Kristiansand: an enormous World War II German cannon turned into a museum

@ElentirENG ES 1·14·2023 · 22:05 0

During World War II, Germany invaded Norway and installed a considerable part of the so-called Atlantic Wall on its coast.

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The interior of two well-preserved Third Reich batteries on a British island

That Atlantic Wall (Atlantikwall, in German) was the nickname that the Germans gave to a long series of coastal fortifications (almost 2,700 kilometres) built in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark and Norway and whose The objective was to prevent an Allied landing. Some of the largest German coastal artillery batteries were installed in Norway, with the aim of protecting the precious Swedish iron shipping through the Norwegian port of Narvik and also to safeguard maritime traffic between the Sea North and the Baltic Sea through the Skagerrak Strait.

On the shores of that strait was the Vara Battery, built between 1941 and 1944 with the aim of closing access to that strait, for which another battery was installed in the southern part of it, in Hanstholm ( Denmark). Battery Vara was equipped with four huge 38 cm K C/34 naval guns. At the end of World War II, the battery continued to be operated by the Norwegian Army, who named it Møvik Fort. In 1959 the battery was closed and three of its cannons were disarmed, the fourth remaining in its well.

In the mid-1980s, plans began to convert the battery into a museum, which was finally inaugurated in 1993. The 38 cm gun preserved in this battery is one of the largest in the world and is in an excellent state of preservation. The Kristiansand Museum preserves German uniforms and weapons from the Second World War, and some inscriptions painted by the Germans on the battery were even restored, as shown in this video from the German channel Schlachtfeld Begehung:

You can see here some screenshots that show only a small part of the video. First of all we see German uniforms and weapons from World War II in the museum.

The enormous cannon of the Vara Battery. It had a range of 55 kilometers and the cannon tube alone already had a weight of 110 tons.

The lower part of the cannon tower seen from the shaft in which it is located.

The interior of the cannon tower, where we can appreciate its good state of conservation.

The rifled bore of the huge 15-inch gun, illuminated with a high-powered flashlight.