towns on the Baltic sea. You can reach the display by car here. Access to the former NVA complex, now called Evita complex, is via the road L091, to the west of Demen.
One of the many hangars in the Evita complex hosts the collection, and the memorabilia rooms are in an adjoining building. Opening times are very limited (basically in the weekends), but this is due to the fact that they coincide with volunteers’ gatherings. On the plus side, you are likely to see at some vehicles running.
For interested subjects a time of 1 hour may be the minimum for a visit to the static display, if no vehicles are moving around. If there are live displays, or volunteers to interview, you may spend there 2 hours or more.
German is obviously the main language spoken (and often times the only option in this part of Germany), but English is nonetheless understood and spoken by some of the volunteers. Website here.
The republic of Georgia, located on the Caucasian isthmus between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, was founded in the turmoil following the collapse of the Czarist Empire during WWI. Located on the border with Turkey, at that time this region tried to untie from neighbor Russia, and proclaimed a libertarian socialist state.
Following the seizure of power by Lenin and the Bolsheviks, producing a devastating civil war which would go on raging all over the former Russian-controlled territory well into the 1920s, Georgia lost its independence, being sucked into the Soviet Union, similar to many other nations sharing a border with Russia – like Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Latvia, etc.
A country with a remarkable wealth of history, inhabited since when traces of mankind started to appear on earth, with a deeply rooted Christian culture since centuries, a strong independence movement started to show in Georgia already in the 1980s, when the Soviet system was still destined to last for long in the eyes of many western observers. This independence feeling would culminate in the republic of Georgia leaving the USSR months before its actual end, already in early 1991. Since then, the country is openly hostile to Russia, and the formation in the early 2000s of two de facto Russian-backed independent states – South Ossetia and Abkhazia – over the sovereign territory of Georgia witnesses a mutual state of tension between Tbilisi and Moscow, still lasting today.
Despite this, and almost paradoxically, the Georgian individual possibly best known to the general public and to the world is an eminent communist character, a one-of-a-kind contributor to the history of the USSR and of the world – and someone would say, the most authentic incarnation of a communist leader – Stalin.
While Georgia, most comprehensibly, is striving to delete every tangible trace of the Soviet era – from statues to symbols and pieces of architecture – a few notable exceptions include some of Stalin-related relics in the country. In Gori, Stalin’s hometown, the house where Stalin was born is preserved under a bombastic Soviet-era canopy. Nearby, a unique museum dedicated to the Soviet leader, opened back in the late 1950s with a display of incredible memorabilia, is reportedly the most successful attraction in town, with crowds of visitors still today.
In an old district in Tbilisi you can find another unique point of interest – the so-called Stalin Printing House Museum. It was in this unapparent house that young Stalin operated as a pro-communist clandestine agitator in the early 20th century, well before the Bolshevik revolution in Russia.
This post covers these Stalin-related remains in the man’s home country, with photographs taken in summer 2019.
Sights
Joseph Stalin Museum – Gori
Stalin’s hometown, where he was born in 1878, is dominated by a scenic ancient fortress, sitting on top of an isolated mound. At the time of Stalin’s birth, that was also the geographic center of the town. When Stalin became… Stalin, his birthplace was turned into a place of pilgrimage, and a new purely-Soviet master plan was implemented in the city, creating a new gravitational center around the modest house of his parents.
The long axis which drives you from the major access road and the railway station south of the city to the house follows an almost north-south direction. A typically Soviet alley – straight, too wide and with mostly sad-looking buildings to the sides – links a bridge over the local river to to the house, going through a square with the town hall, built in a Soviet classicist style. A tall statue of Stalin used to stand on the side of the square, and it was torn down only in the 2000s.
Joseph Stalin Birthplace Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Birthplace Georgia Soviet Relic
Closer to the house, the alley bifurcates into a ‘Y’. Between the arms of the ‘Y’ you can find a garden with fountains and flowers.
Joseph Stalin Museum Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
To the far end of the garden, the small half-timbered house where Stalin’s parents used to live is preserved under a Soviet-style canopy.
Stalin’s parents were not well-to-do, and they actually rent the house, where they occupied only one room. Back in the 19th century, it was just one in a row of similar buildings. Following the radical reshaping of the area for celebrating the Soviet leader, the whole neighborhood was completely demolished, and only this block was left.
Joseph Stalin Museum Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
On the side and front facade of the house are marble signs in Russian and Georgian. The ceiling of the canopy features a stained glass light, with hammer and sickle signs by the corners.
Joseph Stalin Museum Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
To the back of the birthplace you can find a smaller statue of Stalin. Considering his generally acknowledged status as a bloody communist dictator, similar open air statues have been removed almost everywhere in the world – this is one of the few remaining exceptions (another being in Belarus, but most likely apocryphal – look for Stalin’s line museum here).
Joseph Stalin Birthplace Georgia Soviet Relic
The most conspicuous building in this celebratory installation is the actual Joseph Stalin Museum, which occupies a pretty large palace in Stalinist style. The master plan dates back to the final years of Stalin, and its realization was carried out during the 1950s.
The building is interesting from an architectural viewpoint, and features a colonnaded porch giving access to a main entrance hall.
Joseph Stalin Birthplace Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Birthplace Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
The latter is rather formal, with another colonnade and a perspective leading through a staircase to a mezzanine. In the focus of the perspective you can see another statue of Stalin. Every particular in the architecture here is extremely Soviet – grim, menacing, heavy.
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
The ticket and toilets can be accessed to the sides of the hall on the ground floor, which acts also as a meeting point for groups – but guided visits are not compulsory, you can tour the museum on your own.
Upon reaching the first floor, you meet two busts of Stalin, and a couple of interesting paintings, portraying the young Josip Vissarionovich Dzugansvili – Stalin’s its real name – as a student talking to his class mates at the seminary of Tbilisi, and later as grown-up, well-established Stalin talking to his collaborators.
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
The museum is composed of a few big halls. The first rooms retrace Stalin’s personal story, and are based on a mix of documents, original or reproduced, newspapers, paintings and photographs. The latter are often reproductions, often magnified – since when he was not yet famous he mostly appeared in group photographs.
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Here you learn about his humble origins, and you can see the photographs of his parents, his early school reports and the first known photographs of Josip as a young boy.
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
A rather brilliant pupil, he was granted access to the Orthodox seminary in Tbilisi – which back then was called Tiflis – where he moved to attend lectures and to grow to become a priest. Some works of poetry from the time, published on local newspapers in Georgian, are part of the exhibition.
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Something went wrong at that time, as he got excessively fascinated with the leftmost socialist theories, spread by several authors including Lenin. A rare naive portrait of his meeting with the principal of the seminary, when he was expelled for his unacceptable and dangerous views, is part of the collection.
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
This was the beginning of a militancy period, when he became known to the department of internal affairs of the Czar due to open subversive propaganda activities. He worked irregularly, publishing clandestine works in Tbilisi (see about his printing house below), holding open-air meetings in port town Batumi, and so on.
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Finally, he was arrested and deported by the Czar to inland Russia. As his fame grew, he was tasked with some role in the apparatus of the clandestine political formations headed by Lenin – the factions against the Czar and even in the socialist area were many, and the intricate civil war that followed the 1917 revolution was also the result of the struggle for power of these opposing forces.
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Between internment periods, he started traveling to the capital – St. Petersburg. He also met Lenin in Tampere, Finland, a country politically bound to the Russian empire until 1917. Photographs and documents from the time, a suitcase and models of the houses where Stalin resided can be found in this part. Busts including one of Stalin as a young agitator, pretty rare and likely taken from the few portraits from the time, are also parts of the collection.
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Again following a historical timeline, you can find more documents and portraits of a grown-up yet young man of the apparatus. It is well known that Lenin, after the 1917 revolution, saw Stalin as a potential problem for the future of the Party. A copy of Lenin’s ‘testament’, telling his comrades to get rid of Stalin, is on display in the exhibition. As a matter of fact, Lenin’s illness and demise in 1924 started a period of transition.
Stalin, by 1922 general secretary of the communist party of the USSR, fought and won against all other members of the communist party, making his appointment in the government the most powerful. He managed to maintain his role until his death in 1953, reigning as an unopposed tyrant at least since the end of the 1920s, when he prevailed over his most strenuous opponent, Trotzkij.
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
As he started to gain power, official portraits started to appear, both paintings and photographs. These pieces of the collection are also interesting, for not many portraits of Stalin have survived in official displays, after he was condemned by his political heirs.
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Also books from his speeches and prints from his personal history, to be distributed to the general public, are displayed here.
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Prominence in the communist party of the USSR gained a special status also to Stalin’s family. His mother had a decent place to live, and his son payed a visit more than once – this is the subject of some portraits. A porcelain set from Stalin’s mother household is on display.
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Curious artifacts in this part of the museum include a desk from some communist office of the time of Stalin’s purges.
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
As a marshal in WWII – the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945 as it was known in the USSR – Stalin reached international recognition and world fame. His ability as a general is open to critics, for he managed to kill most of the most experienced staff in the purges of the 1930s, and appointed generals – mostly like Hitler – based on their political attitude. It is questionable whether without substantial help from the then-allies of the Soviet Union (Britain and the US) a victory against Germany could have been reached, despite a disproportionate number of casualties in the rows of the Red Army. However, the final march to Berlin, which gained him control over half of Europe, raised him to the level of a world leader. The exhibition reflects this recognition, with books by Stalin translated in several languages, gifts from generals of the Red Army – including an authentic monstrosity donated to the museum by WWII hero General Zhukov in the 1960s – and many pictures from the war years.
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
A showcase is dedicated to Stalin’s sons and heirs. He had five sons, from two wives and other women, and his descent is still existent today.
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
A corner hall hosts a kind of monumental installation, a small Soviet monument not among the best of the kind. Made of lighted reproductions of photographs, it is a kind of recap of Stalin’s triumphs and special moments.
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
The next hall concludes the climax, and is really unique. It is a circular room padded with black leather panels. At the center of a circular colonnade you can see at the level of the ground one of the few – apparently 12 – original reproductions of Stalin’s head from his death mask.
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Thanks to the special installation featuring a strong symmetry and a special lighting, the head is really magnetic.
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Stalin died at 75 in March 1953 in undisclosed circumstances, possibly to the hand of somebody in his entourage. Some paintings from his funeral can be seen around the room, together with a model of the mausoleum of Lenin on the Red Square in Moscow, where Stalin was interred for a few years, until removed when finally condemned by his party – note the writing in Cyrillic ‘Lenin – Stalin’ on the mausoleum, later reverted to ‘Lenin’ only.
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
The next hall is dedicated to international relationships, displayed through photographs, memorabilia and the plenty of gifts Stalin received in his years as a communist dictator.
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
There are presents from Georgia and other Soviet republics, and from international delegations. The latter were from both the eastern bloc – Eastern Germany, Poland, China – and most strikingly from the West, and even from NATO countries like France and Italy!
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Back to the top of the staircase, you get access to one of the highlights of the exhibition. In a final room you find on display the original furniture of Stalin’s office at the Kremlin. There is a desk with an armchair, a sofa, and a set of smaller chairs. Stylistically not very appealing, this furniture is of course of great historical relevance.
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Close by, more unique items are on display in two showcases – Stalin’s personal belongings. There are a few cigars – now decomposing to age – some cigarettes, a cigarette box, a ruler, two pipes, a pen, a chessboard, a hand-written message to a friend, and some other trinkets. Finally, there is a military uniform, with boots and coat.
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum and Birthplace Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
When you have got intoxicated by the Soviet aura of this place, you can finally get out and visit the last item in the park, Stalin’s personal railway car. This was actually used by Stalin, who did not like flying, to travel around the Union and abroad. He went to Teheran and Jalta conferences during WWII in this car.
Joseph Stalin Museum Railway Car Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum Railway Car Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum Railway Car Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum Railway Car Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum Railway Car Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum Railway Car Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
The car is special in having a bullet-proof armor all around – which produces a weight comparable to that of a Diesel railway engine… – and some special services, like a bathtub, a personal studio and a meeting room.
Joseph Stalin Museum Railway Car Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum Railway Car Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum Railway Car Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum Railway Car Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum Railway Car Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum Railway Car Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum Railway Car Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Joseph Stalin Museum Railway Car Gori Georgia Soviet Relic
Stalin’s ‘memorial park’ in Gori is really a one-of-a-kind museum, of exceptional interest for people interested to his period and his historical figure. You may be surprised by the very existence of this place, primarily because of the well-known and heavy responsibility of this man in mass-murders and misconduct as a head of state, and also because it is located in Georgia, a country openly hostile to Russia and its hard political domination, implemented through the institution of the Soviet Union. It is one of the expressions of the contradictory attitude of most peoples touched by the USSR – including Russians – towards that era. It remains a thought-provoking collection of historical value though – gifts from international delegation from the West are a vivid memory of the recognition obtained by this mass-murderer during his lifetime. They are particularly instructive about how propaganda can draw international consensus to the most unthinkable subjects.
Getting there and moving around
Getting to Georgia from the West will be hardly for Gori alone. Despite the nice, well-kept town center, with the castle and several refurbished churches and alleys, and of course the Stalin-related part, there are far more significant places to visit in Georgia, at least if you are coming from far away to this relatively hard-to-reach angle of the world. Yet Gori is located in a convenient position along the major road and railway connecting Tbilisi to Kutaisi and the coast of the Black Sea, which makes for an ideal one-day or even half-day stop.
