Fjell Festning: A Brief Overview 1

Above:  A trench connecting to regelbau and field positions.  Picture taken five years ago, but a great shot revealing the hidden nature of the facility.

Fjell Fortress (or Fjell Festning if you are Norwegian) exists on the fringes of the busy town Bergen in southwestern Norway.  This fort is actually a massive gun turret, and series of tunnels and rooms built beneath a mountain.  With a great number of surrounding bunkers and smaller gun positions to protect the perimeter, main gun, and tunnel entrances.  This was the largest fortress built in Norway by the Germans, and the third largest fortress built by the Third Reich in general.  Fjell Festning was still in use by NATO until 2003.

 Above:  A map showing the location of Fjell Fortress in relation to Bergen and associated communities Straume, and Fjell.

The day we arrived it was a bit cold,  foggy, and consistently showering us with a light drizzle of rain. The terrain is hilly and often steep.  The surrounding countryside is very lush, with many ferns and pine trees.  Some of the bunkers are currently overgrown with ferns and fauna of various sorts, and locked steel doors prevent access into many of the bunkers and smaller tunnels.  All, or nearly all of these positions are masterfully camouflaged.  Often it is only from one direction that these regelbau bunkers can be looked at and recognized for what they are.  When standing on top of these bunkers, an attached ringstand or ventilation pipe is often the only clue as the to nature of the inconspicuous "mound".  Additionally, since many of these bunkers are built into the side of a hill, there is no "mound" worth mentioning, only an extension of the natural slope of the hill itself.  From the air the 283 mm triple gun turret could easily be seen, but the rest of the compound must have been almost invisible.

The entire fortress as a whole actually covers much more ground than what the display above shows.  An abundance of other bunkers, Flak positions, artillery positions, road blocks, military buildings, and trenches exist in the surrounding areas, all built to compliment the subterranean complex and naval gun at the top of the mountain.  Standing in the area that the above map displays, gives one little to no clue, that there are in fact many long tunnels and big rooms deep beneath your feet. This primitive map simply illustrates the positions in the immediate vicinity of the triple 283 mm turret, which was certainly the centerpiece of the fort.

Above:  Ringstand on top of the same 629.

Above:  Type 629 regelbau with trench.      

The bunker in the two pictures above is the southern most of those located next to the main gun turret, and acted as part of a perimeter defense network.  Its location can be identified by the blue circle indicated in the map above.  This Regelbau bunker was a type 629 sonderausfuhrung (special version).  Type 629s were PAK (anti-tank) shelters.  This one probably held a smaller caliber weapon such as the 3.7 cm PAK 36.  This gun would be kept in the shelter when not in use, or when under artillery attack.  It would then be wheeled out of the bunker into a firing position when the time came to fight.  Notice the dark subterranean entrance.  This is actually an entrance/exit to a system of communication trenches.  A short flight of steps can be seen on the right, disappearing into the bunker wall.  This leads to a ringstand which sits camouflaged atop the bunker, and offers a 360 degree field of fire.  It does not connect to the rest of the bunker internally.   

Above:  3.7 cm Panzer Abwehr Kanone (anti-tank cannon).  The 629 gun shelter in question probably contained one of these.

 Above:  The garage for a smaller caliber PAK in the same regelbau 629.

Just out of sight, and immediately to the right in the picture displaying the trench and ringstand entrance, is the gun garage.  Notice the hollow floor center.  This space would be used to store munitions for the gun assigned to this shelter, and would be covered by easily removable wooden planks most of the time.  I could not find a proper door here, or the remains of one for that matter.  As the site was never completely finished, it is possible that an armored door was never installed.  Note the brickwork in the right of the picture.  This leads me to believe that after the war the Norwegians may have bricked the garage up to keep people out of the bunker.  A number of other similar bunkers had this brickwork present as well.

Above:  The trench entrance/exit is more of a tunnel...

 

 Above:  ..and then opens up to sky and light.

 

The entrance to the trench system here runs underground for a short distance before reaching the surface and open sky.  This then twists and turns for a long distance, connecting with many other bunkers and field fortifications.  From the top these are very hard to see.  The trench system will be covered more in later posts.

Above:  The same 629 shelter, looking back from the trench entrance.  Notice the garage on the left.

More to come soon!  Fjell Festning:  A Brief Overview 2