For educational purposes
It's one of the most daring and bold operations of WW2: The Nazi's occupation and fortification of Norway.
Hitler demands breath-taking defences along the country's 1500 mile coastline to prevent an Allied invasion. It includes some of the biggest gun batteries of the entire war.
Norway is an Arctic frontline from which the Nazis can attack the Soviet Union, but it also offers Hitler the possible means to make an atomic bomb.
It's one of the most daring and bold operations of WW2: The Nazi's occupation and fortification of Norway.
Hitler demands breath-taking defences along the country's 1500 mile coastline to prevent an Allied invasion. It includes some of the biggest gun batteries of the entire war.
Norway is an Arctic frontline from which the Nazis can attack the Soviet Union, but it also offers Hitler the possible means to make an atomic bomb.
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LearningTranscript
00:01It's one of the most daring operations in the history of modern warfare.
00:05Fire at will!
00:07The invasion and fortification of Norway, transforming the country...
00:11How about that?
00:13...into a super fortress.
00:15It's making the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
00:17Norway's 1,500-mile coastline bristles with gun emplacements, torpedo batteries, and U-boat bases, primed for an Allied invasion.
00:27This is enormous. Enormous structure.
00:30400,000 German troops are sent north to defend the country...
00:35A really very difficult environment.
00:37...and fight the bitter Arctic war with Soviet Russia.
00:41Norway will be the zone of destiny in this war.
00:46Hitler has always been a gambler, but Norway is the biggest gambler of them all.
00:51This is the story...
00:53You can't really beat this.
00:54...of Hitler's Arctic fortress.
00:58The biggest construction project of World War II, ordered by Hitler to secure world domination.
01:06Now they survive as dark reminders of the Führer's fanatical military ambition.
01:13These are the secrets of the Nazi megastructures.
01:22Marching!
01:26Fourth of February, 1944.
01:30Deep inside the Arctic Circle, mountain trooper Gerd Klopp has been fighting the war against the Soviet Union for three years.
01:38It can't be much further.
01:41A war he thought would last just months.
01:46Throughout, he corresponds with his wife, who's expecting their first child.
01:52My dear Mats, we marched to the front with the enemy.
01:57Two worlds are fighting here for the right to exist.
02:00Please don't worry. Nothing will happen to me.
02:03I'll be coming home soon.
02:08On the Arctic front line, Soviet troops are bearing down on German defenses.
02:14Outnumbered two to one, Klopper and his men are under relentless Soviet fire and fighting for their lives.
02:23They are too many. We've got to take cover. Follow me.
02:32As the officer of his unit, he's the prime target for Russian snipers.
02:44Remnants of the Nazis' occupation of Norway and their battle with the Soviet Union still litter the country today.
02:53Conflict archaeologist Tony Pollard has traveled to the far north of Norway
02:59to discover a naval megastructure carved into the side of a fjord.
03:04That's what I've come to see, a land-based torpedo battery covering this stretch of water.
03:10Absolutely deadly for ships coming in.
03:13A staggering piece of architecture, really, nestles into the cliff,
03:17so it's really well camouflaged into the natural terrain.
03:20It's bizarre. It's like some sort of millionaire's penthouse.
03:25You can see it's pockmarked all along the front from attacks from Russian aircraft.
03:32Torpedoes are usually fired from submarines.
03:36In Norway, the Nazis build installations from which they can be fired from land.
03:43Look how dramatic this terrain is. Stunning stuff.
03:50Now, look at that. It's an abandoned building site.
03:57They've lined the rock walls with concrete, and look at this.
04:02Bitumen liner, waterproofing.
04:05And on the outside of that, they've built this brick vault, but just stopped here and gone.
04:15The Germans are leaving in a hurry, and this is archaeological evidence of that moment in time.
04:27And this chamber is the business end of the weapons system.
04:31It's the barrel of the gun, if you like, because it's in here that the torpedo tube would have sat
04:37on these heavy mounts at the end, launching the torpedo on its journey to the target ship.
04:46This is stuff you rarely see.
04:50These are bullet holes caused by a bullet coming through that slit.