The town is a good place to sleep, for there are a number of guesthouses and restaurants, and it does not look derelict or unsafe, differently for instance from more prominent Kutaisi. The whole Stalin-themed park, with the birthplace, museum and railway car, is rather compact, and not big, so visiting may take from 1.5 to 3 hours, depending on your level of interest. This is the main attraction in town. Strangely, I could not find an official website – this is strange for most labels are translated also in English, and there is even some merchandise, so the place is run as a modern museum. However, Google or TripAdvisor timetables were correct at least when I visited.
Plenty of public parking space around the museum.
In town there is also a war museum dedicated to the Great Patriotic War (covered here), as well as other non-communist themed attractions.
Joseph Stalin’s Underground Printing House Museum – Tbilisi
This museum was opened in Soviet times in the place of a house where young Stalin spent some time as a political agitator. His main activity related to this place was printing clandestine material.
Access it through modern Soviet buildings, with a hall which unfortunately cannot be visited.
Tbilisi Stalin Underground Printing House Soviet Era Communism Museum
Tbilisi Stalin Underground Printing House Soviet Era Communism Museum
Tbilisi Stalin Underground Printing House Soviet Era Communism Museum
Tbilisi Stalin Underground Printing House Soviet Era Communism Museum
Tbilisi Stalin Underground Printing House Soviet Era Communism Museum
Tbilisi Stalin Underground Printing House Soviet Era Communism Museum
The house is presented inside a small garden. There are two light buildings, a half-timbered house and a smaller hut.
Tbilisi Stalin Underground Printing House Soviet Era Communism Museum
Tbilisi Stalin Underground Printing House Soviet Era Communism Museum
The two are connected by a deep underground passage. This double access to the underground was of great help to evade controls by Czarist authorities. The main underground hall is original.
Tbilisi Stalin Underground Printing House Soviet Era Communism Museum
Tbilisi Stalin Underground Printing House Soviet Era Communism Museum
Tbilisi Stalin Underground Printing House Soviet Era Communism Museum
Tbilisi Stalin Underground Printing House Soviet Era Communism Museum
Tbilisi Stalin Underground Printing House Soviet Era Communism Museum
Tbilisi Stalin Underground Printing House Soviet Era Communism Museum
Tbilisi Stalin Underground Printing House Soviet Era Communism Museum
Tbilisi Stalin Underground Printing House Soviet Era Communism Museum
Possibly intended as a food cellar, it was used to store a 19th century printing machine – made in Augsburg, Germany, as witnessed by the rusty but still readable factory label!
Tbilisi Stalin Underground Printing House Soviet Era Communism Museum
Tbilisi Stalin Underground Printing House Soviet Era Communism Museum
Tbilisi Stalin Underground Printing House Soviet Era Communism Museum
Tbilisi Stalin Underground Printing House Soviet Era Communism Museum
Tbilisi Stalin Underground Printing House Soviet Era Communism Museum
The half-timbered house is apparently a Soviet-era reproduction of the building originally in place. It is a two-rooms house, very similar to Stalin’s birth house in Gori (see above). The two rooms have been furnished with a few berths and tables, to provide an idea of the original look, and with tons of artifacts from Stalin’s and Soviet times.
Tbilisi Stalin Underground Printing House Soviet Era Communism Museum
Tbilisi Stalin Underground Printing House Soviet Era Communism Museum
Tbilisi Stalin Underground Printing House Soviet Era Communism Museum
These include portraits, photographs, books and emblems. There is also a model of a similar clandestine print house in Baku, Azerbaijan.
Tbilisi Stalin Underground Printing House Soviet Era Communism Museum
Tbilisi Stalin Underground Printing House Soviet Era Communism Museum
Tbilisi Stalin Underground Printing House Soviet Era Communism Museum
Tbilisi Stalin Underground Printing House Soviet Era Communism Museum
Tbilisi Stalin Underground Printing House Soviet Era Communism Museum
Tbilisi Stalin Underground Printing House Soviet Era Communism Museum
Tbilisi Stalin Underground Printing House Soviet Era Communism Museum
Tbilisi Stalin Underground Printing House Soviet Era Communism Museum
Tbilisi Stalin Underground Printing House Soviet Era Communism Museum
Tbilisi Stalin Underground Printing House Soviet Era Communism Museum
Tbilisi Stalin Underground Printing House Soviet Era Communism Museum
Tbilisi Stalin Underground Printing House Soviet Era Communism Museum
Tbilisi Stalin Underground Printing House Soviet Era Communism Museum
Tbilisi Stalin Underground Printing House Soviet Era Communism Museum
Tbilisi Stalin Underground Printing House Soviet Era Communism Museum
Tbilisi Stalin Underground Printing House Soviet Era Communism Museum
Tbilisi Stalin Underground Printing House Soviet Era Communism Museum
Tbilisi Stalin Underground Printing House Soviet Era Communism Museum
All in all, this place has a historical significance as Stalin’s early headquarter, and as a Soviet place of pilgrimage. Differently from Stalin-themed park in Gori, it has been basically forgotten – it is kept open by aged volunteers.
Getting there and moving around
The museum is located at the following GPS coordinates – 41.690454, 44.829999. It is located west of Tbilisi city center, at a walking distance from it, but the walk is not recommended for the neighborhood is nothing special. Going by car or taxi is more time-efficient. Public parking on the street available around the block.
There is no official website to my knowledge. Entrance is by cash only, free offer. See Google for opening times, which are mainly in the central hours of the day. You can visit on your own, but one of the local enthusiasts running the museum will likely provide some information, and there is also a basic leaflet in English. Visiting may take about .5 hours.
While almost all nuclear sites you can find in European Countries once beyond the Iron Curtain are today totally abandoned and fairly unaccessible, there exists a perhaps unique exception. The Plokstine site in northwestern Lithuania has been selected around 2010 for complete refurbishment with the help of public money, and in 2012 it has opened its doors as a museum. Located in a beautiful natural setting crowded with hikers – namely Zemaitija National Park, a national recreation area around Plateliai lake – it has quickly grown to international fame, and is now recording several thousands visitors per year, with guided tours in multiple languages – including English – offered on a regular basis during the warm season.
What is today an intriguing tourist destination, used to be part of a large Soviet installation for launching ballistic missiles armed with nuclear warheads. It is worth mentioning that Lithuania was a ‘Soviet Socialist Republic’ in the realm of the USSR, i.e. not just a satellite country of the Soviet Union, but part of it. Actually, this small country on the shores of the Baltic Sea, on the extreme western border of Soviet territory, was an ideal location for deploying weapons to hit European targets from within the Union. Furthermore, the Plokstine forest was – and still is – a little populated area, where construction works for a large top-secret military facility for storing and operating offensive cutting-edge hi-tech warfare would go likely unnoticed.
The missile complex was completed in December 1962, in the years of Khrushchev and Kennedy. The Plokstine site comprises of four interred silos and an extensive underground command station in the middle – the ensemble constituted a so-called ‘Dvina’ launch complex.
The ‘Dvina’ site in Plokstine was actually the last part of the missile base to be built. Two more sister surface sites, with four launchpads each, had been completed one year before, just west of the nearby village of Saiteikiai. These surface sites were similar to those you can find in Latvia (see this post), a neighbor country where unfortunately the last remaining ‘Dvina’ site was demolished in 2017, but abundant traces of the Soviet presence can still be found.
All three launch complexes in this region were designed around the R-12 missile. The R-12U missile was actually used in the underground ‘Dvina’ complex, slightly different from the surface-launched R-12. This weapon was better known by its NATO designation – SS-4 Sandal – and was a 2.3 megaton, single warhead, single stage nuclear missile. It reached true international notoriety before the base in Plokstine was activated, for this was the type deployed to Cuba in the missile crisis of 1962. Coincidentally, part of the staff transferred to Cuba in the days preceding the crisis was from the same rocket regiment of the Red Army (the 79th) stationed in Plokstine. Sandal missiles from here were reportedly transferred in complete secrecy to Cuba, via the port town of Sevastopol in Crimea in that occasion.
The base remained operational until the last missile – by then obsolete – left in 1978.
The Baltics were the first republics to leave the dying Soviet Union, openly defying the military authority of neighbor Russia. After the collapse of the Union and the end of communism in Europe, these three states – which historically do not belong to Russian culture – quickly joined the NATO and European Union, to escape Russian influence as much as possible. Most Soviet military installations were shut down and abandoned, and have been for two decades an interesting destination for explorers and war historians (see this post for many examples). Later on, most sites have been slowly demolished or converted into something else. Really a few of them have been preserved for posterity.
In this post you can find photographs from the Cold War Museum now open in the former ‘Dvina’ site of Plokstine, from a visit in 2017. Close to the bottom, you can find a few further photographs from a previous visit made by appointment in 2009, before the site was selected for renovation – these may be more appealing for Soviet-aura lovers!
Sights
What can be visited today is all in the area of the old ‘Dvina’ complex. The complex is mainly composed of four interred silos, covered by heavy steel & concrete bulged covers, placed on the four corners of a square. These gigantic caps are the most prominent components of the site from the outside. Today, an observation deck has been erected on the south of the area. From there, you can appreciate the distinctive plan of the ‘Dvina’ complex, with an access road terminating in a loop touching all four armored silo covers.
Dvina Plokstine SS-4 Sandal Soviet Missile Base Lithuania Cold War
Dvina Plokstine SS-4 Sandal Soviet Missile Base Lithuania Cold War
Dvina Plokstine SS-4 Sandal Soviet Missile Base Lithuania Cold War
Dvina Plokstine SS-4 Sandal Soviet Missile Base Lithuania Cold War
Dvina Plokstine SS-4 Sandal Soviet Missile Base Lithuania Cold War
The weight of each cover is told to be around 100 tonnes, as it was armored to withstand a nuclear explosion. The covers would be pulled sideward with a sled mechanism, to open the silos before launch. Unmovable missile launch complexes, like the ‘Dvina’ site in Plokstine, were easy and attractive targets for western weapons, thus requiring a very strong defense barrier. Similar considerations led the design of the Titan missile sites in the US, which albeit more powerful and capable of a greater range, are roughly from the same era (see this post).
Dvina Plokstine SS-4 Sandal Soviet Missile Base Lithuania Cold War
Dvina Plokstine SS-4 Sandal Soviet Missile Base Lithuania Cold War
Dvina Plokstine SS-4 Sandal Soviet Missile Base Lithuania Cold War
Dvina Plokstine SS-4 Sandal Soviet Missile Base Lithuania Cold War
To get near the silos or get access to the museum, you need to pay a ticket and join a guided tour. The visit includes a tour of the Cold War Museum, which has been prepared inside the rooms of the former control center. The tour will start from the visitor center, a new modern building. You will soon go through a specimen of the original fences which ran around the ‘Dvina’ complex, and which included barbed wire and high-voltage electrified lines. Close by, you can find traces of original unarmored constructions, likely service buildings. The missile site was operated by more than 300 troops stationing in a number of smaller centers in the area around the complex.
Dvina Plokstine SS-4 Sandal Soviet Missile Base Lithuania Cold War
Dvina Plokstine SS-4 Sandal Soviet Missile Base Lithuania Cold War
Dvina Plokstine SS-4 Sandal Soviet Missile Base Lithuania Cold War
Dvina Plokstine SS-4 Sandal Soviet Missile Base Lithuania Cold War
Dvina Plokstine SS-4 Sandal Soviet Missile Base Lithuania Cold War
Dvina Plokstine SS-4 Sandal Soviet Missile Base Lithuania Cold War
The guide will lead you along a walk around the surface part of the complex, where you can see the construction of the caps from very close. The metal part is very rusty, but the concrete cover has been refurbished and looks like new – a pretty unusual sight, for connoisseurs of Soviet military relics!
Dvina Plokstine SS-4 Sandal Soviet Missile Base Lithuania Cold War
Dvina Plokstine SS-4 Sandal Soviet Missile Base Lithuania Cold War
Dvina Plokstine SS-4 Sandal Soviet Missile Base Lithuania Cold War
Dvina Plokstine SS-4 Sandal Soviet Missile Base Lithuania Cold War
Dvina Plokstine SS-4 Sandal Soviet Missile Base Lithuania Cold War
Dvina Plokstine SS-4 Sandal Soviet Missile Base Lithuania Cold War
Dvina Plokstine SS-4 Sandal Soviet Missile Base Lithuania Cold War
Access to the underground missile service and control center is via a small metal door, right in the middle of the square formed by the four silos.
Dvina Plokstine SS-4 Sandal Soviet Missile Base Lithuania Cold War
Dvina Plokstine SS-4 Sandal Soviet Missile Base Lithuania Cold War
A few rooms in the control center today host the exhibitions of the Cold War Museum. A room displays a quick time-line of the Cold War, since the end of WWII to the end of the USSR. In the adjoining rooms you can find propaganda items
Dvina Plokstine SS-4 Sandal Soviet Missile Base Lithuania Cold War
Dvina Plokstine SS-4 Sandal Soviet Missile Base Lithuania Cold War
Dvina Plokstine SS-4 Sandal Soviet Missile Base Lithuania Cold War
Dvina Plokstine SS-4 Sandal Soviet Missile Base Lithuania Cold War
Dvina Plokstine SS-4 Sandal Soviet Missile Base Lithuania Cold War
Dvina Plokstine SS-4 Sandal Soviet Missile Base Lithuania Cold War
Dvina Plokstine SS-4 Sandal Soviet Missile Base Lithuania Cold War
Another room is about defense against nuclear threat. This is interesting, with many artifacts like dosimeters and medical tools, plus easily readable instructions of ‘dos and don’ts’ in case of nuclear attack.
