The torpedo battery
A facility already forty years old when it was used.
Nasjonalbiblioteket — CC BY 2.0 · logopop — CC BY-SA 3.0 · logopop — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Bjarne Henning Kvaal… — CC BY-SA 3.0
Because it changed the shape of the whole occupation. The German plan was to seize the king and government in Oslo on the morning of 9 April and install a compliant administration so quickly that resistance would have no legitimacy. The Blücher's sinking delayed arrival by hours, the king escaped north and later refused to recognise Quisling's government, continuing from London. So Norway kept a legitimate government throughout the war — which other countries occupied in those same days did not.
Sign in to write your review of this place.
No reviews yet — be the first.
Oscarsborg stands on a small island at the narrowest point of the Oslofjord, some forty kilometres south of the capital — and the event that made it famous took only minutes. At dawn on 9 April 1940 the German heavy cruiser Blücher entered the fjord bound for Oslo, carrying the invasion force and the civil administrators appointed to govern Norway. The fortress was old, its garrison small, and its commander Colonel Birger Eriksen had received no clear orders. He fired two ancient Krupp guns and then two torpedoes from a shore battery forty years old. The Blücher sank with those aboard. The invasion of Oslo was delayed by hours — enough for King Haakon VII, the government and parliament to escape north with the national gold. So the Norwegian government never fell and continued resistance from exile. The fortress is a museum today, reached by ferry from Drøbak.
A facility already forty years old when it was used.
A wooden fjord town folded into the trip.
Oscarsborg island, 1443 Drøbak