The Nazis, in contrast to many military theorists, attached great strategic importance to the territories beyond the 60th parallel of the northern latitude.
The head of the Marine Arctic Complex Expedition, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Deputy Director of the Russian Research Institute of Cultural and Natural Heritage named after D. S. Likhachev Pyotr Boyarsky.
When, in what area and under what circumstances did you receive evidence of the activity of the Nazis in the Soviet Arctic? Apparently, they managed to firmly grow into these places
- We found traces of the presence of fascists in the Arctic in Ice Harbor Bay during the first expeditions in the late 1980s. Our goal was to study the winter quarters of Willem Barents, which he built in 1596-1597 at Cape Sporiy Navolok on Novaya Zemlya Island. By now, an old lighthouse has remained from the entire winter quarters. Having sailed, we saw that it was destroyed, but not at all from time or storms. Looks like he was being fired at. In any case, its upper part was destroyed by the explosion. It is known that it was in these places that a German submarine sank our research vessel Akademik Shokalsky in 1943. So they were shooting, apparently, from her.
Indirect evidence of the appearance of the Nazis during the war is also preserved in a camp, equipped by the Pomors in the 1920s and 1930s on a small island north of Ice Harbor and northeast of Novaya Zemlya. In this big house, the Pomors both lived and were engaged in fishing. The house has destruction similar to the destruction of a lighthouse. It is known that the Germans passed by these places from Cape Desire.
And already on the Cape of Desire there is a lot of evidence of the aggression of the fascists. There remained our bunkers, bunkers and other fortifications built to repel German attacks. There are traces of battles everywhere. And in Malye Karmakuls, where the Russian meteorological polar station was located since the end of the 19th century. It carried two seaplanes received by the Soviet Union from the Americans under Lend-Lease. So, both the station and the village around it were also destroyed by a German submarine on July 27, 1942. We found the wreckage of seaplanes, including their engines, lying on the shore. Some of them were taken out by our expedition - these are all material evidence of military operations in this territory.
Our coast guard fired at German ships approaching Taimyr and Dikson. This is also a historical fact, which testifies that the fascists were interested not only in the Barents Sea, but also in the Kara Sea. Wrecks of German ships or the results of their combat activities are also found in the Matochkin Shar Strait. These are, for example, the remnants of submarines. It is known that fascist submarines hid for a long time in the western bays of this region.
Did you manage to find any large Nazi bases in the North?
Promotional video:
- Yes, we did it. It is known that in different parts of Novaya Zemlya the Germans set up their own weather stations so that their ships, submarines and aircraft received accurate information about the ice situation. On Novaya Zemlya, such stations existed at Cape Pinegin, at Cape Bear. On the island of Mezhdusharskiy, there was also the Krot station, and a runway for airplanes was cleared near it. One of these German weather stations was built on Franz Josef Land, the northernmost archipelago of Eurasia. Now our frontier post is located on Alexandra Land.
In 1943, the Germans carried out Operation Wunderland there, for which they built a weather station "Treasure Explorer". It consisted of several dugouts and firing points that we found during the 2005-2007 expeditions. It was a very large base. The equipment and equipment that were dropped in this area in containers by parachutes was not designed for a couple of dozen people who settled in the base at the beginning. Obviously, over time, new residents were supposed to arrive on it and the expansion of the base would begin. In the 1960s-1970s, our border guards removed a lot of good ammunition from the Treasure Hunt and used German boots for a long time.
In 1985, I had the opportunity to meet the famous polar navigator Valentin Akkuratov, who was the first to discover this German base.
Flying over the island of Alexandra Land, among the snows and glaciers, he noticed an unnatural white rectangle - it turned out to be the roof of the dugout. Those who soon entered the station got the feeling that the Germans had just left. Helmets, machine guns were hung everywhere, on the table were cans, spoons, bowls, German propaganda literature. Obviously, the Nazis left the dugout in a great hurry.
The reason for the hasty flight of the Germans from the "Treasure Hunter" soon became clear.