Dvina Plokstine SS-4 Sandal Soviet Missile Base Lithuania Cold War
Dvina Plokstine SS-4 Sandal Soviet Missile Base Lithuania Cold War
Dvina Plokstine SS-4 Sandal Soviet Missile Base Lithuania Cold War
Dvina Plokstine SS-4 Sandal Soviet Missile Base Lithuania Cold War
Dvina Plokstine SS-4 Sandal Soviet Missile Base Lithuania Cold War
Dvina Plokstine SS-4 Sandal Soviet Missile Base Lithuania Cold War
Dvina Plokstine SS-4 Sandal Soviet Missile Base Lithuania Cold War
Dvina Plokstine SS-4 Sandal Soviet Missile Base Lithuania Cold War
Another room is about the evolution of weapons over the Cold War decades, with original material from the time, including heavier tactical weapons.
The exhibition is modern, small but not superficial, and may appeal to any public, including children. Besides the exhibits, you can appreciate the relatively small size of all rooms and connecting corridors in the former control center.
Dvina Plokstine SS-4 Sandal Soviet Missile Base Lithuania Cold War
Dvina Plokstine SS-4 Sandal Soviet Missile Base Lithuania Cold War
Dvina Plokstine SS-4 Sandal Soviet Missile Base Lithuania Cold War
Dvina Plokstine SS-4 Sandal Soviet Missile Base Lithuania Cold War
Dvina Plokstine SS-4 Sandal Soviet Missile Base Lithuania Cold War
Dvina Plokstine SS-4 Sandal Soviet Missile Base Lithuania Cold War
Dvina Plokstine SS-4 Sandal Soviet Missile Base Lithuania Cold War
As you are driven next to the missile operation part, you can find a scale model of the ‘Dvina’ complex and a cut-out of a R-12U silo, together with a map of the relatively few missile sites in Lithuania – from the map, it can be argued that, for some reason, many more sites were prepared in nearby Latvia.
Dvina Plokstine SS-4 Sandal Soviet Missile Base Lithuania Cold War
Dvina Plokstine SS-4 Sandal Soviet Missile Base Lithuania Cold War
Dvina Plokstine SS-4 Sandal Soviet Missile Base Lithuania Cold War
Dvina Plokstine SS-4 Sandal Soviet Missile Base Lithuania Cold War
Resting quarters for the troops and a communication station with original electronic gear have been reconstructed based on original footage and pics. Communication with the military headquarters was clearly an essential task – it was the only way an order to launch could be issued – and the serviceman on duty was responsible for assuring a permanent link with the chain of command. In other words, he was instructed not to leave his headphones under any circumstances, during a several hours-long shift!
Dvina Plokstine SS-4 Sandal Soviet Missile Base Lithuania Cold War
Dvina Plokstine SS-4 Sandal Soviet Missile Base Lithuania Cold War
Dvina Plokstine SS-4 Sandal Soviet Missile Base Lithuania Cold War
Dvina Plokstine SS-4 Sandal Soviet Missile Base Lithuania Cold War
Dvina Plokstine SS-4 Sandal Soviet Missile Base Lithuania Cold War
Dvina Plokstine SS-4 Sandal Soviet Missile Base Lithuania Cold War
On the sides of the corridors you can see holes for the extensive network of cables and pipes. Further on, you meet the most ‘hardware’ part of the exhibition. First, the original diesel-fueled power generator has been refurbished and is standing in its original room. The underground complex was designed not only to withstand a nuclear blast, but also to provide shelter for all servicemen for several days following an attack. This meant air filters, food, water, technical supplies and of course electrical power, were all essential assets. Oil for the generator was stored in a container in an adjoining room.
Dvina Plokstine SS-4 Sandal Soviet Missile Base Lithuania Cold War
Dvina Plokstine SS-4 Sandal Soviet Missile Base Lithuania Cold War
Dvina Plokstine SS-4 Sandal Soviet Missile Base Lithuania Cold War
Dvina Plokstine SS-4 Sandal Soviet Missile Base Lithuania Cold War
Dvina Plokstine SS-4 Sandal Soviet Missile Base Lithuania Cold War
Finally, you get access to one of the four silos. You need to go through a tight door opened on the wall of the concrete structure of the control center. Writings in Cyrillic can be spotted on the walls in this area. From there, you will see the cylindrical shape of the metal structure of the silo from the side. This metal canister is really big, the ‘Dvina’ silos featured a much greater diameter than the SS-4 missile they were built for. This was somewhat different from their US counterpart (see this post), where the missile diameter fits the size of the silo without much margin.
Dvina Plokstine SS-4 Sandal Soviet Missile Base Lithuania Cold War
Dvina Plokstine SS-4 Sandal Soviet Missile Base Lithuania Cold War
Dvina Plokstine SS-4 Sandal Soviet Missile Base Lithuania Cold War
Dvina Plokstine SS-4 Sandal Soviet Missile Base Lithuania Cold War
Dvina Plokstine SS-4 Sandal Soviet Missile Base Lithuania Cold War
Dvina Plokstine SS-4 Sandal Soviet Missile Base Lithuania Cold War
Dvina Plokstine SS-4 Sandal Soviet Missile Base Lithuania Cold War
Dvina Plokstine SS-4 Sandal Soviet Missile Base Lithuania Cold War
Dvina Plokstine SS-4 Sandal Soviet Missile Base Lithuania Cold War
You can get access to the silo via the original hatch, cut in the metal wall close to the rim on top of the silo, just beneath the external cap. Going through this hatch is incredibly difficult – it is extremely narrow, much longer than the size of a human step, and tilted upwards! It is hard to understand why the Soviets built it in a size so small – this applies to the control center too, for all corridors are really narrow and the ceiling in the rooms is so low you may easily need to bend forward! For those who don’t want to try the original entry to the silo, there is now a non-original door cut in the side of the canister.
Dvina Plokstine SS-4 Sandal Soviet Missile Base Lithuania Cold War
Dvina Plokstine SS-4 Sandal Soviet Missile Base Lithuania Cold War
Dvina Plokstine SS-4 Sandal Soviet Missile Base Lithuania Cold War
Dvina Plokstine SS-4 Sandal Soviet Missile Base Lithuania Cold War
The inside of the silo can be observed from an original service deck, immediately under the external cover. From here you can clearly appreciate the size of the construction – the missile was more than 70 ft long, and sat here in a vertical position. The SS-4 was among the first missiles to make use of a storable liquid propellant, which allowed it to stay in almost-launch-ready conditions for a prolonged time, if resting in a silo. Nonetheless, the time for opening the armored caps was about 30 minutes, which meant this was not exactly quick to launch. The understructure of the armored caps can be clearly appreciated from inside the silo.
Photographs Before Restoration Works – Ghost Base
When I visited this site for the first time in 2009, it was open only by appointment. Unfortunately, I had only a compact camera at the time, and the very low light inside plus a rainy day outside, meant I could take only a few acceptable pictures.
However, they provide an idea of the state of the ‘Dvina’ complex before it was decided to reconfigure it as a museum.
As you can see, the armored silo caps were in a worse shape than today, yet not heavily damaged. The barbed wire fence around the four silos was probably original Soviet.
Dvina Plokstine SS-4 Sandal Soviet Missile Base Lithuania Cold War Old Before Restoration
Dvina Plokstine SS-4 Sandal Soviet Missile Base Lithuania Cold War Old Before Restoration
Dvina Plokstine SS-4 Sandal Soviet Missile Base Lithuania Cold War Old Before Restoration
Dvina Plokstine SS-4 Sandal Soviet Missile Base Lithuania Cold War Old Before Restoration
Dvina Plokstine SS-4 Sandal Soviet Missile Base Lithuania Cold War Old Before Restoration
Dvina Plokstine SS-4 Sandal Soviet Missile Base Lithuania Cold War Old Before Restoration
Inside, the control rooms were basically empty, except for some communist emblems and flags. Green wall paint and Cyrillic writings could be found even at the time, so what you see today is likely original. The generator, whilst in bad shape, was there.
Dvina Plokstine SS-4 Sandal Soviet Missile Base Lithuania Cold War Old Before Restoration
Dvina Plokstine SS-4 Sandal Soviet Missile Base Lithuania Cold War Old Before Restoration
Dvina Plokstine SS-4 Sandal Soviet Missile Base Lithuania Cold War Old Before Restoration
Dvina Plokstine SS-4 Sandal Soviet Missile Base Lithuania Cold War Old Before Restoration
The silo could be accessed only via the original hatch, and except for the partial darkness, its appearance is similar today.
Dvina Plokstine SS-4 Sandal Soviet Missile Base Lithuania Cold War Old Before Restoration
Dvina Plokstine SS-4 Sandal Soviet Missile Base Lithuania Cold War Old Before Restoration
Dvina Plokstine SS-4 Sandal Soviet Missile Base Lithuania Cold War Old Before Restoration
It is out of doubt that the ‘Soviet ghost aura’ of the base was somewhat lost in the restoration process, yet credit must be given to the effort of the local government in preserving a rare and relevant trace of military history through an expensive restoration process.
Getting there and moving around
The Cold War Museum (Šaltojo karo muziejus in the local idiom) is located in the Zemaitija National Park, northwestern Lithuania, east of lake Plateliai. Access is via the road 2302. The place is totally accessible and well advertised locally. Visiting the outside of the armored caps and inside is possible only with a guided tour, offered in many languages including English, and lasting about 50 minutes. No fee is required for climbing on top of the observation deck. Full information through the official website here.
Czechoslovakia had existed as an independent state since the end of WWI and the dissolution of the Austrian Empire. However, this small yet economically advanced province was soon to be caught right in the middle of a storm which insisted on central Europe until the 1990s, at which time this country finally gained its true independence.
Back in the Thirties, Czechoslovakia was forcibly annexed to the Third Reich as a result of the Munich Agreement in 1938. This event can be seen a major destabilizing step in Hitler’s foreign relations, clearly showing that the situation was deteriorating fast in central Europe.
Following the troublesome years of Nazi rule, this region was captured by Soviet and US troops at the end of the war. A new republic was founded, but the local communist party was very well organized, so Czechoslovakia shared the destiny of many neighbor countries which had been occupied by the Red Army in the final stage of the war. Backed by Stalin, a communist coup d’état in 1948 led to the establishment of a Soviet-style dictatorship, which was to last until 1989, making Czechoslovakia a Soviet satellite country.
Despite the relatively small size on the map, Czechoslovakia played a significant role in the economy of the Eastern Bloc. This country had a well established tradition in the production of weapons, metal hardware and machinery. Its soil is rich in Uranium. Furthermore, the forward position on the border with non-communist Western Germany and Austria further raised its strategic significance. When a secession from Moscow was tried by the local communist government, led by reformer Alexander Dubcek in 1968 – a phase known as the ‘Prague Spring’ -, the USSR reacted with all its military might, staging a full-scale invasion of the country by land and air, overturning the high ranks of the unreliable Czechoslovakian government, and putting this valuable region under a stricter communist leadership.
Clearly, the end of the communist dictatorship is today duly celebrated as a historical achievement both in the Czech Republic and Slovakia – respectively the western and eastern portions of Czechoslovakia, which peacefully split in 1993. The more than 40 years of struggle against Soviet rule constitute the theme of several interesting permanent exhibitions, but these are not the only witnesses of those troubled times. More tangible relics – all open to the public – are former border posts with former West Germany, a one-of-a-kind original communist prison camp for political prisoners, as well as some pieces of architectures and bunkers from the Cold War age.
This post is dedicated to these highlights, all to be found in the region between Prague and the border with Bavaria, in todays Czech Republic. Photographs were collected on a short trip in summer 2018.
Far from a cheesy description of everyday life in the years of the Cold War, or an inaccurate account of the history of the communist plague as a social phenomenon, this permanent exhibition takes you in detail along the history of Czechoslovakia in the years immediately before WWII, when it basically lost its independence to the Germans, and going on to 1989, when with the so-called Velvet Revolution Czechoslovakia abandoned the Soviet sphere of influence and overthrew the communist dictatorship.
The exhibition features an equilibrated mixture of original artifacts – paintings, statues, memorabilia,… -, photographs, models, dioramas and explicative panels.
Museum Of Communism Prague
Museum Of Communism Prague
Interestingly, speaking of the Thirties and the imposed annexation to the Third Reich, you can see models of the border forts along the former German (now Polish) border. These are covered in this dedicated post.
Museum Of Communism Prague
Museum Of Communism Prague
Museum Of Communism Prague
Museum Of Communism Prague
Museum Of Communism Prague
The history of the anti-fascist operations, and of the role of the communist party in them, are thoroughly analyzed, and so are the decisive years immediately following the war. It is recalled how this nation was partly invaded by US troops, hence it was contested as a pure-Soviet conquer. A short-lived free Czechoslovakian republic was founded, which fell under communist control, and in the years of Stalin, with a Soviet military presence in the country, this meant the end of any independence from the USSR.
Museum Of Communism Prague
Museum Of Communism Prague
Museum Of Communism Prague
Museum Of Communism Prague
Museum Of Communism Prague
Museum Of Communism Prague
Museum Of Communism Prague
Similar to East Berlin, Prague ended up to host a huge monument to Stalin. This was built on top of a hill facing the city, on the north bank of the river. It was suddenly blown after the death of the Soviet dictator, leaving an empty esplanade which can be still seen today (see a section below).
