When Germany occupied Norway on 9 April 1940, a gigantic expansion of defense facilities started along the entire coast of the country. Thousands of small and large facilities were supposed to stop Allied ships from entering Norway. – It is impressive what the occupiers were able to build in the years they were in Norway, says chairman Gunnar Hojem of the National Association for Local History. The view of the Namsenfjord is good from the torpedo hall at Ledangsvalen in Namsos. From here Allied ships were to be stopped on their way into the fjord to Namsos. Photo: Espen Sandmo / news National war register Local history groups will now collaborate with the authorities to register German war memorials around Norway. The aim is a national register and better accessibility for people who want to see the facilities. – In Namsos, the municipality and the local history team collaborate and have received funding from the National Archives to start this work. But the goal is for us to make it happen all over the country, says county archaeologist Lars Forseth in Trøndelag county municipality. The torpedo battery on Ledangsvalen in the Namsenfjord is still intact. From the entrance there is a staircase 15 meters down to the large hall where the torpedo was to be launched. The torpedoes were to stop Allied ships from entering the fjord to Namsos. Chairman Gunnar Hojem of the National Association for Local History believes it is important to teach young people about what happened during the Second World War. Photo: Espen Sandmo / news – A formidable task – In the Namsenfjord alone there are around 1,000 large and small German defense works. So this will be a formidable task in the years to come. But we start in Namsos and Sørfold in Nordland, continues Gunnar Hojem. Namsos was strategically important in the middle of Norway. In the spring of 1940, British and French soldiers landed there to beat back the German occupiers in central Norway. It fails, and Namsos was attacked and bombed by the Germans on 20 April of the same year. It was mostly Soviet prisoners of war who built the torpedo battery in Namsos from 1942 to 1944. Inside the large facility we see ammunition boxes, a rusty kitchen stove, light fittings, wires, switches, paintings on the walls, and a coal warehouse that is still half full. – It’s fun to see how much interest there is still in war history. Just look at the turnout today, says Gudrun Flatebø from Namsos municipality. The leader had to be shot to surrender Many history buffs recently attended an inspection of the German torpedo battery in the Namsenfjorden outside Namsos. Landowner Ragnar Finanger says that the leader of the torpedo battery refused to surrender on 8 May 1945, when the German occupiers capitulated. – My 92-year-old uncle says that the manager came up to the farm with holes from machine gun bullets in both hands. They had simply shot him so that he would surrender, says Finanger. County archaeologist Lars Forseth (in the middle) along with many history buffs took part in the inspection of the torpedo battery at Namsenfjorden. Photo: Espen Sandmo / news Almost 80 years after the end of the war, the time is ripe to register all the facilities the Germans left behind, believes the county archaeologist in Trøndelag. – For the generations who experienced the war, this was a sensitive topic. It is only now that we can do this important work. For Hitler, Norway was perhaps the most important defense post against the Allies, says Lars Forseth.
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Thousands of German defense facilities in Norway are now to be surveyed – news Trøndelag
