South of Oslo, are some of Norwegians most important historic heritages located. In Oslo fjord is Oscarsborg Fortress which has guarded the waterway to the Norwegian capital for 350 years. Shots from the 28 cm Krupp cannons and torpedoes from the secret underground facility, sank the German cruiser “Blücher” on April 9th 1940 and made sure it didn’t reach Oslo with around 1308 German soldiers. 1000 of them died when the cruiser sank in Drøbaksundet. The Norwegian Government, the Storting, the Royal family and some gold reserves had time to leave the country and it was important for the outcome of war. In 2004 Oscarsborg fortress was opened to the public and is now a museum. Some pictures I have taken from Oscarborg Fortress are here (Flickr).

On each land side of Oscarborg Fortress there are fortifications. The pictures below are from one of the cannon batteries which also took part in the attack on “Blücher”. This battery had three 15 cm Armstrong guns, and a shot from here destroyed the rudder of Blücher. The original guns were removed by the Germans and were subsequently replaced by four 10.5 cm SKC/32 submarine guns, which two still remain.

The interior pictures are taken from inside the terraced German command bunker built between 1940 and 1945. The place is unfortunately is in very bad shape. No one has cleared the place since the bunker was abandoned in 1974. It was used by the Norwegian Home Guard (Heimevernet) until then. Papers, manuals, maps and lots of other equipment is spread around the three floors.

Now the bunker lies in complete darkness and made it challenging to take pictures. Before we went out into the daylight again we noticed that the air inside the bunker was not of best quality. On the way up the stairs, we met some of those who had taken the bunker in use, a few frogs and a snake (Stålorm).

View to Oscarborg Fortress

Gun at Kopås battery

The terraced bunker

The entrance and stair down

Lots of chairs

Handbooks of war/defense strategies

Hand grenade handbook

Old rusty Remington typewriter

There are still papers in the archive cabinets

Handles, first one: “Charge, Fire battery 1”

Stair between floors

Some sort of un identified obejct

Reinforced cabinet

A quite messy room

Lots of books on the top floor

Time to leave

One of the frogs and the snake (Stålorm)