Museum Of Communism Prague
Museum Of Communism Prague
Museum Of Communism Prague
Museum Of Communism Prague
Museum Of Communism Prague
Museum Of Communism Prague
Museum Of Communism Prague
Museum Of Communism Prague
Museum Of Communism Prague
Museum Of Communism Prague
The establishment of a communist rule since the start meant the implementation of brutal repressive measures, including prison camps for political opponents, which were largely employed as forced laborers all over the territory of the state, especially for mining activities. Preventive imprisonment, extorted confessions and executions were typical to the years of Stalin. Even the troops who had come in contact with the western Allies during the war were exonerated and imprisoned, to perfectly guarantee the stability of the communist leadership of the army. A detailed account of this little-know, large-scale repressive activity is documented also by means of reconstructed interrogation rooms, as well as spy gear used by the Czechoslovakian communist political police, the StB.
Museum Of Communism Prague
Museum Of Communism Prague
Museum Of Communism Prague
Museum Of Communism Prague
Museum Of Communism Prague
Museum Of Communism Prague
Museum Of Communism Prague
Museum Of Communism Prague
A related interesting chapter is that of the border shared with neighbor western countries. Similar to the German Democratic Republic (see this post), the border with West Germany and Austria was heavily guarded to stop those who wanted to flee the country. A fence of many kilometers was erected and modernized on more instances. A number of citizens were sent to prison or even lost their lives trying to escape to the West. More on this can be found today on the border with Germany (see a section below).
A significant area is devoted to the wannabe-reformer Alexander Dubcek and the 1968 ‘Prague Spring’. The aggressive Soviet reaction to the experiment, backed by the new Brezhnev leadership, provided an example for other Soviet satellite countries seeking for independence. The invasion of Czechoslovakia, called ‘Operation Danube’, was carried out as a surprise attack, paralyzing all urban infrastructures by quickly landing troops and material with a well-organized airlift on the nation’s major civil airports, including Prague and Brno. Simultaneously, land troops of many countries of the Eastern Bloc crossed the border and rapidly occupied all military installations. Guerrilla actions took place especially in Prague, but it was soon clear that an action so massive could not be counteracted by the sole Czechoslovakian forces.
Museum Of Communism Prague
Museum Of Communism Prague
Museum Of Communism Prague
Museum Of Communism Prague
Museum Of Communism Prague
Museum Of Communism Prague
Museum Of Communism Prague
Museum Of Communism Prague
Museum Of Communism Prague
Museum Of Communism Prague
The Soviet aggression cleared any doubt about the attitude of the new leadership of the USSR. It was generally condemned even by the communist parties of the western world, but this was not helpful for Czechoslovakia, which could not overthrow the re-established Soviet-style dictatorship until the almost simultaneous collapse of the communist regimes bound to the USSR in 1989.
Getting there and moving around
This museum is an excellent resource and a starting point for gaining an insight on the history of Czechoslovakia from the late 1930s to the 1990s. A general knowledge of the Cold War history may help to better collocate the facts reported in the exhibition on the world stage, yet even if this is the first museum of the kind you may visit, it can be extremely interesting.
It is located in central Prague, perfectly accessible with a walk in the beautiful central district from the majority of the hotels. Visiting may easily take 2 hours for an interested subject. All panels and captions are in double language, Czech and English. Website with full information here.
Nuclear Bunker for Civil Defense, Prague
Following the escalation of the nuclear stockpiles in the US and USSR, countermeasures to resist a nuclear attack were implemented in many countries. Besides specific training for both troops and civilians, shelters were built for government agencies, and for the population of most crowded areas. While typically far from sufficient to save even a minimal part of the population in case of a nuclear attack, these structures were nonetheless rather extensive and sophisticated. Especially in central Europe, within reach of nuclear missiles from the start of the rocket age (see this post), nuclear bunkers for civil defense were serious structures, today standing as tangible witnesses of the Cold War (see this post).
In Prague, the system for civil defense was implemented in the form of a series of bunkers around the city center, started in the early 1950s. Over the following decades a network was created comprising the underground railway system and several metro stops, which similar to West Berlin, could be turned into nuclear bunkers providing shelter, decontamination gear and supplies for hundreds of people for several weeks.
Of this comprehensive system only a small part can be visited today. The bunker in the Parukarka district, northeast of the city center, can be accessed from a distinctive concrete gate – today covered in ignorant graffiti – in the side of a hill. Right behind the external gate you can find a massive tight door, capable of resisting to a nuclear blast, and providing access to a stair well, leading deep underground.
A room where the main tunnel splits in multiple branches gives access to a decontamination facility, a security communication post, and an area where a small exhibition on the Cold War has been placed.
You can also try putting on a mask, and take up a rifle for a weird selfie!
Getting there and moving around
The bunker can be reached a few tram stops from the main railway station. The entrance is located next to the southwestern corner of Parukarka park on Prokopova alley, a block away from Hotel Olsanka. However, the gate is usually closed, and there is no booth or visitor center there. The bunker can be visited by appointment only, or on a regular basis by taking the special-themed communist tour of Prague (see website here). The latter was my option. This tour is offered in English and maybe other languages, and will take you on a walk to a few places usually portrayed in the historical pictures from the days of ‘Operation Danube’ of 1968, and during the Velvet Revolution of 1989. The starting point is close to the Clock Tower, on the central square of historical Prague.
The highlight of the multi-hour tour is the civil defense bunker, which makes the tour appealing. For the rest, except for little information, the tour is not excessively interesting, especially if you have already a good knowledge of the history of the Cold War and of Czechoslovakia at that time. It may the depend on the guide – mine was a relatively young man, who albeit prepared, did not seem to be able to give answers to more detailed or technical questions. Furthermore, the time spent inside the bunker is limited, and very scant explanations are provided about the exhibitions and artifacts on display there. Time is not enough for good photographs. The website of the bunker, for more info or for booking a private visit, is here.
Soviet-Related Buildings and Monuments, Prague
A few buildings in Prague have a historical significance bound to the Cold War, either for the role they had in the years of the communist dictatorship, or for the fact they were erected in Soviet style.
A first example is the headquarter of the StB, the political police of Czechoslovakia, similar to the KGB, Stasi or Securitate of other communist countries. This is located in central Prague, and occupies a building which had been previously built for another purpose.
Secret Communist Police STB Headquarters Prague
To the northwest of the historical district, on the northern bank of the river, you can find a prominent example of Soviet architecture – Hotel International. This was designed in the years of Stalin, and this is reflected in the typical Stalinist tower architecture (see this post). It had been intended as a building of the department of defense, to host high-ranking military staff. It never covered this role, and after the construction years, lasting 1952-1956, it was inaugurated as a luxury hotel, with the same name it bears today.
Hotel International Prague
Hotel International Prague
Hotel International Prague
Hotel International Prague
Hotel International Prague
Hotel International Prague
Hotel International Prague
After the end of communism in Europe, the hotel has been refurbished, returning the exteriors to the original appearance. The star on top the central spire is original too. The frieze features hammers and sickles, as well as other examples of typical communist iconography.
Hotel International Prague
Hotel International Prague
Hotel International Prague
Hotel International Prague
Hotel International Prague
Hotel International Prague
Hotel International Prague
Hotel International Prague
Hotel International Prague
Hotel International Prague
Today a rather unapparent square with a nice view of the old city, the base of the monument to Stalin with the giant staircases leading to it from the water level can be found on the northern bank of the river. This area is today partly degraded, and used for temporary art installations. Only pictures from the time allow to get an idea of the monster size of the sculpture group once standing there, with Stalin and other folks overlooking the city.
Former Stalin’s Monument Prague
Former Stalin’s Monument Prague
Former Stalin’s Monument Prague
Former Stalin’s Monument Prague
Former Stalin’s Monument Prague
Former Stalin’s Monument Prague
Former Stalin’s Monument Prague
Former Stalin’s Monument Prague
Former Stalin’s Monument Prague
Former Stalin’s Monument Prague
Former Stalin’s Monument Prague
The monument was blown after Stalin was condemned by the Communist Party of the USSR, soon after his death.
Among the relatively few statues and prominent buildings dating back to the years of communist dictatorship is a couple of cosmonauts. This can be found in the southern periphery of the city, immediately out of the metro station Haje. The neighborhood is mainly residential, dating from Soviet times. Notwithstanding the general decency of the area, these two astronauts are somewhat forgotten, close to an overgrown hedge.
Prague Soviet Relic Astronaut Statue Gagarin
Prague Soviet Relic Astronaut Statue Gagarin
Prague Soviet Relic Astronaut Statue Gagarin
Prague Soviet Relic Astronaut Statue Gagarin
Getting there and moving around
The mentioned communist architectural highlights in Prague are somewhat scattered.
The StB headquarters are located on the corner between Bartolomějská Ulice and Na Perstyne, at the very center of the historical district. The former Stalin monument can be reached climbing uphill from the northern end of Chechuv Most bridge, a short walk from the historical district. Besides the questionable interest for what remains of the monument, climbing up is advisable at least for the exceptional view you can enjoy from the balcony.
The Hotel International is located further north of the city center, where Koulova alley meets Cinska road. The nice residential area is served by a number of tram and bus stops, but reaching may be easier by car. Clearly, you can also elect to stay at the hotel.
The two cosmonauts can be found in the southern peripheral district Haje, just outside of the homonym metro stop, close to a larger bus stop area. Again, reaching is less time consuming by car.
Vojna Prison Camp, Pribram
A one-of-a-kind memorial in the panorama of former communist-led countries is preserved just south of the small town of Pribram, about 40 miles southwest of Prague. This is a full scale prison camp for forced laborers, instituted by the communist dictatorship in the years of Stalin, back in 1947. The prisoners of this camp were interned only for political reasons. Together with other similar installations, it supplied workforce for the extraction of uranium ore from mines nearby. The number of inmates increased steadily until the early 1960s, reaching the order of 1,500, until a series of amnesties were promulgated and prison camps were closed in Czechoslovakia.
The camp went on to be operated as a military depot, and reopened as a national memorial in the late 1990s.
Close to the entrance, which is via the original gate in the outer fence of the camp, a former industrial building has been substituted by a modern building with roughly the same shape, hosting a conference center and the visitor center. When on a self-guided tour, you are advised to start your visit with an exhibition on the history of the Czechoslovakian prison camps, hosted in the former guard quarters. The exhibition provides models, pictures and quick numbers to get an idea of the proportion of the repression and internment of political prisoners, as well as of the forced labor system set up by the communist leadership.
Vojna Communist Prison Camp Uranium Mine Pribram Czech
Vojna Communist Prison Camp Uranium Mine Pribram Czech
Vojna Communist Prison Camp Uranium Mine Pribram Czech
Vojna Communist Prison Camp Uranium Mine Pribram Czech
Vojna Communist Prison Camp Uranium Mine Pribram Czech
Vojna Communist Prison Camp Uranium Mine Pribram Czech
Vojna Communist Prison Camp Uranium Mine Pribram Czech
Vojna Communist Prison Camp Uranium Mine Pribram Czech
A memorial to those who perished as a result of political repression and imprisonment in the area of Pribram concludes this part.
Vojna Communist Prison Camp Uranium Mine Pribram Czech
Vojna Communist Prison Camp Uranium Mine Pribram Czech
Vojna Communist Prison Camp Uranium Mine Pribram Czech
Vojna Communist Prison Camp Uranium Mine Pribram Czech
Vojna Communist Prison Camp Uranium Mine Pribram Czech
Vojna Communist Prison Camp Uranium Mine Pribram Czech
Vojna Communist Prison Camp Uranium Mine Pribram Czech
Vojna Communist Prison Camp Uranium Mine Pribram Czech
Vojna Communist Prison Camp Uranium Mine Pribram Czech
Vojna Communist Prison Camp Uranium Mine Pribram Czech
Vojna Communist Prison Camp Uranium Mine Pribram Czech
Vojna Communist Prison Camp Uranium Mine Pribram Czech
Vojna Communist Prison Camp Uranium Mine Pribram Czech
Vojna Communist Prison Camp Uranium Mine Pribram Czech
Vojna Communist Prison Camp Uranium Mine Pribram Czech
The partly original and partly reconstructed buildings on display include a complete external perimeter, a prison and a rigor cell.
Vojna Communist Prison Camp Uranium Mine Pribram Czech
Vojna Communist Prison Camp Uranium Mine Pribram Czech
Vojna Communist Prison Camp Uranium Mine Pribram Czech
Vojna Communist Prison Camp Uranium Mine Pribram Czech
Vojna Communist Prison Camp Uranium Mine Pribram Czech
Vojna Communist Prison Camp Uranium Mine Pribram Czech
Vojna Communist Prison Camp Uranium Mine Pribram Czech
Vojna Communist Prison Camp Uranium Mine Pribram Czech
Vojna Communist Prison Camp Uranium Mine Pribram Czech
Vojna Communist Prison Camp Uranium Mine Pribram Czech
Vojna Communist Prison Camp Uranium Mine Pribram Czech
Inside an inner guarded perimeter, a few barracks for the inmates have been reconstructed or refurbished, and are used to showcase temporary and permanent exhibitions. One of great interest at the time of my visit described in detail the days of the liberation from the Nazi occupation – US troops briefly took over control of the area, and they met the Soviet army nearby Pribram.