04:54Pretty incredible. Forensic evidence of an attack.
04:59I have to say, I've seen bigger megastructures, but as far as location goes,
05:05you can't really beat this. Absolutely spectacular.
05:10The story of Hitler's Norwegian fortress begins in December 1939.
05:17The Nazis have already annexed Austria and Czechoslovakia and marched into Poland.
05:24In response, Britain and France have declared war on Germany, but hostilities have yet to begin.
05:31Hitler and his generals plan their next move.
05:35They believe the First World War was lost because Germany lacked strategic naval bases.
05:40What they need is access to the Atlantic coast, and Norway offers 1,500 miles of it.
05:50We stand on the brink of writing history.
05:53The question is, what will our enemies do next?
05:59Mein Führer, Norway gives us the naval bases we need.
06:05It is possible Britain will take these bases if we don't.
06:10Are you suggesting we occupy Greda?
06:13Yes, mein Führer.
06:15Then it is decided.
06:17Norway will be the zone of destiny in this war.
06:23The days until the occupation is completed will impose on me the greatest nervous strain of my life,
06:30but I am confident of victory.
06:34On the 9th of April 1940, codenamed Weser Day,
06:389,000 German troops launch an invasion of both Denmark and Norway.
06:46In just three hours, Denmark surrenders to the German army,
06:50and almost the entire German navy attacks six key Norwegian ports.
06:57In the far north, Narvik, the most prized port of all, is captured.
07:02Half of all Germany's iron ore imports are transported by train from Sweden to Narvik.
07:10Iron that feeds the Nazi war machine.
07:14Britain and her allies send a massive naval task force to confront the German occupying forces.
07:22The invasion of Norway is a massive gamble for Hitler.
07:26He's committing a large proportion of his still quite small Kriegsmarine, his navy,
07:31into an operation which is going to be exposing them to the full might of the Royal Navy,
07:36the world's largest at the time.
07:40What follows is one of the greatest naval battles of World War II,
07:44as the British and German navies fight for supremacy of the fjords around Narvik.
07:54Military historian Mike Pavelek has travelled to northern Norway
07:58to discover the remains of a German ship run aground in the battle for this crucial port city.
08:05It should be in sight. There it is. I see it now.
08:09The rusting hulk of the Georg Teel.
08:14Trapped at the end of a fjord, the Z-2 class destroyer, the Georg Teel, is on fire
08:20and rapidly taking on water.
08:25The captain decides he's going to run aground so that the complement can get off the ship
08:30because it was so heavily damaged by the Royal Navy
08:33that he knew it was going to sink if he didn't get everybody off the ship.
08:37The bit at the top here looks like where he ran into ground up on the rocks
08:42and then over time it has come back a little bit and then it capsized.
08:46Or it could be actual battle damage.
08:49You can only see a tiny portion, maybe 40 or 50 feet, of the entire 400-foot ship.
08:56The rest of it's angled down into the depths of this fjord.
09:00It gets so deep so quickly.
09:03Shipwrecks are so intriguing and interesting.
09:07You want to figure out how and why they died.
09:11This is awesome.
09:13Never dreamed I'd get this close to it.
09:16You can see the rock where it ran aground.
09:19You see a bunch of different construction methods here.
09:22You have arc welding and you have rivets that hold the ship together.
09:27And this is only one of the ten German destroyers lost at the Battle of Narvik,
09:33four in this fjord alone.
09:37Thanks to the heroism of the captain who's awarded a Knight's Cross by Hitler,
09:41over 300 of his men survive.
09:46But within the course of just four days and two major battles,
09:50half of all Germany's destroyers sink at Narvik.
09:56It's a disaster for the Kriegsmarine.
09:59Hitler's greatest gamble to seize Norway and steal its Atlantic ports
10:04is in danger of ending before it's begun.
10:13The Norwegian port of Narvik has seen one of the biggest naval battles of World War II.
10:19The action moves from sea to land.
10:23German mountain troops, paratroopers and around 2,500 sailors from stricken ships make it ashore.
10:31But they're vastly outnumbered by some 25,000 Allied and 10,000 Norwegian troops.
