Trondenes Fort: an old German battery in Norway with four colossal cannons

@ElentirENG ES 2·09·2023 · 2:51 0

During World War II, Nazi Germany managed to occupy France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Norway: a huge stretch of coastline.

Kristiansand: an enormous World War II German cannon turned into a museum
Maisy: the German Normandy battery that was mysteriously buried by the US

To defend the coasts of these occupied countries from possible Allied attacks, the Germans built the so-called Atlantic Wall , which ran from the south of France to the northern coast of Norway. This Nordic country was of great strategic importance for Germany, since in the Norwegian port of Narvik the iron from the Swedish mines was loaded

To protect Narvik, the Germans built two large coastal artillery batteries between 1942 and 1943: one on Engeløya Island, north of Steigen, and another on the Trondenes Peninsula, in the town of Harstad. These batteries were equipped with colossal 406 mm Schnelladekanone C/34 guns, with three pieces at Engeløya (so-called Dietl Battery) and four at Trondenes (Theo Battery). These are guns built to be used on battleships, and their use in these Norwegian batteries made them the largest coastal artillery guns in the world.

For the construction of this battery a dock was built in order to disembark the enormous cannons, which were later transported overland in large cannons to their positions. In addition, the Germans set up a prison camp next to the battery, in order to send there hundreds of Soviet prisoners of war who were used as slave labor in the construction of the battery. Of them , 800 died during the works. Today his remains are buried in a cemetery in Tjøtta. A monument remembers there the prisoners who died during the construction of the fort.

After the war, the Norwegian Army took over these fortifications, integrating them into their coastal defense. The Engeløya battery was dismembered and its guns scrapped in 1956. The Trondenes battery continued to be active, but on September 1, 1958, it recorded a dramatic event when one of its ammunition depots exploded, causing five deaths. . The battery was decommissioned by the Norwegian Army in 1961.

The four pieces of Trondenes Fort are still intact and in relatively good condition. One of them, named "Barbara" (probably in honor of the patron saint of artillerymen), is still operational (the turret can rotate) and is part of a museum that receives many visitors. The "Barbara" barrel was restored between 1978 and 1982, while the other three pieces were polished and repainted in 1991.

You can see here a video by Koirankangas showing the outside and inside the "Barbara" canyon, the only one of the four that can be visited:

And here another video, this one longer and more detailed, published by WW2HistoryHunter:

Finally, you can see here the location of this battery on Google Maps:

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Source of the images: Øivind Arvola / Kjell Jøran Hansen (1) / Kjell Jøran Hansen (2) / Store Norske Leksikon.