Vojna Communist Prison Camp Uranium Mine Pribram Czech
Vojna Communist Prison Camp Uranium Mine Pribram Czech
Vojna Communist Prison Camp Uranium Mine Pribram Czech
Vojna Communist Prison Camp Uranium Mine Pribram Czech
Vojna Communist Prison Camp Uranium Mine Pribram Czech
Vojna Communist Prison Camp Uranium Mine Pribram Czech
Vojna Communist Prison Camp Uranium Mine Pribram Czech
Vojna Communist Prison Camp Uranium Mine Pribram Czech
Vojna Communist Prison Camp Uranium Mine Pribram Czech
Vojna Communist Prison Camp Uranium Mine Pribram Czech
Vojna Communist Prison Camp Uranium Mine Pribram Czech
Vojna Communist Prison Camp Uranium Mine Pribram Czech
Vojna Communist Prison Camp Uranium Mine Pribram Czech
There are also service buildings for the guards, with a small movie theater and a canteen.
Vojna Communist Prison Camp Uranium Mine Pribram Czech
Vojna Communist Prison Camp Uranium Mine Pribram Czech
Vojna Communist Prison Camp Uranium Mine Pribram Czech
Vojna Communist Prison Camp Uranium Mine Pribram Czech
Vojna Communist Prison Camp Uranium Mine Pribram Czech
Vojna Communist Prison Camp Uranium Mine Pribram Czech
Vojna Communist Prison Camp Uranium Mine Pribram Czech
Vojna Communist Prison Camp Uranium Mine Pribram Czech
Vojna Communist Prison Camp Uranium Mine Pribram Czech
Vojna Communist Prison Camp Uranium Mine Pribram Czech
Vojna Communist Prison Camp Uranium Mine Pribram Czech
Another interesting part is the original emergency room and clinic. The face of Stalin in the doctor’s room is particularly disturbing. Besides the generally harsh living conditions, illnesses and injuries typical to mine works were rather common. Inexperience of the forced laborers clearly added to the injury rates.
Vojna Communist Prison Camp Uranium Mine Pribram Czech
Vojna Communist Prison Camp Uranium Mine Pribram Czech
Vojna Communist Prison Camp Uranium Mine Pribram Czech
Vojna Communist Prison Camp Uranium Mine Pribram Czech
Vojna Communist Prison Camp Uranium Mine Pribram Czech
Vojna Communist Prison Camp Uranium Mine Pribram Czech
Vojna Communist Prison Camp Uranium Mine Pribram Czech
Vojna Communist Prison Camp Uranium Mine Pribram Czech
In a building to the far end of the camp you can find an exhibition about mining activities in the area and uranium extraction in Czechoslovakia, which represented an asset of this country in the eyes of the USSR.
Vojna Communist Prison Camp Uranium Mine Pribram Czech
Vojna Communist Prison Camp Uranium Mine Pribram Czech
Vojna Communist Prison Camp Uranium Mine Pribram Czech
Vojna Communist Prison Camp Uranium Mine Pribram Czech
Vojna Communist Prison Camp Uranium Mine Pribram Czech
Vojna Communist Prison Camp Uranium Mine Pribram Czech
Vojna Communist Prison Camp Uranium Mine Pribram Czech
Getting there and moving around
The prison camp is opened as a national memorial. It can be reached by car along highway N.4 in 30 minutes from central Prague in the small village of Lesetice, immediately south of Pribram. There are opening times, but you can visit either on a self-guided basis or with a guide. I was not given the option of a guided tour in English though, so I enjoyed a self-guided tour. There is some paneling in English, but not extensively covering all parts of the installation. Access to the rigor cell is only possible with a guide, but you may join a guided tour only for that small part of the exhibition, just to get access.
A complete visit on a self-guided basis may take about 1.5 hours for the interested subject, including time for taking all the pictures.
Please note they accept only cash. Website in English with full information here.
Iron Curtain Museum, Rozvadov
This atypical museum is located right on the border with Germany, between the Czech village of Rozvadov and the German town of Frankenreuth, Bavaria. Back in the years of the Cold War, the highway E50 today crossing the border nearby did not exist, and this border post was a major checkpoint on the line between the Eastern Bloc and the West.
The museum is deceptively located in the basement of the gas station immediately cross the border on the Czech side. The gas station itself used to be the custom and border control station, as you can see from historical pictures inside the museum.
The museum is constituted of a collection of photographs and artifacts. The exhibits cover roughly two themes – communism in Czechoslovakia and the Cold War as a global confrontation.
Iron Curtain Museum Rozvadov Muzeum Zelezne Opony Border Communist Germany Czech
Iron Curtain Museum Rozvadov Muzeum Zelezne Opony Border Communist Germany Czech
Iron Curtain Museum Rozvadov Muzeum Zelezne Opony Border Communist Germany Czech
Iron Curtain Museum Rozvadov Muzeum Zelezne Opony Border Communist Germany Czech
Iron Curtain Museum Rozvadov Muzeum Zelezne Opony Border Communist Germany Czech
Iron Curtain Museum Rozvadov Muzeum Zelezne Opony Border Communist Germany Czech
Iron Curtain Museum Rozvadov Muzeum Zelezne Opony Border Communist Germany Czech
Iron Curtain Museum Rozvadov Muzeum Zelezne Opony Border Communist Germany Czech
Iron Curtain Museum Rozvadov Muzeum Zelezne Opony Border Communist Germany Czech
Iron Curtain Museum Rozvadov Muzeum Zelezne Opony Border Communist Germany Czech
Iron Curtain Museum Rozvadov Muzeum Zelezne Opony Border Communist Germany Czech
Red banners, small sculptures, photographs and propaganda posters have been collected from various locations in Czechoslovakia. These include official portraits of the communist presidents of Czechoslovakia, and memorabilia belonging to their offices.
Iron Curtain Museum Rozvadov Muzeum Zelezne Opony Border Communist Germany Czech
Iron Curtain Museum Rozvadov Muzeum Zelezne Opony Border Communist Germany Czech
Iron Curtain Museum Rozvadov Muzeum Zelezne Opony Border Communist Germany Czech
Iron Curtain Museum Rozvadov Muzeum Zelezne Opony Border Communist Germany Czech
Iron Curtain Museum Rozvadov Muzeum Zelezne Opony Border Communist Germany Czech
Iron Curtain Museum Rozvadov Muzeum Zelezne Opony Border Communist Germany Czech
Iron Curtain Museum Rozvadov Muzeum Zelezne Opony Border Communist Germany Czech
Iron Curtain Museum Rozvadov Muzeum Zelezne Opony Border Communist Germany Czech
Iron Curtain Museum Rozvadov Muzeum Zelezne Opony Border Communist Germany Czech
Iron Curtain Museum Rozvadov Muzeum Zelezne Opony Border Communist Germany Czech
Iron Curtain Museum Rozvadov Muzeum Zelezne Opony Border Communist Germany Czech
Iron Curtain Museum Rozvadov Muzeum Zelezne Opony Border Communist Germany Czech
Iron Curtain Museum Rozvadov Muzeum Zelezne Opony Border Communist Germany Czech
Iron Curtain Museum Rozvadov Muzeum Zelezne Opony Border Communist Germany Czech
A good collection of weapons and communication gear belonging to border guards and local troops of both sides of the Iron Curtain is also on display. Communist-themed commemorative medals and dinnerware are part of the collection.
Iron Curtain Museum Rozvadov Muzeum Zelezne Opony Border Communist Germany Czech
Iron Curtain Museum Rozvadov Muzeum Zelezne Opony Border Communist Germany Czech
Iron Curtain Museum Rozvadov Muzeum Zelezne Opony Border Communist Germany Czech
Iron Curtain Museum Rozvadov Muzeum Zelezne Opony Border Communist Germany Czech
Iron Curtain Museum Rozvadov Muzeum Zelezne Opony Border Communist Germany Czech
Iron Curtain Museum Rozvadov Muzeum Zelezne Opony Border Communist Germany Czech
Iron Curtain Museum Rozvadov Muzeum Zelezne Opony Border Communist Germany Czech
Iron Curtain Museum Rozvadov Muzeum Zelezne Opony Border Communist Germany Czech
Iron Curtain Museum Rozvadov Muzeum Zelezne Opony Border Communist Germany Czech
The part on the global confrontation is smaller, and include photographs from sister museums in other countries including the US, a small documentation on the history of nuclear tests and the nuclear stockpiles in the Cold War period.
Iron Curtain Museum Rozvadov Muzeum Zelezne Opony Border Communist Germany Czech
Iron Curtain Museum Rozvadov Muzeum Zelezne Opony Border Communist Germany Czech
Iron Curtain Museum Rozvadov Muzeum Zelezne Opony Border Communist Germany Czech
Iron Curtain Museum Rozvadov Muzeum Zelezne Opony Border Communist Germany Czech
Iron Curtain Museum Rozvadov Muzeum Zelezne Opony Border Communist Germany Czech
Iron Curtain Museum Rozvadov Muzeum Zelezne Opony Border Communist Germany Czech
Iron Curtain Museum Rozvadov Muzeum Zelezne Opony Border Communist Germany Czech
Iron Curtain Museum Rozvadov Muzeum Zelezne Opony Border Communist Germany Czech
Iron Curtain Museum Rozvadov Muzeum Zelezne Opony Border Communist Germany Czech
Iron Curtain Museum Rozvadov Muzeum Zelezne Opony Border Communist Germany Czech
Iron Curtain Museum Rozvadov Muzeum Zelezne Opony Border Communist Germany Czech
Iron Curtain Museum Rozvadov Muzeum Zelezne Opony Border Communist Germany Czech
Iron Curtain Museum Rozvadov Muzeum Zelezne Opony Border Communist Germany Czech
Iron Curtain Museum Rozvadov Muzeum Zelezne Opony Border Communist Germany Czech
On the outside, a few vehicles of the former border guards can be found (no pictures due to heavy rain).
Getting there and moving around
This nice small museum is surely worth visiting for the interested subject, even though it does not concentrate much on the history of the local border post. The website in Czech language can be found here, basic visiting info can be easily found with some Google translation. It can be reached by car on the road connecting Frankenreuth, Bavaria, and Rozvadov, immediately cross the border on the Czech side. Signs to the entrance can be found around the local gas station. Entry is behind the building of the gas station. Visiting on a self-guided basis will not take more than 45 minutes for the interested subject.
Please note that they accept only cash.
Museum of the Border Guard, Rozvadov
This museum is actually a preserved former barrack of the border guards. Not only it looks like the building is still being operated, it actually is, albeit only for reunions of the former guards and local ranger corps, which today keep it open.
Museum of the Border Guard Rozvadov Muzeum Pohraniční stráže Germany Czech Border Iron Curtain
Museum of the Border Guard Rozvadov Muzeum Pohraniční stráže Germany Czech Border Iron Curtain
Thanks to this special condition, the place is very vivid and makes for an extremely interesting visit. Besides the sleeping quarters, you can find a series of rooms with rifles and technical material, including radio and communication equipment.
Museum of the Border Guard Rozvadov Muzeum Pohraniční stráže Germany Czech Border Iron Curtain
Museum of the Border Guard Rozvadov Muzeum Pohraniční stráže Germany Czech Border Iron Curtain
Museum of the Border Guard Rozvadov Muzeum Pohraniční stráže Germany Czech Border Iron Curtain
Museum of the Border Guard Rozvadov Muzeum Pohraniční stráže Germany Czech Border Iron Curtain
Museum of the Border Guard Rozvadov Muzeum Pohraniční stráže Germany Czech Border Iron Curtain
Museum of the Border Guard Rozvadov Muzeum Pohraniční stráže Germany Czech Border Iron Curtain
If you are lucky, the guide will give you a demonstration of how parts of this technical gear work.
Museum of the Border Guard Rozvadov Muzeum Pohraniční stráže Germany Czech Border Iron Curtain
Museum of the Border Guard Rozvadov Muzeum Pohraniční stráže Germany Czech Border Iron Curtain
Museum of the Border Guard Rozvadov Muzeum Pohraniční stráže Germany Czech Border Iron Curtain
Museum of the Border Guard Rozvadov Muzeum Pohraniční stráže Germany Czech Border Iron Curtain
Museum of the Border Guard Rozvadov Muzeum Pohraniční stráže Germany Czech Border Iron Curtain
Museum of the Border Guard Rozvadov Muzeum Pohraniční stráže Germany Czech Border Iron Curtain
Museum of the Border Guard Rozvadov Muzeum Pohraniční stráže Germany Czech Border Iron Curtain
A former class room/meeting room hosts a reconstruction of the fences which used to run all along the border with West Germany and Austria. The level of control was totally similar to the one implemented between the two German Republics (see this post). In the same room there is a small collection of weapons you can touch.
