We consider the secret German base at the mouth of the Lena River the most remote of all bases known to us, created by the Nazis in the Soviet sector of the Arctic. In principle, the survey and study of this base would have to (or could) have begun back in 1963, when the sea began to carry barrels of diesel fuel marked with the Wehrmacht symbols on the shores of the Neelov Bay. Local residents gladly accepted these "seafood", but how and where they came from, were not interested. Therefore, the secret "Lena" base was first discovered and inspected by the BAM helicopter pilots only in the mid-70s.
According to their recollections, the structures of the base were built along an unnamed channel on a flat island, sheltered from the winds by a high rock. Most likely, it could be Stolb Island, located in the southern part of the river delta. Such a naked assumption is based on the fact that many islands in the Lena Delta are simply not suitable for creating a base. They consist of sand, silt mixed with layers of eternal ice, and therefore are subject to noticeable destruction under the influence of surf, currents and freezing temperatures.
Eyewitnesses said that they found a 200-meter concrete pier on the left bank of the Bykovskaya channel. At the berth, every 10 meters, powerful mooring bollards were embedded in the concrete. A large crevice adjoined the pier, almost completely covered from above by multi-meter rocks. Probably a large cave is located in this crevice under the rocks. What this cave keeps in its depths is unknown, since part of the collapsed stone visor completely closed the entrance to it. It seems quite obvious that the collapse of the stone visor occurred after the strongest explosion,
Near the berth there was a platform where several hundred 300-liter barrels of diesel fuel and kerosene were stored, which could be brought to the berth along a specially laid narrow-gauge railway. The exit to the Laptev Sea from the pier could be carried out immediately through two river channels: Bykovskaya and Ispolatova. (Why not a little Keel?)
For the first time, they started talking a lot and openly about the Lena base only a few years after its opening by the helicopter pilots of the BAM. The editorial offices of the newspapers Sovetskaya Rossiya and Komsomolskaya Pravda were even going to organize special expeditions to this base. But none of them took place, and open information about the unusual find, with the exception of a few short reports in the newspapers, suddenly disappeared. First, apparently, just in case, behind a veil of censorship, and then in the chaos of perestroika.
Analyzing the facts from the standpoint of our present knowledge, it can be assumed that the base was originally intended for refueling those four Nazi raiders, which were planned to be carried out along the Northern Sea Route after the "Komet" to the Pacific Ocean. And then - to provide fuel for German transports, which since the beginning of World War II were idle at the berths of some Pacific countries. Or maybe not only fuel? After all, we do not yet know anything about what exactly is stored in the littered cave!
And the contents of this cave may turn out to be very interesting, since that base, far from Germany, existed autonomously (and possibly actively exploited) for five long war years. By the way, this is another evidence that during the Great Patriotic War in the Soviet Arctic there was always a certain special formation (possibly a secret flotilla) of German submarines, which had completely different tasks than hunting for Soviet caravans traveling along the Northern Sea Route.
Unfortunately, today the majority of both Russian and foreign historians have great doubts about information about the transport and, moreover, other activities of German submarines in the Arctic seas of the Soviet Union - But this does not mean at all that such information is not stored somewhere in the archives of the Kriegsmarine or other departments of the former Nazi Germany.
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Here are just a few examples that clearly confirm the transport activities of German submarines in the waters of the Soviet Arctic:
1. The German submarine U-362, which, according to official data, made six apparently non-combat trips to the Arctic, since it was never seen in any pack of "gray wolves". In 1944, this boat was sunk near the Biruli Bay (Khariton Laptev Coast). But it was somewhere in this area that the Nazis mined some kind of ore, which, after loading it into special containers, was then transported to the port of Liinahamari. (Maybe that kind of cargo is still on board this boat.)
2. On September 18, 1944, three German submarines attempted to cross the Vilkitsky Strait and go to the Soviet port of Nordvik. Why - it was not possible to establish.
3. In early May 1945, the German submarine U-534 was sent to the Laptev Sea with a special mission. Despite the fact that this submarine became part of the Kriegsmarine only in 1943, by the beginning of the Arctic voyage, she underwent unscheduled repairs associated with its modernization, and was prepared for long voyages to the shores of the Arctic or Antarctica.
It was assumed that in the May campaign I-534 would first go to a certain base on the coast of Norway. Then she will cross the Barents and Kara Seas and pass through the Vilkitsky Strait into the Laptev Sea. Here she will refuel at a secret base on the Lena River and proceed to the Severnaya Zemlya archipelago, where she will unload 11 boxes of special cargo on one of the islands. And then he will return to Kiel.
But already at the beginning of the cruise, this boat was sunk in the Kattegat Strait.
The details of the campaign could have been somewhat different, but the "534th" must have entered both secret Arctic bases located deep in the rear of the USSR /
Moreover, after returning from the Arctic for U-S34, it was planned to march to the shores of Argentina, and possibly Antarctica to participate in the special operation "Tierra del Fuego" (according to one version, the delivery of some important cargo or some officials to the secret bases of the South America). Could it be the performers of the aforementioned performance with doubles?
The lost submarine was found by Danish scuba divers back in 1977. After examining it, some of the surviving ship documents told about the route of the campaign and the loading on board of certain boxes of special cargo. But this cargo was not on the submarine!
What was in them and who was to take the special cargo on Severnaya Zemlya remained a mystery. Only in the early 90s was it possible to establish that the next day after the death of the submarine, that is, already in the morning of May 6, 1945 (1), despite the chaos that reigned then in the German headquarters, a special team of Kriegsmarine divers lifted all the cargo and took it out in an unknown direction. Such efficiency and organization, of course, makes one think and assume that the cargo transported on the U-534 was of particular importance for the Third Reich!