10:39The Germans are forced to retreat and give up control of the port and its vital iron ore railway.
10:46They withdraw inland, led by one of Hitler's favourite generals, Eduard Dietl.
10:54Dietl is a really interesting character. He's a career soldier, he's very brave and tenacious,
10:59and he's tactically sharp as well.
11:02He is the first commander of the Gebirgsjäger, the German mountain troops.
11:06Very much the first poster boy of the German army.
11:10The kind of soldier's soldier that Hitler likes to think he is.
11:15Gentlemen, this will be our biggest test of endurance.
11:20Survival in these mountains requires constant vigilance.
11:25The divisions have to come from this side.
11:29We owe it to the Third Reich not to show any weakness.
11:33Lieutenant, have the fresh supplies made it through yet?
11:39Lieutenant, have the fresh supplies made it through yet?
11:46Keep me informed.
11:48Right, one more time.
11:51On the 10th of May, 1940, Hitler launches his blitzkrieg attack on France.
11:58Allied troops in Norway are forced to evacuate to support the French.
12:03Left virtually undefended, the Norwegian government also flees the country.
12:08The German army seizes the opportunity to take back Narvik.
12:14On the 10th of June, Norway finally surrenders to the Third Reich
12:18and becomes the most northerly outpost of Hitler's new empire.
12:27German attention turns to protecting the country's most prized asset,
12:31Norway's Atlantic bases.
12:35But the coastline, all 63,000 miles of long inland fjords,
12:40is far more difficult to defend than Hitler ever imagined.
12:44And despite their withdrawal from Norway,
12:47the British are determined to inflict damage on Hitler's new Arctic colony.
12:53In the summer of 1940, Winston Churchill declared
12:56that what he wanted to do was set Europe ablaze.
12:59And what he meant by that was inspire insurrection,
13:02inspire resistance, have little raids.
13:07British commandos attack factories on the Norwegian Lofoten Islands.
13:11Here, the Nazis use fish oil to produce nitroglycerin, vital for explosives.
13:19The first commando raid was on the Lofoten Islands
13:22and it made Hitler realise that Norway was vulnerable,
13:26that this was a very, very difficult place to defend
13:29and that if he was going to maintain that defence,
13:31he was going to have to massively increase the number of forces there.
13:34And so he starts this huge construction project.
13:43Hitler orders the building of 160 new gun batteries on the Norwegian coast
13:48to protect German shipping exporting vital resources back to the fatherland.
13:54But because of the topography,
13:56these fortifications will be some of the hardest to construct in the entire Third Reich.
14:02It's a lot of coastline to protect.
14:05It's got lots of inlets and fjords and lots of mountains.
14:08You've got hardly any roads.
14:10The only way you can really access things is by ship.
14:12And the challenge is just absolutely enormous.
14:16But despite the difficulties,
14:18the Nazis are able to build in Norway
14:21some of the biggest gun batteries of the whole war.
14:25I'm here in Hardstad in northern Norway
14:27and actually where we are is well inside the Arctic Circle,
14:30but I'm very excited to be here.
14:32This is a massive German military coastal installation.
14:39This naval battery consists of four huge guns,
14:43originally designed for battleships.
14:47This is the absolute heart of this complex.
14:49Rail lines, wagons.
14:51It really does promise something pretty big beyond, doesn't it?
14:57Oh, my goodness.
14:59Look at that.
15:01That is absolutely enormous.
15:04With a 16-inch calibre and 70-foot long barrel,
15:08these cannons are nicknamed the Adolf guns.
15:11You know, I'm really not sure that words can amply convey the scale of this thing.
15:16I mean, this gun can fire a shell
15:1836 miles.
15:21The shells travel at 3,500 feet per second,
15:25reach a maximum trajectory of 14 miles
15:28and stay in the air a remarkable two minutes
15:31before hitting their target.
15:34Oh, this is really amazing.
15:36If there's anything that really underlines the scale of this weapon,
15:39it's this room.
15:41This is the absolute heart of it.
15:43And you can see the shell has been brought up on this lift
15:45and then you just roll it.
15:47Oh, look, one finger.
