Austrått Fort: A World War II German Coastal-Artillery Installation in Norway
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.6
- Popularity
- Low
- Country
- Norway
- Primary era
- Modern
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Modern
- Civilizations
- German
- Site type
- Military
- Remains
- Fort
On this page9 sections
History
Austrått Fort is a disused coastal-artillery installation in Norway, built by the German Wehrmacht in 1942 during the German occupation of Norway in World War II. The Wehrmacht was Nazi Germany’s unified armed force, while coastal artillery used heavy land-based guns to defend maritime approaches and strategic waterways. The fort was constructed at Austrått to protect the entrance to the Trondheimsfjord and became one of the most complete surviving examples of a World War II German coastal battery.
Construction during the occupation
German engineers directed the work at Austrått. About 650 Yugoslav forced laborers, most of them Serbs and including Partisans and Chetniks, worked under extremely poor conditions to excavate tunnels and build bunkers around the hill. Explosives were used with forced labor to cut into the bedrock for the turret’s shaft and concrete foundation.
The fort’s main armament came from the German battleship Gneisenau, which had been damaged by a magnetic mine and later by a British air raid in Kiel in 1942. One of the ship’s three triple-gun turrets was transferred to Austrått. A second went to Fjell on Sotra near Bergen, while the third was dismantled and its guns were installed at Fort Rozenburg in the Netherlands.
Wartime and Norwegian military use
The underground support system was completed rapidly. The guns were test-fired in August 1943, but the fort did not take part in an actual engagement during the rest of World War II. Its last firing took place in 1953. Norway decommissioned it as a defensive installation in 1968, although the authorities continued maintenance until 1977, helping to preserve its physical fabric.
Restoration and museum use
Austrått Fort was restored in 1990, after which responsibility for the gun turret passed to Ørland Municipality. The fort opened as a museum in 1991. Its turret is the last surviving example of its type in the world, and the installation remains an unusually complete survival of a German coastal battery from World War II.
Remains
Austrått Fort is organized around a huge rotating naval-gun turret set above a deep underground complex cut into the bedrock. Concrete foundations, tunnels, bunkers, ammunition spaces, mechanical rooms, barracks, and infantry defenses form a connected military installation. The underground barracks, turret shaft, and ammunition rooms are open to the public, while the site’s continued maintenance during its Norwegian military service has left the remains in good condition.
Naval turret and underground complex
Triple-gun turret
The centrepiece is a triple 28 cm SK C/34 naval-gun turret, a model of gun used by the Gneisenau. The turret weighs more than 800 tonnes and contains three barrels, each weighing more than 50 tonnes. It could fire shells weighing 730 pounds to a range of 38 kilometres. The turret rotates on steel balls measuring 15 centimetres in diameter, while an ammunition hoist descends 15 metres into a shaft below it.
Underground facilities
The turret shaft and its concrete foundation occupy a cavity cut into the bedrock. Beneath and around the gun position, the fort retains a large system of tunnels and bunkers. These spaces included barracks for the garrison, a communal dining room, sanitary rooms, an ammunition store, and engine rooms with drive motors for aiming the guns. The surviving underground rooms preserve the practical infrastructure needed to operate the heavy turret.
Infantry and anti-tank defenses
Infantry defenses survive in the form of trenches. The fort also retains a recently renovated, operational 4.7 cm Czech-made Škoda stationary anti-tank gun. It covers an anti-tank wall running through the woods, a defensive obstacle intended to impede armored vehicles and channel them into the gun’s firing area. Together, the trenches, wall, and gun formed part of the defenses protecting the entrance to the complex.
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