Museum of the Border Guard Rozvadov Muzeum Pohraniční stráže Germany Czech Border Iron Curtain
Museum of the Border Guard Rozvadov Muzeum Pohraniční stráže Germany Czech Border Iron Curtain
Museum of the Border Guard Rozvadov Muzeum Pohraniční stráže Germany Czech Border Iron Curtain
Museum of the Border Guard Rozvadov Muzeum Pohraniční stráže Germany Czech Border Iron Curtain
Museum of the Border Guard Rozvadov Muzeum Pohraniční stráže Germany Czech Border Iron Curtain
Museum of the Border Guard Rozvadov Muzeum Pohraniční stráže Germany Czech Border Iron Curtain
Museum of the Border Guard Rozvadov Muzeum Pohraniční stráže Germany Czech Border Iron Curtain
Museum of the Border Guard Rozvadov Muzeum Pohraniční stráže Germany Czech Border Iron Curtain
Museum of the Border Guard Rozvadov Muzeum Pohraniční stráže Germany Czech Border Iron Curtain
Museum of the Border Guard Rozvadov Muzeum Pohraniční stráže Germany Czech Border Iron Curtain
Museum of the Border Guard Rozvadov Muzeum Pohraniční stráže Germany Czech Border Iron Curtain
Museum of the Border Guard Rozvadov Muzeum Pohraniční stráže Germany Czech Border Iron Curtain
In a room close by the entrance a sentinel was always keeping the assigned sector of the border under control. The various protective layers prevented anybody from escaping the communist territory. Besides watchtowers along the border line, when touched the innermost fence triggered an alarm in the sentinel’s room. This appeared as a mark on a specially designed detector, which could tell with good approximation where the fugitive was trying to cross the border. This would trigger the other guards, who would scramble out and seek for him. This sophisticated piece of machinery was manufactured in the GDR…
Museum of the Border Guard Rozvadov Muzeum Pohraniční stráže Germany Czech Border Iron Curtain
Museum of the Border Guard Rozvadov Muzeum Pohraniční stráže Germany Czech Border Iron Curtain
Museum of the Border Guard Rozvadov Muzeum Pohraniční stráže Germany Czech Border Iron Curtain
Museum of the Border Guard Rozvadov Muzeum Pohraniční stráže Germany Czech Border Iron Curtain
Museum of the Border Guard Rozvadov Muzeum Pohraniční stráže Germany Czech Border Iron Curtain
Museum of the Border Guard Rozvadov Muzeum Pohraniční stráže Germany Czech Border Iron Curtain
Museum of the Border Guard Rozvadov Muzeum Pohraniční stráže Germany Czech Border Iron Curtain
Museum of the Border Guard Rozvadov Muzeum Pohraniční stráže Germany Czech Border Iron Curtain
Getting there and moving around
Reaching the place can be tricky, for there are no signs leading to it. From the road 605 in Rozvadov, follow the indications to Casino Admiral. This is located on a road climbing gently uphill from the 605. Going further on the same road, you will reach a dead-end, and a group of shabby barracks after about .3 miles. These must have been all service buildings and barracks for the border guards. One of the barracks is the museum. The exact GPS coordinates are (49.673994, 12.545367).
Information on the opening times can be found from the website of the town administration (on the right hand side of the web page).
Opening times are extremely limited. You are followed on your visit by one of the guards, some of them can speak a little English, sufficient for making the visit extremely interesting. There is no institutional ticket, but they will ask for a voluntary cash offer. Visiting may take about 30-40 minutes.
Just like West Germany, post-WWII Italy found itself on the border with a communist dictatorship, Marshal Tito’s Yugoslavia. Even though Tito and the government of the USSR were never close friends, from the viewpoint of the western alliances Yugoslavia represented a potential threat.
This mistrust was also a result of the aggressive policy Yugoslavia had adopted against Italy after WWII, imposing the cession of a piece of traditionally Italian territory in the northeast part of the country as a war compensation. This had triggered a significant migration of the local population, who was trying to escape from communism to mainland Italy and abroad. This added to the bitterness of the Italian-Yugoslavian relationship, to the point that the new border was not formally settled until the 1970s.
Italy was among the founding members of anti-communist NATO in 1949. This meant the chance to take part in a coordinated defense effort against the eastern bloc. Among the tangible results of this cooperation was the adoption of American war material, including aircraft and, as soon as they became a reliable war asset, missiles.
Considering air defense, besides a number of manned aircraft, the airspace of western Europe was protected by two defensive lines of surface-to-air missiles (SAM) extending roughly from the North Sea to the area around Venice on the Mediterranean. This was studied especially to counteract bombing raids carried out by a great number of enemy bombers simultaneously attacking from the east. This huge defense system was based on the US-designed Nike and Hawk missile platforms, and deployment started in the late 1950s.
SAM installations in Italy comprised the low to intermediate altitude Hawks, with a quick reaction capacity against low-level intruders. These were managed by the local Army. High altitude Nike-Ajax and later Nike-Hercules missiles were operated by the Italian Air Force against high-altitude targets, typically bombers. New dedicated groups were established since 1959, trained in the US to work with the new missile platform. At its height, the Nike force in Italy counted on 16 such groups, apparently corresponding to as many launch bases.
Concerning the effectiveness of the Nike defense line, it soon became obsolete, in the sense that a significant part of the strategic deterrent was transferred to ICBMs by both the NATO countries and the USSR. As a result, SAM defensive lines conceived against aircraft intrusion and low-level attacks would turn out more useful than the high-altitude and high-yield Nike-Hercules. As a matter of fact, all Nike platforms were deactivated in Italy and everywhere in Europe by the early 1980s, well before the end of communism in Europe.
Following deactivation, most bases, stripped of all hardware of any value, were simply locked up and abandoned. In Germany very few traces of this extensive system remain to this day (see this post). Together with the US, Italy is possibly the only country where this fragment of military history is documented through the active preservation of one of the former SAM launch bases.
The Nike-Hercules base preserved in Italy is called ‘Base Tuono’ – ‘tuono’ meaning ‘thunder’ in Italian language – and was operated between 1966 and 1977. It is in a gorgeous mountainous setting in the northeastern Alps, about an hour from the little town of Trento. After years of disrepair, a part of it has been refurbished with original material and opened as a beautiful, partly open-air museum, where you can get a lively impression of how the base would have looked like in the years of operations.
The following photographs are from a visit to ‘Base Tuono’ in Autumn 2018.
Sights
Nike batteries were composed of two connected but geographically separated areas, an integrated fire control area (IFC) and a launch control area (LCA). In the first resided the electronic aiming part, comprising all the antennas and electronic gear necessary to collimate the target, compute the expected kill point of the missile, and to track and guide the missile to that point. The launch area was composed of an array of three flat concrete pads, each supplied with a hangar for storing the missiles, gantries for putting typically three missiles at a time (per pad) in launch position, and a concrete shelter to oversee and trigger the launch sequence. An extensive description of the Nike SAM system can be found on this excellent dedicated resource website.
Due to the features of the radar guidance system, the IFC had to stay in line of sight from the LCA, and at a higher – but not excessively higher – elevation. At ‘Base Tuono’, due to the mountainous setting, the two areas are not far, yet they are not easily accessible from one another. Furthermore, what remains today of the former base is all concentrated in the launch area. One of the three original pads – ‘Alpha’ – has been preserved, where the other two – ‘Bravo’ and ‘Charlie’ – and other ancillary buildings as well, have been completely demolished, and a water basin can be found in their place. All installations and housing in the former control area on top of a local peak – Mount Toraro – have been wiped out, but you can get an impression of the original plan of this part of the base walking around on your own.
Launch Control Area
The launch pad ‘Alpha’ is the focus of the museum. Approaching from the parking, which is located close to the site of the former barracks and canteen, you can spot from the distance three Nike-Hercules missiles aligned in vertical launch position. A water basin covers a large part of the former base, as you can see from historical pictures. Launch pads ‘Bravo’ and ‘Charlie’ are totally gone, similarly to the original outer fence delimiting the large perimeter of the installation.
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
Getting closer to the launch pad ‘Alpha’ you can notice an array of radar antennas, which were originally in the IFC area on top of Mount Toraro. The area of the launch pad features a reconstructed inner fence, which was in place around each pad in the original base.
The pad is basically rectangular in shape, with a hangar on one side, a protection rim and the launch control bunker on two opposing sides and a free side where today you can find the ticket office.
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
Three missiles are placed on top of their launch gantries. The gantries are part of a sophisticated rail system, designed to allow an easy side motion of the missiles from inside the hangar to their respective launch positions outside. The missiles were stored horizontally in the hangar to the far top of the rail on trolleys. When being readied for launch, the trolleys were pushed along the rail to the launch position, where the trolley was joined to the gantry. The missiles were raised to a vertical attitude together with the trolley with the help of a lift, which was a movable part of the gantry.
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
While the pavement is covered in asphalt, you can see the gantries and the rail system are staying on hard concrete foundations. These are among the few remains you see in the German Nike site covered in this post.
Inside the hangar you can spot a Nike Hercules missile, with lateral cutouts to expose the inner structure. These reveal the four-canister solid-propellant booster stage, which was ignited first and was separated from the bullet-shaped second stage when exhausted. The latter features the warhead, the electromechanical rigs of the guidance system, and a single solid-propellant sustainer rocket engine. The rocket had a range of about 25 miles, and a top speed over Mach 3, making it a really remarkable piece of technology especially compared to the soviet counterparts of the time.
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
All around the missile in the hangar you can see inner parts of the missile itself and of the ground fire control system as well. There are also panels with the history of the base, and original warning signs and instructions painted on the inner walls of the hangar – and similarly on other walls of the base. These writings are in double language, both in Italian and English. While the base was managed by the Italian Air Force, such installations were integrated in the NATO defense line, so many procedures of the Italian Air Force were in English. Furthermore, US military staff was required on site ‘by design’ in case of operations with nuclear warheads, which the Hercules could optionally carry. Nuclear warheads were never deployed to this base though.
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
Further items on display around the three missiles on the open apron include an old Nike-Ajax missile, a Lockheed F-104 Starfighter – the Italian Air Force was the last in the world to retire this model from service, as late as 2004 – and two trailers aligned in a row. The trailers are the battery control trailer, or BCT, and the radar control trailer, or RCT. Both trailers were originally in the IFC area of the base, and were operated by the staff responsible for offensive operations. In the days of operation, there was always somebody on duty in the trailers.
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
The BCT is, roughly speaking, where targets were designated, the kill point computed and the launch sequence triggered. The most notable feature are the two computerized plotting boards used to identify the target and to define the flight trajectory of the missile. The LOPAR detection radar and the identification friend-or-foe (IFF) radar reported information to this trailer, which coordinated the attack.
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
In the RCT stood the operators of the TTR and TRR radars, which were responsible for keeping trace of the target and for monitoring the missile during the flight towards the designated kill point.
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
To the back of the two trailers, it is possible to spot the rectangular shapes of the LOPAR radar and of the smaller IFF radar. The two round-shaped antennas are the TTR and TRR radars. In many pictures they are portrayed inside a bulbous cover, conferring them a distinctive spherical shape.
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
The concrete bunker to the opposite side of the launch pad with respect to the trailers is a protected room for the launch section panel, which is a kind of control panel for triggering the launch sequence of the missiles. The bunker served as a shelter for the operators of the launch section, for remaining on the outside in the vicinity of the missiles during launch operations was extremely dangerous.
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
During the guided visit, you are given a demonstration of the launch sequence from inside the control room, which is insulated from the outside with double tight doors. The firing procedure was quite complicated. Actually, it was a direct signal traveling along a cable connection from the battery trailer that gave the go to the missiles. Yet there were redundancies for increased safety, and it was possible to trigger the entire launch sequence from within the firing section, in case communication with the BCT was lost. During normal operations, the OK from the operator of the control panel in the bunker had the function of a further go/no go safety layer for the launch.
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
A trailer with a panel similar to that in the bunker can be found outside. This likely represented a further redundancy, or like the F-104 it is a piece coming from somewhere else.
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
To the back of the bunker with the fire section panel you can find an original watchtower from a US base in northern Italy, similar to the towers originally in place around the missile base. Close by, there is a nice example of the canisters used to the transport the stages of the Nike-Hercules, as well as the crane used to assemble it. There is also a further example of the second stage of the missile.
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
Getting there and moving around
The ‘Alpha’ battery of the launch control area is open as a museum, called ‘Base Tuono’. It is located on the road SP143, which departs from Folgaria, a small town about 12 miles south of the regional capital town Trento. You can find clear roadsigns leading to the site from Folgaria.
The museum has opening times, visiting is generally possible on a self-guided basis. Access to the bunker and the trailers is possible only on guided tours. All information on their website (in English). Large free parking about 0.2 miles away from the entrance.
There is much to see for technically minded subjects, but the visit will be surely appealing for children too. I would recommend to allocate at least 45 minutes for the visit, and up to 2 hours if you want to take a guided tour and take all the pictures on your own. The scenery around is gorgeous, so it will be easy to combine this destination with a nature trail or with other tourist destination in the area.
Integrated Fire Control Area
This is where the radars and trailers used to stay, together with barracks and service buildings. It can be found about 2 miles south east direct line of sight from the launch pad, on top of Mount Toraro. Differently from the launch control area, this area has been demolished and sanitized. No buildings remain in place, yet some of the former foundations and platforms to anchor the trailers can still be seen.
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
Reaching to the top of the peak is interesting to appreciate the view of the launch site from here. Unfortunately, at the time of my visit low clouds obstructed the sight.
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
Base Tuono Nike Hercules Italy
Getting there and moving around
Even though the wide original road to reach this part of the base still exists, for some reason access to the top of the mountain is not allowed by car. In order to get to the trailhead from the museum, you can take your car and keep going southeast along the SP143 for about 1.5 miles. As you go ahead, the road will change the name to SP92 on your nav. Soon after the road starts descending, you will find the trailhead to your right, with a horizontal obstacle and a prohibition sign for cars. You may park there. It is likely the trail to the top of Mount Toraro will be on your nav too, for it is basically a normal road. The distance to walk to the top is about 1 mile, along the former service road to the base – covered in asphalt, gently ascending, no risk of any kind.
The immense state of Texas is in the foreground of the panorama of historical aviation, thanks especially to the CAF – the Commemorative Air Force (website here) – which maintains and operates some of the Nation’s finest airworthy warbirds. This privately financed, non-profit organization feeds the programs of many airshows everywhere in the US, and carries out an invaluable function in preserving the legacy of many aircraft designers, manufacturers and military servicemen especially from WWII and early Cold War years.