15:49That's just unbelievable.
15:52So I roll this into position.
15:54Here's the breech.
15:56I've got a British destroyer out at sea.
15:59So I've been fed my coordinates of angle of fire
16:03and I need to adjust the barrel.
16:05So look at this.
16:07This is an actual wartime working German gun
16:20and it's about as big as it gets.
16:22I mean, honestly, it's making the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
16:28This, believe it or not, is the firing trigger.
16:31This is the mechanism, just a little bit of metal and a baker-like grip.
16:34I press this down.
16:38Bang! Bang! Bang!
16:43As ever with major German engineering projects,
16:46slave labour was involved and this place was no different.
16:49Thousands of prisoners of war were brought here to do the construction work.
16:53They were badly treated, underfed, underclothed, the cold, the snow.
16:59I mean, it must have been absolutely hellish.
17:01And hundreds of them perished as a result.
17:04And you know what? These guns were never once fired in anger.
17:08Just a monumental waste of time, money, resources and lives.
17:17In addition to key seaports,
17:19the occupation of Norway offers Hitler another strategic advantage.
17:24With its northerly border with Russia,
17:26Norway is about to become one of the launchpads
17:29for one of the most audacious campaigns of the Second World War.
17:33The invasion of the Soviet Union.
17:40Berlin, the 21st of April, 1941.
17:45General Eduard Dietl,
17:47commander of the mountain troop divisions in Norway,
17:50is summoned to discuss the forthcoming invasion of the Soviet Union.
17:54After his troops advance east,
17:56Hitler wants Dietl to prevent a Russian counterattack in the far north.
18:00Unlike other generals, Dietl has earned a reputation
18:03for daring to speak candidly to the Führer.
18:10If the Russians manage to launch an offensive strike in the area,
18:14this mineral-rich region will be defenceless.
18:18You must take the port of Murmansk and put an end to this threat.
18:24Mein Führer,
18:26my men have never fought a battle in the Arctic tundra.
18:30Victory will be far from certain.
18:33It won't be an easy task.
18:35The difficult terrain, harsh weather,
18:38the tough resistance of the Russians.
18:41But Dietl, your mountain troops are the best in Germany.
18:45Of course, my Führer. We will do our utmost.
18:48Excellent.
18:50Mein Führer.
18:55On the 22nd of June, 1941,
18:59the Nazis attack the Soviet Union.
19:02More than 3 million Axis troops invade along a 1,800-mile front.
19:08Dietl leads an assault on the Russian port of Murmansk
19:12and its crucial railroad south,
19:15delivering supplies to the rest of the Soviet Union.
19:18Hitler orders tens of thousands more men to travel north
19:22to protect his Norwegian fortress and bolster Dietl's forces.
19:29Amongst them is mountain trooper Gerd Klover.
19:33After weeks of train and ferry rides through Sweden and Finland,
19:37Klover still hasn't reached his division's final destination.
19:41It seems to me as if we've been travelling forever.
19:49Klover isn't allowed to reveal his final destination
19:53in correspondence with his wife, Mads.
19:56But he evades the censors by faintly underlining the key letters
20:00of where his division is headed.
20:03Mads deduces Gerd is bound for the northerly Norwegian town of Kirkenes.
20:09Just ten miles from the Soviet border on the Barents Sea,
20:13Kirkenes is one of the most inhospitable and remote parts of the front line.
20:19Because of the Gulf Stream, it's ice-free all year round
20:23and allows the German army to be constantly resupplied
20:27and forms a base from which they can attack Murmansk.
20:32Further west, Hitler's massive fortification programme
20:35on the Norwegian coast continues.
20:38Defending Norway wasn't just about pumping it full of troops,
20:42it was also about building fortifications.
20:45And this Atlantic wall that goes all the way from the Arctic Circle
20:49all the way down through the Low Countries, France to Spain,
20:53is absolutely devastating.
20:57In 1941, Hitler authorises the construction of huge U-boat pens
21:01on the coast to protect over 240 submarines operating from Norway.
21:07Mike Pavelek is exploring a U-boat base in Trondheim,
21:11a city Hitler plans to transform into a massive military base.
