Category Archives: World WarII

Mamerki – and as Gareth knows I love a good conspiracy…

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But today I had four. In a bunker, hidden deep in the woods of NE Poland, the site of some secret WW2 activities that, wait for it, included;

  1. The supposed site of the plundered amber room, worth half a billion at today’s prices. All we know is that after the war, the Amber Room was never seen in public again, this compounded by the destruction in 1968 of Königsberg Castle suggests it “has to be out there”.
  2. Die Glocke, which means “The Bell” and according to some researchers, was supposed to be a prototype of a machine for controlling magnetic field and gravitation, enabling the Nazis to journey in time.
  3. The UFO project, where the Germans flew a saucer shaped craft (Haunebu III) to carry 40 troops and fly and Mach 10 in silence. Not surprisingly it was a secret weapon of the Third Reich (Wunderwaffe).
  4. And lastly, a secret subterranean complex for the construction of U Boats that then allowed onward transport via a series of interconnected locks via the Mazurian Canal leading to the Baltic sea and overcoming the 110 meter drop.

All I know is these bunkers are pretty amazing, massive structures that are slowly being reclaimed by nature and won’t be moved in a hurry, and remember as Michael Barkun says, conspiracy theories rely on the view that the universe is governed by design, and embody three principles; nothing happens by accident, nothing is as it seems, and everything is connected.

Mamerki Bunkers

Kåfjord Memories

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Somewhere in Norway, I pulled over into the side of a minor dirt road, skirting past the fjords on the lead up to . The sun was shining and rain had long since passed, there was not a sign of a single other vehicle for miles around and I drifted into lay by next to the Tirpitz Museum – thinking it was closed I tried the door only to startle a young man who’s summer job was welcoming the occasional lost traveller – I remember the day like it was yesterday, a strange array of twisted metal and shell casings, plus well restored photographs of the attacks by the RAF and midget submarines from the Royal Navy, plus a well restored snow camouflaged 80 year old BMW bike…Best bike ever!

La Coupole

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Hewn from the soft chalk, I wandered on my own through rough cut tunnels and chambers carved through the rock by labourers overseen by the German Army, the sound of running water never far away and despite the outside heat in the open air there was a cold chill and damp which quickly penetrated down through my jacket into my bones. An eerie place, yet I could not help but be in awe of the massive civil engineering efforts that were delivered at a cost of 1000’s of lives to create La Couple. The huge bunker was built by the Todt Organisation between 1942 and 1944 and was the base for launching the V2 rockets against London. The complex was bombed mercilessly by the Allies and the scars of the high explosive detonations can be seen in collapsed chambers and offset concrete caps and arches. La Coupole was abandoned during the summer of 1944, after the Normandy landings and is now slowly being reabsorbed back into the tranquil french countryside.

La Coupole

We will not be moved

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I found these iconic statues of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels whilst looking for shade (and an ice cream) in the Marx-Engels-Forum which is a great open park in Berlin, a place for relaxation, surrounded by fountains and picnicking families. Whilst much of Berlin has been rebuilt, the site of these two great memorials is on the land in past occupied by the Old Town quarter which was heavily bombed during allied air attacks when most of its buildings reduced to ruins. For some reason after the war, the ruins were cleared but nothing replaced them and the open space remains. Despite the peaceful facade, the Marx-Engels Forum has been the subject of public controversy, with some saying it is an unwanted reminder of austere past times stepping past the political arguments, I welcomed the shade and respite and pondered on George Santayana’s wise words “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” as I ate my decadent western ice cream.We Will Not Be Moved

The Lapland War

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Riding south from Ravaniemi on the E75, I spotted a small side turning leading east marked Tervola and slipped quickly of the rough north south route, into the unknown. The brilliant sunshine glimmered of the the new bridge over the Kemi, as I stopped in the shade of the Kirk. Finland’s wartime past is not widely publicised but knowing the Russian pacts and advance from the east and the Finnish resistance and the earlier Lapland War, the number of German and Finnish war graves with similar dates reinforces the strategic importance of this river crossing in 1944.

The Bridge at Tervoia The battle for Tervoia

The Tirpitz, Alta and the demise of Easy Elsie

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Tirpitz was the largest battleship in the German Kriegsmarine and a sister to the Bismarck, built in 1939 and named after the deputy admiral Alfred von Tirpitz Freiherr. In March 1943 Turpitz was berthed in Kåfjord in Alta with the role of threatening Allied convoy traffic in the Barents Sea. The Germans built a massive navel base in Altafjord, as in addition to Tirpitz the battleship Scharnhorst and cruiser Lützow were stationed in Alta – a total of 20,000 German troops lived the in areas I have been exploring on the bike over the last two days. It has been fascinating to see the object of attraction for Easy Elsie, stumble across historic artefacts and sobering to remember the tragic loss of life on both sides in this conflict.Tirpitz Memorial