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134-614: The Blood Road ( Norwegian : Blodveien ) is a route northeast of Rognan in Saltdal Municipality in Nordland county , Norway that was built by prisoners during the Second World War . The route was a new section of Norwegian National Road 50 between Rognan and Langset on the east side of Saltdal Fjord ( Saltdalsfjorden ), where there was a ferry service before the war. The specific incident that gave

268-752: A centralised organisation of the OT was created when Speer became Reichsminister . A new HQ in Berlin, Amt OTZ, was created with Ministerialdirigent Franz Xaver Dorsch as chief of staff. It merged during 1944 with Amt Bau-OT to form Amt Bau-OT Zentrale directed by Speer, and with Dorsch as chief representative of Speer as a minister, and as general plenipotentiary for construction. Source: Area control staffs Army Group level German (national) and foreign Area control staffs Army level Basic construction sector Sub-sector Local control Construction site Intra German The Schutzkommando

402-554: A co-operative effort of the German government and the German construction industry; the former supplied the manpower and the material, the latter supplied the technical know-how in the form of individual contractors (OT-Firmen) with their staff and equipment. Up to about 1942, the construction companies dominated the OT, but after Speer became its director, the government's control of the organisation increased through standardised contracts and uniform pay scales. The volunteer contracts with

536-644: A day. The labor shifts were 14 hours long. Sanitation was extremely inadequate; the prisoners fetched washing and drinking water from open ditches in the camp. Outflow from the toilets often entered the channels. Disagreements between the Croats and Serbs were exploited by the SS guards. A few selected Croats received more privileged positions as kapos . The kapo system was common in Nazi concentration camps . The kapos received more food than they could manage to eat themselves. As

670-435: A distinct dialect at the level of farm clusters. Dialects are in some cases so dissimilar as to be unintelligible to unfamiliar listeners. Many linguists note a trend toward regionalization of dialects that diminishes the differences at such local levels; there is, however, a renewed interest in preserving dialects. Norwegian nouns are inflected for number (singular/plural) and for definiteness (indefinite/definite). In

804-548: A few dialects, definite nouns are also inflected for the dative case . Norwegian nouns belong to three noun classes (genders): masculine, feminine and neuter. All feminine nouns can optionally be inflected using masculine noun class morphology in Bokmål due to its Danish heritage. In comparison, the use of all three genders (including the feminine) is mandatory in Nynorsk. All Norwegian dialects have traditionally retained all

938-411: A greater number that treated prisoners in a fairly orderly manner. The first escape attempt from the camp occurred on December 14, 1942 and was carried out by Tihomir Pantović (a.k.a. "Yellow"). The escape was something that the prisoners had agreed to among themselves. The plan was for the escapee to make his way to Sweden and tell about the conditions so that the outside world would become aware of what

1072-441: A new Norwegian language at the age of 22. He traveled around the country collecting words and examples of grammar from the dialects and comparing the dialects among the different regions. He examined the development of Icelandic , which had largely escaped the influences under which Norwegian had come. He called his work, which was published in several books from 1848 to 1873, Landsmål , meaning 'national language'. The name Landsmål

1206-501: A noun, unlike English which has a separate article, the , to indicate the same. In general, almost all nouns in Bokmål follow these patterns (like the words in the examples above): In contrast, almost all nouns in Nynorsk follow these patterns (the noun gender system is more pronounced than in Bokmål): There is in general no way to infer what grammatical gender a specific noun has, but there are some patterns of nouns where

1340-399: A result, food barter became established, in which those with more sold their soup ration and received a half ration of bread from those that had too little. A former prisoner commented in broken Norwegian on the difference between food intake by kapos and the rest of the prisoners of war: "Among these, there were several who were so fat that they weighed over 100 kilograms (220 lb), whereas