21:16The U-boat base is the largest U-boat base in Europe.
21:21Mike Pavelek is exploring a U-boat base in Trondheim,
21:24a city Hitler plans to transform into a massive military stronghold
21:28populated by hundreds of thousands of Germans.
21:34This is enormous, enormous structure.
21:37Look at how big it is and how long it is.
21:40During the war, Trondheim was a tiny city, mostly wood construction,
21:45and all of a sudden the Nazis come in and they start building these massive structures.
21:49Holy cow, this is an internal wall that's at least six feet thick,
21:55built in sections, very rough,
21:58but the external walls are twice that at least.
22:01Just enormous.
22:04Here's what I've been looking for.
22:06This is amazing.
22:09This is the U-boat pen to house and repair submarines.
22:15The submarine would have been sailed in, closed the lock,
22:18emptied the water, and they could work on it as a dry dock right in this space.
22:25The conversion of Trondheim into the Nazis' biggest naval base in northern Europe
22:29becomes one of Hitler's favourite architectural projects.
22:34Codenamed Dora, the first submarine bunker Dora I
22:38houses U-boats from the Kriegsmarine's 13th flotilla.
22:45Dora II is built alongside,
22:47consisting of another four dry and wet dock submarine pens.
22:54The Norwegians told the Germans that it was absolutely insane to build here
22:58because of the silt and the shifting sand underneath the ground here.
23:02So what the Germans ended up doing is they sank huge steel piles into the silt
23:07to try to maintain stability,
23:09and then they built the sub-pen in sections
23:13so that it can move ever so slightly with the shifting sands underneath here.
23:18But you can see where there are these gaps in the concrete, in these big sections.
23:24There is speculation that years from now this could all slide right into the ocean.
23:30Russia 1941-1942
23:41Russia, 1941-1942.
23:45One of the harshest winters on record.
23:48All along the Soviet front line, German soldiers are freezing to death.
23:54But conditions in the far north of Norway are even worse.
23:59Casualties are mounting,
24:01and General Dietl is burying his own soldiers with alarming regularity.
24:06Hitler turns his attention to another of Norway's assets.
24:11He believes the country's resources have the potential to help create an atomic bomb,
24:16capable of winning the war in an instant.
24:21Spring 1942.
24:25Despite losses on Norway's front line with Russia,
24:28construction of Hitler's Arctic fortress continues.
24:32With key naval ports fortified,
24:34attention turns from dominating the seas to controlling the skies.
24:40When the Germans invade in 1940, there's just six airfields in all of Norway.
24:45Well, the Germans increase that by a staggering further 50.
24:49The reason they do this is because they can attack across the North Sea
24:54into the northern North Atlantic,
24:56and also attack potentially Allied convoys to Russia.
25:01But it's not just airbases and giant fortifications the Nazis build in Norway.
25:07German forces stationed here need to be battle-ready for the expected Allied invasion,
25:12so large military training facilities are also constructed.
25:17James Holland is exploring a tank firing range built in secret,
25:21away from the civilian population.
25:27I'm in a forest near the main airfield outside Oslo,
25:31and there's something up ahead which has that unmistakable look of Nazi concrete about it.
25:40The seven concrete walls of the firing range muffle the sound of gunfire
25:45and provide blast protection.
25:48Tank operators fire through the walls at a target at the far end.
25:55You can see where they've hit all around this opening here,
25:59obviously a bit off target.
26:03The huge effort that goes into these structures,
26:07and you sort of think, haven't you got better things to build
26:10and more important things to spend your money on and time on
26:14than huge, vast, concrete, panzer-firing ranges?
26:21Presumably, that's the target against that bank of sand there.
26:27I have to say, I've never seen anything like this anywhere in the world.
26:33The sound of gunfire and its hidden location
26:36make Trandonskogen Forest useful to the Nazis for another, more sinister purpose.
26:42A grave.
26:44There's another one over here.
26:46They're all over the place.
26:48Grave number 14, another one over there.
26:51These are marking mass graves.
26:55In total, 173 Norwegians, 15 Russians and six Britons
27:00are executed in secret here throughout the war.
