The Atlantic Wall and Norway

South Pacific Familyadventure 2008
Claes Brodin
Wed 26 Jun 2019 20:06
Every black spot on these maps are fortresses with artillery as part of the Atlantic Wall that Hitler ordered for the defense of festung Europa. As seen Norway with Europes longest coastline was a large part of this wall. The fortresses were efficiently built by prisoners of war(mainly Russians).
The green countries on the map were "neutral". Spain under general Franco was a close fascist allied to Hitler and Sweden´s "neutrality" was certainly in doubt. One third of the Swedish population were considered pro nazi (the political correct ideology of that time),and as long as the Germans were winning Swedish authorities indirectly supported German warfare(transport of German troops on Swedish railways,store of equipment for war on Swedish territory,shipping through Swedish territorial waters and delivery of Swedish iron vital for German war industry). In the battle of Narvik German troops were sieged by allied forces,and therefore short of supplies (mainly food and clothing).A Norwegian journalist spending years digging into old transport logs from Swedish trains found out that the Germans being sieged were supported by Swedish trains secretely authorised from the highest level. As expected this is not discussed officially in Sweden.
The people of Bud and the region around Molde were involved in the very important smuggling of the Norwegian gold reserve out of the country away from the Germans. They managed to get it over the North Sea to Scotland and it eventually ended in Fort Knox/USA !
When the Russians came and liberated Northern Norway the Germans retreated while burning large areas down. The Norwegian gold reserve in Fort Knox was eventually used for building the burned parts of northern Norway up again after the war.
WW-II had an enormous impact on the Norwegian society still today. Their filmindustry have made some great movies focusing on highly respected heroes from the resistance(also Hollywood with "Heroes from Telemarken destroying the German nuclear bomb factory) and Norway is today an important member of Nato.
When you dig into this period of Norwegian history you can well understand the older generations bitterness not only towards Germans but also it´s conformist neighbour in the east.

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