1474-602: A spike on it that he used to mistreat the prisoners. A witness stated that he would swing his short hammer around furiously. After four to five months, the first Norwegian guard crew was relieved by 180 men from the SS Guard Battalion ( no ) ( German : SS-Wachbataillon Norwegen ). Many of the SS Guard Battalion guards were as brutal as those from the Hirdvaktbataljon , yet there were now

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1608-480: Is combatants by the law of war . Of these, only the German personnel were regarded as being Wehrmacht Auxiliaries (i.e., belonging to the Wehrmachtgefolgschaft ). The Frontarbeiter (front workers) were German, Volksdeutsche , or Nordic members of the OT. They swore an oath of fidelity to Hitler, wore uniforms, and were armed. The mean age of this group was about 45–50 years. An Einssatzarbeiter

1742-413: Is Bokmål will study Nynorsk as a mandatory subject throughout both elementary and high school. A 2005 poll indicates that 86.3% use primarily Bokmål as their daily written language, 5.5% use both Bokmål and Nynorsk, and 7.5% use primarily Nynorsk. Thus, 13% are frequently writing Nynorsk, though the majority speak dialects that resemble Nynorsk more closely than Bokmål. Broadly speaking, Nynorsk writing

1876-440: Is a pitch-accent language with two distinct pitch patterns, like Swedish. They are used to differentiate two-syllable words with otherwise identical pronunciation. For example, in many East Norwegian dialects, the word bønder ('farmers') is pronounced using the simpler tone 1, while bønner ('beans' or 'prayers') uses the more complex tone 2. Though spelling differences occasionally differentiate written words, in most cases

2010-411: Is a language form based on Norwegian dialects and puristic opposition to Danish. The now-abandoned official policy to merge Bokmål and Nynorsk into one common language called Samnorsk through a series of spelling reforms has created a wide spectrum of varieties of both Bokmål and Nynorsk. The unofficial form known as Riksmål is considered more conservative than Bokmål and is far closer to Danish while

2144-736: Is comparable with that of French on English after the Norman conquest . In the late Middle Ages, dialects began to develop in Scandinavia because the population was rural and little travel occurred. When the Reformation came from Germany, Martin Luther 's High German translation of the Bible was quickly translated into Swedish, Danish, and Icelandic. Norway entered a union with Denmark in 1397 and Danish, over time, replaced Middle Norwegian as

2278-413: Is dealing with pure annihilation camps and that the purpose was to systematically exterminate all of the prisoners. In the face of starvation, abuse, and hard work, the prisoners' health systematically failed, after which they either died or were euthanized as useless. Norsk Retstidende , 1947, page 376 In the summer of 1942, about 2,500 Yugoslav prisoners of war arrived at these five camps, and by

2412-423: Is now considered their classic forms after a reform in 1917. Riksmål was, in 1929, officially renamed Bokmål (literally 'book language'), and Landsmål to Nynorsk (literally 'new Norwegian'). A proposition to substitute Danish-Norwegian ( dansk-norsk ) for Bokmål lost in parliament by a single vote. The name Nynorsk , the linguistic term for modern Norwegian , was chosen to contrast with Danish and emphasise

2546-609: Is regulated by the Norwegian Academy , which determines acceptable spelling, grammar, and vocabulary. There is also an unofficial form of Nynorsk, called Høgnorsk , discarding the post-1917 reforms, and thus close to Ivar Aasen's original Landsmål. It is supported by Ivar Aasen-sambandet , but has found no widespread use. In 2010, 86.5% of the pupils in the primary and lower secondary schools in Norway receive education in Bokmål, while 13.0% receive education in Nynorsk. From

2680-754: Is rising in the first syllable and falling in the second syllable or somewhere around the syllable boundary. The pitch accents (as well as the peculiar phrase accent in the low-tone dialects) give the Norwegian language a "singing" quality that makes it easy to distinguish from other languages. Accent 1 generally occurs in words that were monosyllabic in Old Norse , and accent 2 in words that were polysyllabic. The Norwegian alphabet has 29 letters. The letters c , q , w , x and z are only used in loanwords . As loanwords are assimilated into Norwegian, their spelling might change to reflect Norwegian pronunciation and