27:05And, you know, looking at those dominoes of a tank-firing structure,
27:10it still starts to make sense,
27:12because, of course, the sound of the guns
27:15would drown out any sound of a machine gun or a submachine gun
27:19as the executions were being carried out.
27:24One mass grave here contains the bodies of British paratroopers
27:28captured during a daring glider raid
27:30on the Vermoork hydroelectricity plant near Oslo.
27:34Norwegian resistance spies discover
27:36the Nazis have dramatically increased the plant's production of heavy water,
27:40crucial in the race to develop an atomic bomb.
27:46The British paratroopers' plan is to blow up the plant
27:49and destroy its capabilities.
27:52But bad weather means the glider raid goes horribly wrong.
27:57The gliders crashed full of British paratroopers
28:01and those that weren't killed were pretty swiftly captured,
28:04interrogated by the Gestapo and then executed.
28:08And this is their grave.
28:10Lest we forget.
28:12Yeah, we shouldn't.
28:17April 1942.
28:20Neither the harsh weather nor the fighting let up on the northernmost front
28:25in the bitter struggle between the Soviet Union and Germany.
28:29After ten months and little territory gained,
28:32Dietl's men give an all-out push for a breakthrough
28:35in an attempt to seize the Murmansk railway.
28:39Because it's through the port of Murmansk
28:41that the Allies are able to resupply the Soviets.
28:45Between June 1941 and October 1942,
28:48over 1,200 aircraft, 2,700 tanks
28:52and 60 million pounds of explosives
28:55reach the Russians through Murmansk.
28:59Hitler visits the Arctic front to meet Dietl and rally the troops.
29:07Amongst Dietl's men is mountain trooper Gerd Klover.
29:12Dear Mats,
29:14today we marched for 32 miles in freezing conditions.
29:19There are many foot-sore troops.
29:22We are all exhausted.
29:25The only comfort Klover has is his letters home to his wife, Mats.
29:31Writing this is very difficult.
29:34A small fire is the only thing that keeps us warm.
29:39Since yesterday, we're in the fourth year of war.
29:43Who would have thought this three years ago?
29:47Hopefully, the end of the war will come soon
29:50and we can be together again.
29:55But on the Norwegian front,
29:57the Russians assemble a huge new troop contingent
30:01and are marching towards the Nazis
30:03with the intention of encircling Klover's mountain division.
30:09Spring, 1943.
30:11After almost two years of trying,
30:14Nazi Germany has been unable to capture Murmansk from the Soviets
30:18and now faces the might of a reinforced Red Army.
30:23Despite the vast defences built on the Atlantic coast,
30:26very little has been erected on the front line with Russia.
30:30General Dietl orders his men to improvise
30:33with whatever resources are to hand.
30:37Come on, guys. Come on. Keep going.
30:40Start digging. Yes, that's it.
30:43Close the gap there.
30:46If anyone can defeat the Soviets in the Arctic tundra, it's Dietl.
30:51The man known in Germany as the hero of the snow.
30:56We need to strengthen our defences.
31:00And remember, the 3rd Mountain Division does not falter in the face of adversity.
31:05Use anything you can find.
31:11Across Norway, 400,000 German troops from all three armed services
31:16are now manning huge defences,
31:18built in case of an Allied attack.
31:22Hitler's frozen fortress now encompasses some 350 installations,
31:27including gun emplacements, torpedo batteries, airfields and U-boat bases.
31:34The diversion of resources at this crucial moment in the war
31:38where Germany is, frankly, fighting for survival, is just extraordinary.
31:43And you've got to remember, at this time they're fighting in the Soviet Union,
31:46in the Eastern Front, they're fighting in the Mediterranean,
31:49they're being pulled every which way.
31:51And the waste of resources, manpower, money, is just unbelievable.
32:03The focus for building new coastal fortifications
32:06now moves from the Atlantic to the northern seas.
32:11Gun batteries here can protect German shipping coming in and out of Kirkenes,
32:16but also attack Allied convoys delivering food and ammunition to the Soviets via Murmansk.