The birth of the CAF in Texas is not just by chance. The Lone Star State bolsters an extremely long and rich tradition in aviation. Training airfields were established in Texas earlier and in a number greater than any other State during WWI. Fort Worth was the birthplace of one of todays few surviving major airlines in the US – American Airlines – back in the early 1930s.
Aircraft manufacturers associated with Texas include Consolidated – most of the iconic WWII B-24 Liberator bombers were manufactured in Fort Worth – and North American. Consolidated later merged into Convair, owned by General Dynamics since the Fifties. Many aircraft of the Cold War era were actually manufactured in Fort Worth, including the record-breaking B-36 Peacemaker and B-58 Hustler, or the highly successful F-16 Fighting Falcon, still in service today in many air forces of the world, as well as a good deal of other types. As of today, Lockheed Martin and Bell Helicopters are both headquartered in Fort Worth.
Needless to recall, Houston has been one of the major focal points of world astronautics since the beginning of the space age.
In such a cultural setting, and considering the general financial wealth and the abundance of oil typical of Texas, it is not surprising that warbirds, even though fuel-thirsty and expensive to maintain, are present here in an exceptional concentration. Where possible, they are maintained in airworthy conditions, otherwise they are kept in great consideration in world-class air museums.
This post covers only four rich collections out of the many you can find in Texas. Two of them are ‘airworthy collections’, whereas in the other two warbirds are preserved for static display. Considered together, these four sites are probably already a good reason for an aviation-themed trip to Texas!
Photographs are from an extremely hot August 2018.
This renowned collection just west of downtown Dallas is split between a big group of exceptionally well-kept and airworthy prop-driven aircraft, and a number of warbirds on static display, some of them jet-powered. Website here.
The museum occupies a few hangars on a very busy general aviation airport (Addison Airport), where executive jets, helicopters and smaller propeller-driven aircraft operate all around the clock.
The collection is hosted in four hangars and on an external apron where you can walk around freely. Not all aircraft are around here at any time, some having been flown out to some airshow, or for maintenance. In the first hangar you can find a handful of perfect airworthy replicas of WWI fighters from both sides of the front line.
Cavanaugh Flight Museum
Cavanaugh Flight Museum
Cavanaugh Flight Museum
Cavanaugh Flight Museum
Cavanaugh Flight Museum
Just besides are a North American B-25J-NC Mitchell, a ground strafing version of the famous medium-range bomber, and a veteran of WWII.
Cavanaugh Flight Museum Mitchell
Cavanaugh Flight Museum Mitchell
Cavanaugh Flight Museum
Cavanaugh Flight Museum Mitchell
Cavanaugh Flight Museum
There are also a Vultee SNV-2 Valiant, a De Havilland Tiger Moth, a Ryan PT-22, all training planes from the Forties. In a corner you can see also a Piper L-4J, the military version of the J-3 Cub, and a Stinson L-5E, similar to the former in shape and mission type.
Cavanaugh Flight Museum Ryan
Cavanaugh Flight Museum Tiger Moth
Cavanaugh Flight Museum Cub
Cavanaugh Flight Museum Valiant
Cavanaugh Flight Museum
Cavanaugh Flight Museum
Cavanaugh Flight Museum
Cavanaugh Flight Museum Pitts
A Pitts Special aerobatic biplane is hanging from the ceiling in an inverted attitude.
The second hangar hosts a Fairchild PT-19 Cornell, an ubiquitous US military trainer from the Forties, in a distinctive light blue colorway with a yellow fin. Together with a yellow Stearman N2S-4 Kaydet biplane and a North American T-6 Texan, both good old trainers, they share the scene with a handful of stunningly preserved icons from WWII.
Cavanaugh Flight Museum Texan
Cavanaugh Flight Museum Stearman
Cavanaugh Flight Museum
Cavanaugh Flight Museum Stearman
These include a Grumman F-4 Wildcat and a massive Grumman TBF Avenger – both in the dark blue colorway of the US Navy.
Cavanaugh Flight Museum Avenger
Cavanaugh Flight Museum Wildcat
Cavanaugh Flight Museum Wildcat
Cavanaugh Flight Museum Yak-3
Cavanaugh Flight Museum Messerschmitt
Just besides are a licensed version of the Messerschmitt Bf-109G of Nazi Germany built by Hispano Aircraft in Spain, and a nice replica of a Soviet Yakovlev Yak-3M.
Cross the apron, you can find some more great classics from the Forties. There are an immaculate Curtiss P-40 Warhawk, and two North American T-28 Trojan trainers in the colors of the Navy. In the background you can spot a sizable Heinkel He-111 twin, a licensed version manufactured by CASA in Spain.
Cavanaugh Flight Museum Warhawk
Cavanaugh Flight Museum Trojan
Cavanaugh Flight Museum Trojan
Cavanaugh Flight Museum Trojan
Cavanaugh Flight Museum Trojan
Cavanaugh Flight Museum Heinkel 111
The last hangar shelters an aggressive Douglas A-1H Skyraider in the colors of the USAF. This version of the massive single-prop features a single seat and is especially reinforced for increased bomb load to carry on ground attack missions.
Cavanaugh Flight Museum Skyraider
Cavanaugh Flight Museum Skyraider
Cavanaugh Flight Museum Sabre
Cavanaugh Flight Museum Sabre
Cavanaugh Flight Museum Phantom
Cavanaugh Flight Museum Panther
Cavanaugh Flight Museum Panther
This is surrounded by a series of pretty famous jet attack aircraft, including a McDonnell-Douglas F-4C Phantom II, a North American F-86 Sabre and a Grumman F-9F-2B Panther with foldable wings and the distinctive blue and red colors of the Navy.
There are also two classic fighters from WWII, a Supermarine Spitfire Mk.VIII and a North American P-51D Mustang. The latter is so polished that you can clearly see your image reflected in its skin panels!
Cavanaugh Flight Museum Mustang
Cavanaugh Flight Museum Spitfire
Cavanaugh Flight Museum Mustang
Cavanaugh Flight Museum Mustang
Cavanaugh Flight Museum Mustang
Cavanaugh Flight Museum Mustang
Cavanaugh Flight Museum Mustang
On the outside apron you can see parked three Soviet-made jets from WWII – a MiG-15 UTI and a MiG-17 in the colors of the Red Army, and a more recent MiG-21 in the colors of the North Vietnamese Air Force. Close by, a PZL Iskra trainer, once ubiquitous in the former Soviet bloc.
Cavanaugh Flight Museum MiG-15
Cavanaugh Flight Museum MiG-15
Cavanaugh Flight Museum MiG-15
Cavanaugh Flight Museum MiG-17
Cavanaugh Flight Museum Iskra
Cavanaugh Flight Museum MiG-17
Cavanaugh Flight Museum MiG-21
Cavanaugh Flight Museum MiG-21
There are also a Lockheed F-104A Starfighter, a Grumman S-2F-1 Tracker patrol aircraft of the Navy with folded wings, a Republic F-105 Thunderchief awaiting restoration, and a Vought A-7 Corsair II.
Cavanaugh Flight Museum Tracker
Cavanaugh Flight Museum Corsair
Cavanaugh Flight Museum Starfighter
Cavanaugh Flight Museum Thunderchief
Cavanaugh Flight Museum Corsair
Cavanaugh Flight Museum Thunderchief
Cavanaugh Flight Museum Tracker
Scattered around the museum are also a few helicopters, and even a Sherman tank.
Cavanaugh Flight Museum
Cavanaugh Flight Museum
Cavanaugh Flight Museum
Cavanaugh Flight Museum Sherman
Cavanaugh Flight Museum
During my visit I could see two movements of aircraft taxiing out for take-off. The first was a Cessna O-2 Skymaster, a model extensively used in Vietnam for FAC missions. This has been refurbished with fake underwing rockets. You can see it in the vid below.
Cavanaugh Flight Museum Skymaster
Cavanaugh Flight Museum
Cavanaugh Flight Museum
The second was a Douglas EA-1E Skyraider in gray Navy colors. This is the early warning version, designed for a crew of three and originally mounting a dedicated radar platform. You can watch (and hear!) the difficult startup of the huge Wright radial engine – it was around 100°F outside! – and the aircraft taxiing with folded wings. Unfolding starts only seconds before the aircraft gets out of sight.
Cavanaugh Flight Museum Skyraider
Cavanaugh Flight Museum Skyraider
Cavanaugh Flight Museum Skyraider
Cavanaugh Flight Museum Skyraider
Cavanaugh Flight Museum Skyraider
Cavanaugh Flight Museum Skyraider
Cavanaugh Flight Museum Skyraider
Cavanaugh Flight Museum Skyraider
Cavanaugh Flight Museum Skyraider
Forth Worth Aviation Museum, Fort Worth, TX
This museum hosts a little but highly valuable collection of US aircraft on static display. The museum is totally volunteer-run. These folks are doing an exceptional job preserving their aircraft. As you can see from the pictures, there are many exemplars being actively refurbished in a hangar to the back. The museum is located on the southeast corner of Fort Worth Meacham general aviation airport. Website here.
All aircraft are preserved outside, but you get access to the museum grounds through a lounge, stacked with wonderful memorabilia, technical specimens, paintings and rare pictures.
Fort Worth Aviation Museum
Fort Worth Aviation Museum
Fort Worth Aviation Museum
Fort Worth Aviation Museum
Fort Worth Aviation Museum
Fort Worth Aviation Museum
Fort Worth Aviation Museum
Fort Worth Aviation Museum
A showcase is devoted to the Convair B-58 Hustler, a record-setting Mach 2 bomber from the Fifties, produced in slightly more than 100 exemplars, which were all manufactured in Fort Worth. This iconic delta wing, four-engined jet was exceptional for the number of ‘firsts’. Among them, it was the first aircraft with a computerized flight control system and an integrated navigation platform. You can spot part of this analog computer, a bulky stack of black metal parts.
Fort Worth Aviation Museum
Fort Worth Aviation Museum
Fort Worth Aviation Museum
Fort Worth Aviation Museum
Fort Worth Aviation Museum
Fort Worth Aviation Museum
There are scale models of the Cessna O-2 Skymaster, and based on the themes of the merchandise in the museum shop there is actually a predilection for that aircraft and the Rockwell OV-10 Bronco, which had a similar mission, i.e. observation, reconnaissance and forward air controller (FAC).
Fort Worth Aviation Museum
Fort Worth Aviation Museum
Fort Worth Aviation Museum
Fort Worth Aviation Museum
Actually, among the first aircraft you meet outside there is a Cessna Skymaster. I was so lucky to visit on August 19th, the National Aviation Day, when the museum recruited many veterans to stay besides their respective aircraft and tell their story. I spent a little time with Doc Lambert, Nail 66, one of the pilots of FAC missions over Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, who allowed me to have a long look inside his Skymaster. Among the testimonies of his war operations, he told me some anecdotes. Most FAC missions were performed with only the pilot on board, which caused a pretty high workload. Furthermore, the aircraft was not equipped to counteract any weapon shooting up from the ground. This meant that a typical flight was an uninterrupted sequence of strong turns to avoid being hit from ground fire, something that also helped in searching for grounded crews, or enemies hiding in the jungle. As a result, you had to be accustomed to such way of flying, or a strong sense of nausea would come to disturb you pretty soon. This regularly happened with visiting high-ranking USAF staff on demonstration flights…
Fort Worth Aviation Museum Skymaster
Fort Worth Aviation Museum Skymaster
Fort Worth Aviation Museum Skymaster
Fort Worth Aviation Museum Skymaster
Fort Worth Aviation Museum Skymaster
Fort Worth Aviation Museum Skymaster
Fort Worth Aviation Museum Skymaster
Fort Worth Aviation Museum Skymaster
The museum owns another Skymaster, which was undergoing refurbishment in a black livery at the time of my visit, similarly to an operational USMC version of the OV-10 Bronco.
Fort Worth Aviation Museum Skymaster
Fort Worth Aviation Museum Bronco
Best preserved aircraft on the front row, which are clearly visible from the public road ahead of the museum, include a Lockheed T-33 Shooting Star training aircraft, and a Northrop F-5 Tiger II in a fake Soviet camouflage once used by aggressors in flight academies.
Fort Worth Aviation Museum Shooting Star
Fort Worth Aviation Museum Shooting Star
Fort Worth Aviation Museum Tiger
Fort Worth Aviation Museum Tiger
Fort Worth Aviation Museum Shooting Star
On the same row you can spot a Douglas A-4 Skyhawk, a type in service since the early Sixties, and shown here painted in the colors of the Navy. The beautifully restored Vought A-7B Corsair II nearby was deployed to Vietnam three times with VA-25 on board USS Ticonderoga and USS Ranger.
Fort Worth Aviation Museum Corsair
Fort Worth Aviation Museum Skyhawk
Fort Worth Aviation Museum Skyhawk
Next is a massive Republic F-105D Thunderchief, a very nice example of this Mach 2 fighter-bomber from the early Sixties. This very aircraft was stationed in Europe, tasked with carrying tactical nuclear ordnance. The roomy bomb bay designed for the scope can be observed from inside. After more than ten years in the USAF, this aircraft went on to serve with the Air National Guard in the Seventies, and was finally disposed of in 1983.