2814-526: Is sometimes interpreted as 'rural language' or 'country language', but this was clearly not Aasen's intended meaning. The name of the Danish language in Norway was a topic of hot dispute throughout the 19th century. Its proponents claimed that it was a language common to Norway and Denmark, and no more Danish than Norwegian. The proponents of Landsmål thought that the Danish character of the language should not be concealed. In 1899, Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson proposed

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2948-518: Is the village of Lakså near Upper Lake ( Norwegian : Øvervatnet ), where there were border guides for a slightly more northerly route. In Salten there were organized border guides, couriers, intelligence agents, and resisters making it possible for these escape routes to function. The most frequently used border guide in Saltdal was probably Peter Båtskar. He lived in a hut in the mountains south of Rognan, subsisted mostly on hunting and fishing, and

3082-459: Is to write in dialect for informal use. When writing an SMS, Facebook update, or fridge note, many people, especially young ones, write approximations of the way they talk rather than using Bokmål or Nynorsk. There is general agreement that a wide range of differences makes it difficult to estimate the number of different Norwegian dialects. Variations in grammar, syntax, vocabulary, and pronunciation cut across geographical boundaries and can create

3216-534: Is today to a large extent the same language as Bokmål though somewhat closer to the Danish language. It is regulated by the unofficial Norwegian Academy , which translates the name as 'Standard Norwegian'. The other is Høgnorsk ('High Norwegian'), a more purist form of Nynorsk, which maintains the language in an original form as given by Ivar Aasen and rejects most of the reforms from the 20th century; this form has limited use. Nynorsk and Bokmål provide standards for how to write Norwegian, but not for how to speak

3350-496: Is widespread in western Norway, though not in major urban areas, and also in the upper parts of mountain valleys in the southern and eastern parts of Norway. Examples are Setesdal , the western part of Telemark county ( fylke ) and several municipalities in Hallingdal , Valdres , and Gudbrandsdalen . It is little used elsewhere, but 30–40 years ago, it also had strongholds in many rural parts of Trøndelag (mid-Norway) and

3484-976: The Hirdvaktbataljon (Guard Battalion of the Hird ) set up under the NS Ungdomsfylking (the Nasjonal Samling youth organization), and they treated the prisoners of war cruelly. In the postwar trials several Norwegian guards received prison sentences, and some of the German SS officers were sentenced to death by firing squad. During the occupation of Norway in the Second World War, the German forces had enormous transport needs, particularly in Northern Norway , where, among other things, they needed to bring supplies to

3618-612: The Atlantic Wall , to fortify the coasts of occupied France, the occupied Netherlands , Belgium , Denmark , and Norway . Included with this project were fortifications on the British Channel Islands , which were occupied by Nazi Germany from 30 June 1940 to 9 May 1945. The only camps on British soil operated by the OT were on the Channel Islands; two of these OT camps were given to the management of

3752-634: The British Isles , France ( Normandy ), North America, and Kievan Rus . In all of these places except Iceland and the Faroes, Old Norse speakers went extinct or were absorbed into the local population. Around 1030, Christianity came to Scandinavia , bringing with it an influx of Latin borrowings and the Roman alphabet . These new words were related to church practices and ceremonies, although many other loanwords related to general culture also entered

3886-613: The Germanic peoples living in Scandinavia during the Viking Age . Today there are two official forms of written Norwegian, Bokmål (Riksmål) and Nynorsk (Landsmål), each with its own variants. Bokmål developed from the Dano-Norwegian language that replaced Middle Norwegian as the elite language after the union of Denmark–Norway in the 16th and 17th centuries and then evolved in Norway, while Nynorsk

4020-653: The Legion Speer , since they – as aliens – could not be members of the NSKK, which was a sub-organisation of the Nazi Party. In 1942, Transportbrigade Todt, Transportbrigade Speer, and Legion Speer, was subsumed into an umbrella organisation, Transportgruppe Todt , which in 1944 was made into an organisation independent of the NSKK, the Transportkorps Speer . Inland waterways transportation was since 1937