32:27At the end of this channel is Kirkenes, which is vital to the German war effort.
32:33Over there I can see Russia, and that's where the ice-free port of Murmansk is.
32:39As the war develops, the Allies supply the Soviet war effort with their convoys.
32:46This is the Eastern Front inside the Arctic Circle.
32:54Tony Pollard is exploring the remains of Fort Khyber,
32:57once the biggest Nazi megastructure in the entire northern region of Norway.
33:04Scattered all over this plateau,
33:07I can see piles of rock, rectangular arrangements that would have been buildings.
33:13It's a blasted remnant of what must have been, for the German soldiers here,
33:20a really very difficult environment to live in.
33:23There aren't many obvious upstanding features up here.
33:28This is the exception.
33:30Lying around in the interior,
33:33there are pieces of what look like intersecting iron tubing,
33:39and another clue, this concrete mount.
33:42It tells me that inside this structure there was a Freya radar array,
33:47fittingly named after a Norwegian goddess.
33:51Very effective German early warning system,
33:54and this wall is to provide bomb protection,
33:58but up here, I'm also presuming it would provide protection against the wind.
34:03The enormous complex of Fort Khyberg is manned by 700 troops.
34:08As well as command HQ and Freya radar,
34:11the site contains three 11-inch naval guns, designed to pummel Allied shipping.
34:17Ammunition bunkers, and for protection,
34:20nine anti-aircraft guns, ten machine gun positions,
34:25and three armour-piercing cannons.
34:31This basin, set into the top of the command post,
34:35accommodated a sophisticated range-finding array,
34:39and its job was to pinpoint the ships,
34:43their distance, their angle, their speed,
34:46and relay that information to the big guns down below,
34:49which could then sight on the ships.
34:53The irony is that most of these guns and installations
34:56that have been built at such vast expense and effort and diversion of resources
35:01are barely ever used.
35:03All the Allies do is just steer those convoys a bit further north.
35:12After a crushing defeat at the Battle of Stalingrad,
35:15the spring of 1943 sees the German army retreating across Russia.
35:21Fire at will!
35:23But on the Soviet-Norwegian border, it's still stalemate,
35:27and Gerd Klover finds himself in the thick of the action.
35:3280 metres!
35:3380 metres!
35:34None!
35:35Load!
35:36Fire at will!
35:40We have shot around a thousand grenades at the Bolsheviks.
35:44They have suffered immense losses.
35:47Around 600 Russians died in front of my position.
35:51But they just keep coming.
35:56Near Oslo, the Vemork hydroelectricity plant is still key
36:00to the Nazis' nuclear weapons programme.
36:03A few months after the failed British glider raid,
36:06Norwegian resistance commandos manage to detonate the plant's heavy water supply.
36:12Hitler orders the entire facility to be transported by ferry to Germany
36:16to protect it from further enemy raids.
36:19But once again, the resistance discovers his plans.
36:23Norwegian commandos plant explosives aboard the ferry
36:27and detonate the entire shipment.
36:30And Hitler's dreams of an atomic bomb capable of ending the war
36:34sink with it.
36:36By 1944, Hitler knows that the Allies are going to invade
36:40somewhere on the European continent.
36:43The most obvious route is northern France,
36:46but the Allies play an important deception game
36:49where they suggest that they might be invading Norway as well.
36:52Hitler is insisting that Norway be kept on high alert,
36:56and of course this completely plays into the Allies' hands
36:59because he can't be everywhere at all times.
37:046th June, 1944.
37:07The Atlantic wall is breached, but not in Norway as expected.
37:11The Allied D-Day landings have begun in France.
37:16But Hitler's arctic fortress in Norway stands as one of the remaining
37:20megastructures of the crumbling Reich.
37:25Intelligence reports reveal the Russians are sending thousands of
37:28reinforcements to the far north in order to finally defeat the Nazis.
37:36Hitler summons the commander of the northern Norway troops,
37:39Eduard Dietl, to brief him on the arctic war with the communists.
37:45So, Dietl, tell me, what's your opinion of the situation?
37:50Mein Fuhrer, the arctic war is in crisis.