Fort Worth Aviation Museum Thunderchief
Fort Worth Aviation Museum Thunderchief
Fort Worth Aviation Museum Thunderchief
Fort Worth Aviation Museum Thunderchief
Fort Worth Aviation Museum Thunderchief
Fort Worth Aviation Museum Thunderchief
Fort Worth Aviation Museum Thunderchief
Fort Worth Aviation Museum Thunderchief
Fort Worth Aviation Museum Thunderchief
Fort Worth Aviation Museum Thunderchief
Fort Worth Aviation Museum Thunderchief
Right besides the F-105 you find a McDonnell-Douglas F-4C Phantom II in the colors of the USMC Aviation. This very aircraft is a Vietnam veteran, and it was later converted into a target drone, but luckily never used in this role. The collection features another F-4, again a Vietnam veteran.
Fort Worth Aviation Museum Phantom
Fort Worth Aviation Museum Phantom
Fort Worth Aviation Museum Phantom
Fort Worth Aviation Museum Phantom
Fort Worth Aviation Museum Phantom
Cutting edge technology from the late Seventies is represented by a Grumman F-14D Tomcat. This plane is a war veteran, it flew missions during Desert Storm and over Afghanistan, and it was often used on FAC missions and for training at home. It was retired in 2007.
Fort Worth Aviation Museum Tomcat
Fort Worth Aviation Museum Tomcat
Fort Worth Aviation Museum Tomcat
The Tomcat is sitting next to an imposing Sikorsky CH-53 Sea Stallion helicopter. This too is a Vietnam veteran, and suffered also some damage on combat duty. The avionics of this big helicopter are totally analog. Next to it you can find a Convair TF-102 Delta Dagger interceptor built for combat and training. This very aircraft was flown by President George W. Bush.
Fort Worth Aviation Museum Sea Stallion
Fort Worth Aviation Museum Sea Stallion
Fort Worth Aviation Museum Delta Dagger
Fort Worth Aviation Museum Delta Dagger
Fort Worth Aviation Museum Sea Stallion
Other training aircraft on display from different ages include a Vultee BT-13 Valiant single-prop, a Cessna T-37B Tweet and a Douglas TA-4 Skyhawk. The latter was used extensively for training purposes on board USS Lexington.
Fort Worth Aviation Museum Skyhawk
Fort Worth Aviation Museum Tweet
Two totally authentic Navy veterans are a Vought F-8 Crusader and a McDonnell-Douglas F/A 18 Hornet. The first spent its early career on board USS Lexington and USS Ranger in multiple cruises in the Western Pacific during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, being later assigned to several Naval Air Stations along its more than 20 years long career. The Hornet was deployed operationally from the late Eighties on board USS Midway and later on USS Independence, and spent its final years in the Blue Angels – of which you see the vivid livery today – being finally retired in 2009.
Fort Worth Aviation Museum Hornet
Fort Worth Aviation Museum Hornet
Fort Worth Aviation Museum Crusader
Fort Worth Aviation Museum Crusader
A special feature of this museum is the only existing mock-up of the McDonnell-Douglas/General Dynamics A-12 Avenger II. Development of this attack aircraft was carried on in the Eighties and finally canceled by the Government. The flying wing configuration and the widespread adoption of composite materials made this platform unique, but also ahead of its times. This design was penalized by subsequent mass increases which caused its cancellation, but it represented a first chance to investigate concepts and technologies later adopted for operational aircraft flying today. The mock-up used to reside in the Fort Worth plant of General Dynamics, from where it made its way to the museum.
Fort Worth Aviation Museum Avenger
Fort Worth Aviation Museum Avenger
Other Cold War planes include a General Dynamics F-111E Aardvark, built in Fort Worth and assigned to Japan and Europe along its long operational career spanning the years 1969-90, and a Rockwell OV-10 Bronco formerly in service with the USAF.
Fort Worth Aviation Museum Bronco
Fort Worth Aviation Museum Bronco
Fort Worth Aviation Museum Aardvark
Fort Worth Aviation Museum Aardvark
Fort Worth Aviation Museum
Lone Star Flight Museum, Houston, TX
This stunning museum is located on the premises of the Ellington Field Joint Reserve Base. The installation is centered on a collection of mainly airworthy warbirds and classic planes.. It is really top quality, surely among the best displays of the kind in the Nation. Besides that, they offer a well-designed, recently-made, fresh presentation of the history of aviation in Texas, as well as didactic labs explaining the principles of flight through experiments and simulators. You can find their website here.
There are also meeting rooms and galleries for art exhibitions. Really a place to be for enthusiasts of ‘flying oldies’!
The collection is not huge, but it boasts a good number of notable aircraft still flying today. In the first hangar you can find many iconic designs from the Thirties and Forties. There are a North American T-6 Texan and two beautiful Stearman PT-17 Kaydet trainers.
Lone Star Flight Museum Texan
Lone Star Flight Museum Texan
Lone Star Flight Museum Stearman Kaydet
Lone Star Flight Museum Stearman Kaydet
Lone Star Flight Museum Stearman Kaydet
A centerpiece of the collection is an extraordinary Republic P-47 Thunderbolt – the fastest propeller driven aircraft ever – in a majestic colorway from WWII years.
Lone Star Flight Museum Thunderbolt
Lone Star Flight Museum Thunderbolt
Lone Star Flight Museum Thunderbolt
At the center of the hangar, much room is taken by an airworthy example of the mighty Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress. Together with a few other models, this formed the backbone of the US bombing capacity during WWII. Stunningly restored, this aircraft can be booked for pleasure flights!
Lone Star Flight Museum Flying Fortress
Lone Star Flight Museum Flying Fortress
Lone Star Flight Museum Flying Fortress
Lone Star Flight Museum Flying Fortress
Lone Star Flight Museum Flying Fortress
Lone Star Flight Museum Flying Fortress
Further aircraft on display in this hangar are a Piper L-4H, its civil counterpart, the J-3 Cub, and a similarly looking Stinson OY-1 Sentinel in military colors.
Lone Star Flight Museum Piper Cub
Lone Star Flight Museum Piper Cub
Lone Star Flight Museum Stinson Sentinel
Lone Star Flight Museum Piper Cub
Lone Star Flight Museum Piper Cub
Lone Star Flight Museum Stinson Sentinel
Lone Star Flight Museum Stinson Sentinel
A true rarity is a stylish Beechcraft D-17 ‘Staggerwing’. This aircraft was conceived in the Thirties as one of the first ‘executive aircraft’, with good handling capabilities, and nice interiors to provide good comfort on board. Despite all efforts, visibility from the front windscreen is probably not very good…
Lone Star Flight Museum Staggerwing
Lone Star Flight Museum Staggerwing
Lone Star Flight Museum Staggerwing
A Grumman F-6F Hellcat, an authentic warbird from WWII, painted in the colors of the Navy, a Fairchild trainer and an ubiquitous general aviation Beechcraft Baron complete the exhibition in the first hangar.
Lone Star Flight Museum Hellcat
Lone Star Flight Museum Hellcat
Lone Star Flight Museum Hellcat
Lone Star Flight Museum Ryan
Lone Star Flight Museum Baron
The second hangar hosts both prop-driven and jet-driven aircraft, most of them airworthy or otherwise being restored. The most classic designs in this room are a North American B-25 Mitchell medium-range bomber, a Douglas DC-3, a Douglas SBD Dauntless and a Grumman TBM Avenger.
Interestingly, the Mitchell is the only in the world painted in the colors of the Doolittle Raiders. This very aircraft did not see action during WWII, but later being flown by the CIA on covert missions, it was involved in JFK’s failed attempt to invade Cuba, overflying the Bay of Pigs in the days of operations.
Lone Star Flight Museum Mitchell
Lone Star Flight Museum Mitchell
Lone Star Flight Museum Mitchell
Lone Star Flight Museum Mitchell
The DC-3 flew extensively with American Airlines and later TransTexas Airways – later to be ingested by Continental, hence the livery – and is still airworthy today. Both the SBD and TBM on display are from WWII days, and are still flying today after restoration work.
Lone Star Flight Museum DC-3
Lone Star Flight Museum DC-3
Lone Star Flight Museum DC-3
Lone Star Flight Museum DC-3
Lone Star Flight Museum DC-3
While possibly disappearing in front of its illustrious colleagues in this hangar, an honest Cessna T-41 Mescalero represents here the training branch of the armed forces. This is basically the military version of the C-172, probably the aircraft manufactured in the highest numbers in history, and a platform where pilots of all sorts spend part of their training still today. The colors are very nice, and this aircraft is the cheapest you can rent for a ride at the Lone Star Flight Museum.
Lone Star Flight Museum Mescalero
Lone Star Flight Museum Mescalero
Lone Star Flight Museum Mescalero
Lone Star Flight Museum Dauntless
Lone Star Flight Museum Avenger
Lone Star Flight Museum Avenger
Lone Star Flight Museum Avenger
Lone Star Flight Museum Dauntless
Lone Star Flight Museum Dauntless
Lone Star Flight Museum Avenger
Lone Star Flight Museum Avenger
Lone Star Flight Museum Avenger
In the same hangar you can find also (slightly) more modern aircraft. There are three jet-powered aircraft from the early Cold War period. One is a Lockheed T-33A trainer, a very successful aircraft sold in high numbers in the late Forties. More impressing is an authentic Soviet MiG-15, which spent its years in service with the Chinese Air Force and saw action in Korea, opposing the F-86A in the first jet vs. jet campaign in history.
Lone Star Flight Museum Shooting Star
Lone Star Flight Museum Shooting Star
Lone Star Flight Museum MiG-15
Lone Star Flight Museum MiG-15
A Polish-built MiG-17 in an incredible ‘Red Banner’ celebration colorway completes the trio.
Lone Star Flight Museum MiG-17
Lone Star Flight Museum MiG-17
Lone Star Flight Museum MiG-17
Close to the exit you can find a beautifully restored Douglas A-1D Skyraider. This aircraft is airworthy, and is an authentic veteran of both the Korean and Vietnam war, where it reportedly sustained extensive damage but was not shot down.
Lone Star Flight Museum Skyraider
Lone Star Flight Museum Skyraider
Lone Star Flight Museum Skyraider
Lone Star Flight Museum Skyraider
Lone Star Flight Museum Skyraider
Lone Star Flight Museum Skyraider
Lone Star Flight Museum Skyraider
Lone Star Flight Museum Cobra
There are also a Sikorsky helicopter used for commuting to oil platforms off the coast of Texas, and a Cobra attack helicopter.
Outside, as a gate guardian on one of the access roads leading to the base, you can spot a NASA Boeing 707 used for zero-gravity flights on behalf of Johnson Space Center.
Lone Star Flight Museum
Lone Star Flight Museum Clipper Painting
Lone Star Flight Museum 707 NASA
Lone Star Flight Museum 707 NASA
Lone Star Flight Museum NASA 707
USS Lexington, Corpus Christi, TX
‘Lady Lex’ – as it was affectionately called by its crews along its illustrious career – is an Essex class WWII aircraft carrier, and with 40 years of active service is by far the one that enjoyed the longest service life. Since the late Sixties it operated as a training platform, where many pilots of the Navy learned how to perform a carrier landing.
Today this majestic vessel is permanently moored on the bay of Corpus Christi, where it is home to a fascinating history museum covering her long operational history. The corresponding website is here.
USS Lexington
USS Lexington
USS Lexington
Highlights of the visit are first of all the ship’s bridge, from where you can also profit from a vantage view of the flight deck and of the bay – and of the thunderstorms afflicting the area in mid-August, of course.
USS Lexington
USS Lexington
USS Lexington
USS Lexington
USS Lexington
USS Lexington
USS Lexington
USS Lexington
USS Lexington
USS Lexington
USS Lexington
Similarly interesting are the lower deck where aircraft used to be stored. This is huge, and some historic aircraft can be found here as part of a number of small exhibitions.
USS Lexington
USS Lexington
USS Lexington
USS Lexington
USS Lexington
USS Lexington
USS Lexington
USS Lexington
USS Lexington
USS Lexington
USS Lexington
The forward compartments recall the attack of Pearl Harbor in 1941, and display also some artifacts from the time, including pieces of the ill-fated battleship Arizona, and a banner belonging to the older CV-2 Lexington – CV-16 being the number of this vessel in Navy inventory.
USS Lexington
USS Lexington
USS Lexington
USS Lexington
USS Lexington
USS Lexington
USS Lexington
USS Lexington
USS Lexington
USS Lexington
An unusual topic is movies – some great scenes of ‘Pearl Harbor’ Hollywood drama starring Ben Affleck and Alec Baldwin were shot on USS Lexington, including an apparently genuine take-off of a B-25 from the flight deck! Other motion pictures partly shot on board Lexington are ‘Midway’ and the series ‘War and remembrance’.
Part of the quarters of high-ranking staff can be visited, including a canteen. These were typically used only when the ship was moored.
USS Lexington
USS Lexington
USS Lexington
USS Lexington
Interestingly, it is possible to walk along the side decks of the ship, where anti-aircraft guns can be found and closely inspected.
USS Lexington
USS Lexington
USS Lexington
USS Lexington
USS Lexington
USS Lexington
Finally, the flight deck hosts a number of aircraft, representing many types in service with the Navy, most of which found their way on the modernized flight deck of this old carrier, during combat assignment or on duty as a training vessel. Being exposed to a salty atmosphere and to the intense sun of the Texan coast, these aircraft have been somewhat coated, which gives them a ‘mock-up appearance’, but this is just an impression, for these aircraft are real and on loan from the National Museum of Naval Aviation.