The inhabitants of the base, like many participants in the Arctic expeditions before and after them, decided to try an exotic dish - a polar bear. As a result, they developed stomach upset, weakness and other troubles. Uncooked bear meat leads to acute illnesses. The Nazis were evacuated from the base in such a hurry that they left everything as it is. The remains of a house and a dugout have been preserved. Among the stones are metal containers that look like air bombs. In them, the Nazis dropped part of the cargo delivered to the "Treasure Hunt" by air. In addition, we saw scraps of old camouflage nets, sheets from books with Hitler's speeches about the importance of the Aryan race. Surely there were also tents here, but they were blown away by hurricane winds.
The location for the base was chosen very well. There is a deep bay, and a strip of rubble tundra of many kilometers adjoins it - the largest piece of land in the entire archipelago free of glacial shells. And a little to the side there is a lake with fresh water. From the side of the bay, the base was covered by a machine-gun pillbox - its ruins are quite clearly visible. Minefields were set up to protect the facility from land. Closer to the water, we found a pipe going into the bowels of the island. Perhaps this is part of the ventilation system for some kind of secret structure. Apparently, there are underground grottoes where submarines could be based. It is known about the existence of similar huge caves on other Arctic islands, connected with the sea by underwater corridors. Such natural bunkers are very convenient for setting up secret vaults in them. We have yet to investigate them.
What did the Nazis need in the harsh Arctic ice?
- Under Lend-Lease, our country was supplied with weapons that were delivered by ships from the West through the Barents Sea. There were supplies from the East. So, my father was one of the curators of the base, which received the planes. To cut off these supplies, the Germans needed bases in these places. Accurate weather data were also needed, and therefore weather stations that would give reports. In addition, the Nazis attacked our polar stations, receiving diaries and weather reports, and the Red Army, in turn, was deprived of these data. Thanks to this accurate data, the Nazis sank many ships, including passengers with families of polar explorers.
This was an area from which rear-line strikes could be delivered against the central part of Russia. Some of our factories were transferred beyond the Urals, and it would be very convenient for the Nazis to bomb them from airfields in the Arctic. That is why they intended to build airfields on Novaya Zemlya.
In addition, the exploration of the Arctic was associated with the German mythology of the hollowness of the Earth. For the same purpose, expeditions were sent to Tibet and Antarctica. The Nazis were looking for cosmic energy that would allow them to take over the world. For their ideology, the North was sacred.
The military reasons for the development of the North are clear, but German scientists began to explore the Arctic long before the war. Why?
- The idea of a march to the northeast in the German General Staff appeared in the 1920s. Preparation for its implementation was a joint Soviet-German expedition on the best German airship "Graf Zeppelin". Photo and filming of the North was carried out from its side. She was needed not only for scientific, but also for intelligence purposes. Filming of Franz Josef Land, Novaya Zemlya, Severnaya Zemlya was of strategic importance. The Germans, however, said later that it had failed, so the photographs of these territories were not transferred to the Soviet Union. But after the war, the photographs were found in the archives of the Reich. The pictures gave a picture, for example, of the ice situation in the Kara Sea.
How did the boats navigate through the ice?
- The thickness of the ice is two to five meters, and below it is the depth, so nothing prevents the submarines from sailing. But in order to surface in the right places near the coast, these images were needed. In addition to them, information was provided by a German intelligence officer working in the area of Cape Zhelaniya. The Nazis knew where ice holes formed in the summer. In addition, reconnaissance aircraft reported on the ice situation. German airfields were located up to Dixon Island. So the Nazi submarines sailed in the Barents and Kara seas completely free.
Did the Soviet authorities really not know what was happening in our deep rear?
- Of course they did. On Franz Josef Land in Tikhaya Bay, there was our Soviet base, from which we somehow saw a German reconnaissance aircraft and realized that the Nazis were working somewhere nearby. But all the forces were thrown to the front, no one was particularly interested in the life of the polar explorers. The only thing, by the end of the war, ours recaptured from the Germans a base for aircraft on Belushya Bay. Our patrol boats also appeared there. And on Dikson there is a Soviet battery. So by the end of the war, the Germans realized that they had nothing else to do in this region.
What happened to the German bases in the Arctic after the war?
- I can tell in what form they are now. For example, on Mezhdusharsky Island, at the entrance to Belushya Guba, on the capes of Konstantin and Pinegin, there were airfields and radio stations. The runways have survived to this day, barrels of fuel are lying here and there, but, in fact, there is not very much material evidence left. Therefore, I believe that weather stations and other objects should be preserved as historical monuments. But there is a certain danger here: many objects are still mined.