Tirpitz Museum is a war museum that is located in the village of Kåfjord in

Alta Municipality Alta (; ; ; ) is the most populated List of municipalities of Norway, municipality in Finnmark Counties of Norway, county, Norway. The administrative centre of the municipality is the Alta (town), town of Alta. Some of the main villages in the ...

Finnmark Finnmark (; ; ; ; ) is a counties of Norway, county in northern Norway. By land, it borders Troms county to the west, Finland's Lapland (Finland), Lapland region to the south, and Russia's Murmansk Oblast to the east, and by water, the Norweg ...

county,

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the archipelago of Svalbard also form part of the Kingdom of ...

.''Tirpitz Museum'' (TracesOfWar)
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History

The museum has one of the largest collections of photos and artifacts from the battleship , a built for the German

Kriegsmarine The (, ) was the navy of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It superseded the Imperial German Navy of the German Empire (1871–1918) and the inter-war (1919–1935) of the Weimar Republic. The was one of three official military branch, branche ...

during

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. The battleship ''Tirpitz'' had served as one of the main threats against supply convoys sailing to

Murmansk Murmansk () is a port city and the administrative center of Murmansk Oblast in the far Far North (Russia), northwest part of Russia. It is the world's largest city north of the Arctic Circle and sits on both slopes and banks of a modest fjord, Ko ...

. During the

occupation of Norway by Nazi Germany The occupation of Norway by Nazi Germany during the Second World War began on 9 April 1940 after Operation Weserübung. Conventional armed resistance to the German invasion ended on 10 June 1940, and Nazi Germany controlled Norway until th ...

, a German naval base was established in the Altafjord to prevent convoys from the

Western Allies Western Allies was a political and geographic grouping among the Allied Powers of the Second World War. It primarily refers to the leading Anglo-American Allied powers, namely the United States and the United Kingdom, although the term has also be ...

from delivering supplies to the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

. These supplies were deemed critical to the outcome of the war on the Eastern Front. The Alta area was one of Germany's largest naval bases during the war. ''Tirpitz'', which was one of the world's largest and most powerful battleships, was anchored for nearly two years in Kåfjord. Altafjord was also a base for many other German warships, among them the battleship and the heavy cruiser , as well as dozens of German destroyers and supply ships. On 12 November 1944, ''Tirpitz'' was hit by bombs and capsized in the bay outside

Tromsø Tromsø is a List of towns and cities in Norway, city in Tromsø Municipality in Troms county, Norway. The city is the administrative centre of the municipality as well as the administrative centre of Troms county. The city is located on the is ...

. The timber building that the Tirpitz Museum is located in dates from approximately 1880. It was originally built in

Lillehammer Lillehammer () is a municipality in Innlandet county, Norway. It is located in the traditional district of Gudbrandsdal. The administrative centre of the municipality is the town of Lillehammer. Some of the more notable villages in the munici ...

. It was taken down and sent to Alta in 1946 as part of the effort to help rebuild the war-ravaged region. Initially the building served as the first nursing home in

. It remained in use until the new nursing home in Kåfjord was built in 1961.

References

Other sources

*Brown, David (1977) ''Tirpitz: the floating fortress'' (Naval Institute Press) *Kennedy, Ludovic Henry Coverley (1979) ''The death of the Tirpitz'' (Little Brown) *Peillard, Leonce (1983) ''Sink the Tirpitz!'' ( Academy Chicago Publishers) *Sweetman, John (2004) ''Tirpitz: Hunting the Beast'' (Gloucestershire: Sutton Publishing Limited) *Zetterling, Niklas; Tamelander, Michael (2009) ''Tirpitz: The Life and Death of Germany's Last Super Battleship'' (Havertown, PA: Casemate) .

External links

The Tirpitz Museum

Universal Studios Newsreel - RAF Sinks Tirpitz, 1944/11/22 (1944)
(

archive.org The Internet Archive is an American non-profit organization founded in 1996 by Brewster Kahle that runs a digital library website, archive.org. It provides free access to collections of digitized media including websites, software applic ...

) {{coord, 69.9315, N, 23.0150, E, source:wikidata, display=title Museums in Finnmark World War II museums in Norway World War II memorials

History

See also

References

Other sources

External links