In addition, according to the documents found on the boat, it was established that 53 people were on board (along with some passengers) (although these days on submarines of the VII-C40 type, which included U-534, the maximum crew size was not more than 48 people). This was due to the fact that after the death of the Nazi transports "Wilhelm Gustlov" and "General Steuben" in the Baltic Sea, which evacuated cadets and teachers of the Kriegsmarine Diving School, the shortage of personnel was legalized by a special order on German submarines that went out to sea.
It turns out that U-534 was carrying not only special cargo, but also five passengers to the Severnaya Zemlya or at the mouth of the Lena, and could take back up to ten people, for whom there were berths on the submarine due to a decrease in the number of staff. But some passengers did not wait for their savior.
Here it is quite appropriate to recall that in May 1945, somewhere on the shore of the Buor-Khaya Bay (the Laptev Sea), representatives of the Wehrmacht were still present. And this is not a fantastic assumption, but a real fact, which is confirmed by a very mysterious find made in the summer of 1963 near the Soviet port of Tiksi, on the uninhabited shore of Neelov Bay.
On that day, about 25 kilometers from the port, on a scree near the bay, the remains of a deceased person in a gray "non-Soviet" uniform were found. Neither documents nor any papers were found on the deceased, and the polar beast worked on his appearance. However, on the collar of the deceased's jacket there is a black buttonhole with yellow patterned embroidery, and on a piece of cloth that was once the left sleeve of the jacket, there is a piece of black bandage "… tsche Wehrm …". Deciphering the remains of this inscription suggests that it was most likely a private or non-commissioned officer from the German TeNo Corps (Technische Nothilfe).
At the same time, the height of the slope on which the unknown was discovered completely ruled out even the assumption that he could have been brought here by the current from the Vilkitsky Strait. Perhaps it was a repairman from some Nazi unit serving a base in the Lena River Delta, sent to reconnoitre the Soviet airfield near Tiksi, but died on the road.
In addition to the ambiguity with the true purpose of the secret base in the Lena River delta, there is another, one can consider, a global question: how could such a fundamentally built base be created in the distant Soviet rear, and even in the Arctic?
Indeed, for the construction of a 200-meter concrete berth, it took more than a dozen skilled construction workers and more than one thousand tons of cement and metal reinforcement.”And even without the availability of special equipment on site, building such a berth is very, very problematic. Moreover, all construction problems (and they, of course, were) had to be solved not on the territory of the Reich or at least occupied Norway, but 3 thousand kilometers from them, and even in an Arctic climate. But since there is a secret base, then all the specialists, all the necessary equipment and building materials were somehow delivered here!
Of course, it can be assumed that all the necessary cargo, equipment and people were delivered aboard the German raider "Komet", which in August 1940 passed through the Laptev Sea. But this assumption is absolutely unrealistic, because the landing of such a large group of builders and the multi-day unloading of building materials and the technicians for the base could not fail to see our pilots who were on board the cruiser at that time.
In addition, the "Komet" could hardly have these cargoes on board, since the raider covered the entire route along the Northern Sea Route in record time and its crew simply did not have time for a long unloading (and even on the unequipped coast of the Arctic). But then who, how and when delivered and built all this at the mouth of the Lena?
And further! If German construction specialists were nevertheless taken away after the completion of construction, and ordinary laborers, most likely Soviet prisoners of war, were liquidated on the spot, then where did all the construction equipment go? It is unlikely that she was taken away. Apparently, they drowned here, somewhere near the pier. Therefore, it would be very interesting to examine the ground near this pier, which, of course, is much easier and more promising for an introductory expedition than to open up the rocks that blocked the entrance to the cave. So it turns out that today there are some questions about this Nazi base in the Lena River delta, and what a lot! But looking for and finding answers to them is extremely important! At least for reasons of state security of the new Russia.
By the way, it's no coincidence that we talked about security. After all, all these and similar structures, almost like the Egyptian pyramids, were erected for centuries! At the same time, let's remember our, probably almost fantastic, assumption that one of the bases for fascist submarines on Novaya Zemlya is a legacy from the times of imperial Germany. But it is quite possible that it was actively used during the war with the Soviet Union! So why not assume that maybe somewhere someone dreams that the secret bases of the Third Reich, mothballed in the former Soviet, and now the Russian sector of the Arctic, can be actively used in case … however, these are questions not our competence!
Of course, we can say that these days such assumptions are generally unrealistic. But as we will see in the next story, some of the mechanisms launched by the Nazis more than 60 years ago continue to work today with the accuracy of Swiss watches, for example, the mechanisms for flooding adits at the Nazi factory in Liinakhamari.
By the way, I would like to draw your attention to the following very interesting fact.
At present, it is to the delta of the Lena River that one of the German companies has organized a tourist route for residents of Germany and Austria on the motor ships "Mikhail Svetlov" and "Demyan Bedny". In 2003-2006 alone, twelve tourist groups visited it, which included more than one and a half thousand German and Austrian tourists.
In the future, the possibility of organizing somewhere in this area of a tourist camp for fans of extreme recreation is being considered. A completely legitimate question involuntarily arises: "Why exactly here, in the area where there was once a secret Nazi base?"
Maybe someone needs to determine how this base has retained its military purpose, or find something very important in a cave filled up with an explosion or at the bottom of the pier?
Was it not into this secret base (and not at all into the Nordvik Bay, as Soviet military historians believed for a long time) in September 1944, the aforementioned fascist submarines tried to break through?
Meanwhile, the secrets of the Third Reich are still alive! And not only in remote areas of the Soviet Arctic, but also in such a long-lived area of the Soviet Arctic as the Pechenga Bay. True, this secret can hardly be called a secret of the "regional" scale. Most likely, it should be referred to the state level! However, judge for yourself.