37:55We need more men and more weapons immediately.
37:59We must face up to reality.
38:02Otherwise all is lost.
38:05Thank you, Dietl. You will get more resources.
38:10Thank you, mein Fuhrer.
38:17If only all situation reports were so frank and honest.
38:21Most generals are too timid to speak so candidly to me.
38:28If only all my generals were like Dietl.
38:32It's the final time Hitler will see one of his last great generals.
38:37Travelling back from his meeting, Dietl is killed in a plane crash.
38:44The Fuhrer gives the main address at his state funeral.
38:49Hitler is devastated.
38:51His best generals are dead and the war seems lost.
38:57The enormous gun batteries built by the Germans along the 1500 mile Norwegian coast
39:03deter any allied attempt at an invasion.
39:08In the far north, close to Kirkenes,
39:11they also protect ships exporting vital mineral resources that feed the Nazi war machine.
39:18The Command Bunker
39:22Tony Pollard is exploring the Command Bunker
39:25at the Fort Kyberg gun battery in the north of Norway.
39:28It's a bit cosy.
39:34Let's see what's through here.
39:39Because this bunker is hidden under snow for much of the year,
39:43it's still rich with historical artifacts.
39:47I see a lot of these bunker interiors where there's nothing left.
39:52No fixtures, no fittings.
39:54But here I can see very clearly that there are three bunks
39:58suspended from the ceiling on chains.
40:02It's a bit cramped, but effective.
40:06And here, all the mod cons.
40:09There's a base for a stove and the outlet, the chimney here.
40:14What these tell us is that this semi-subterranean bunker
40:19is totally self-sufficient.
40:21It's manned 24-7.
40:24And this is the nerve centre.
40:26This is where all of the information was brought together
40:30about the location of enemy ships and particularly those allied convoys.
40:35And look, on the floor, there's debris everywhere.
40:39There's debris everywhere. These are battery cells.
40:42Possibly auxiliary power for radio-related equipment.
40:51Near Kirkenes, in the ongoing battle to seize Murmansk,
40:55German mountain divisions are now outnumbered two to one by Soviet troops.
41:01On his wife's birthday, Gerd Klover is fighting the battle of his life.
41:08The Germans are desperately trying to hold their positions
41:11in the face of a massive Soviet advance.
41:19They are too many. We've got to take cover.
41:23Follow me.
41:25Follow me.
41:28A Russian sniper picks out the outline of Klover attempting to find cover.
41:41Dear Mats Klover, it is my painful duty to inform you
41:46that your beloved husband and unforgettable comrade passed away yesterday.
41:51He was one of our best officers.
41:54His death has affected us all deeply.
42:02Gerd Klover is buried on the Russian front with full military honours.
42:10Eight months later, Soviet troops break through German lines
42:14in northern Norway for the first time.
42:18As the Nazis withdraw, Hitler orders a scorched earth policy.
42:23Operation Northern Lights.
42:25Everything that could be of use to the enemy is destroyed.
42:31On the 25th of October, after over four years of German occupation,
42:35the Russians liberate Kirkenes,
42:38a city razed to the ground by heavy bombing
42:41and the Nazis' destruction of the town.
42:44Some German units hold out in their feudal fortresses further down the coast
42:49until the 8th of May, 1945,
42:51when the army agrees to an unconditional surrender.
42:56Hitler referred to Norway as his zone of destiny,
42:59but the truth of the matter is that he poured huge numbers of troops
43:03and munitions and infrastructure into that country.
43:07And yes, it's true that right up in the very north there was some action,
43:11but for the vast majority of troops occupying Norway,
43:15there was nothing to do.
43:17Ultimately, it was wasted effort.
43:19Gargantuan wasted effort at that.
43:23The expected Allied naval invasion of the Norwegian coast never arrives.
43:29Hitler's failure to protect his eastern flank with Russia and seize Murmansk
43:34ultimately leads to the downfall of his Arctic fortress.
43:42Gerd and Mats Klover were married for three years.
43:46Mats lived to the age of 95.
43:51Using Gerd's letters, his daughter Gerda wrote a book in 2012
43:56about the father she never knew.