4154-685: The Nazi Party . The organisation was responsible for a huge range of engineering projects both in Nazi Germany and in occupied territories from France to the Soviet Union during the Second World War . The organisation became notorious for using forced labour . From 1943 until 1945 during the late phase of the Third Reich, OT administered all constructions of concentration camps to supply forced labour to industry. The history of

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4288-631: The SS from March 1943, converting them into the Alderney concentration camps . Fritz Todt died in an aeroplane crash on 8 February 1942, soon after a meeting with Hitler in East Prussia . Todt had become convinced that the war on the eastern front could not be won and thought himself independent enough to say as much to Hitler. As a result, some speculation exists that Todt's death was a covert assassination, but this has never been substantiated. Todt

4422-512: The Soviet Union , and Poland . The youngest prisoners of war were barely 12 years old. The conditions at all five camps were poor with high mortality. The number of prisoners in the Botn camp can only be estimated from testimonies of survivors. Almost 900 prisoners in total arrived at the camp; of these, about half died through execution, punishment, malnutrition, and exhaustion. By the war's end there were around 7,500 prisoners of war in Saltdal, but

4556-519: The V-1 flying bomb and V-2 rocket . During the summer of that year, German war efforts became increasingly defensive, and the organisation was directed to construct air-raid shelters, repair bombed buildings in German urban areas, and construct underground refineries and armaments factories, also termed Project Riese . In 1943, the organisation was administratively incorporated into Albert Speer's Ministry of Armaments and War Production. Speer's concerns, in

4690-574: The 1959 standard. Therefore, a small minority of Nynorsk enthusiasts use a more conservative standard called Høgnorsk . The Samnorsk policy had little influence after 1960, and was officially abandoned in 2002. While the sound systems of Norwegian and Swedish are similar, considerable variation exists among the dialects. The retroflex consonants only appear in East Norwegian dialects as a result of sandhi , combining / ɾ / with / d / , / l / , / n / , / s / , and / t / . The realization of

4824-475: The 20th century, being used by large newspapers, encyclopedias, and a significant proportion of the population of the capital Oslo, surrounding areas, and other urban areas, as well as much of the literary tradition. Since the reforms of 1981 and 2003 (effective in 2005), the official Bokmål can be adapted to be almost identical with modern Riksmål. The differences between written Riksmål and Bokmål are comparable to American and British English differences . Riksmål

4958-717: The Autobahn network. Emphasis shifted to military efforts. The first major project involved the Westwall (known in English as the Siegfried Line ), built opposite the French Maginot Line and serving a similar purpose. Correspondingly, Todt himself was named Reich Minister of Armaments and Munitions in 1940. In 1941, Todt and his organisation were further charged with a project even larger: construction of

5092-643: The Blood Road was built, the little village had no road connection. The prisoners carried out roadwork on the stretch from Rognan to Langset. Personnel from the Norwegian Public Roads Administration led the efforts technically and served as blasting foremen and facility managers. The prisoners of war that were used in Saltdal came from Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union, and some were also from Poland. The majority of

5226-492: The Botn camp happened in late November 1942, right after the new group with Norwegian guard crews had arrived. One of these stated what happened: "A pit was dug about 200 meters (660 ft) from the camp and the Serbian prisoners were gathered around it. The pit was 30 meters (98 ft) long, 2.5 meters (8 ft 2 in) wide, and 2 meters (6 ft 7 in) deep. Three Norwegian guards were ordered to stand watch around

5360-477: The Botn camp and Korgen camp. The first prisoners at the Botn camp were 472 Yugoslavs who arrived by ship on July 25, 1942. They had been brought by ship from Szczecin to Bergen on June 2. Twenty-eight of the prisoners were already shot upon arrival in Bergen. From Bergen, they were sent by ship to Botn, and 400 prisoners were sent further on to Karasjok. The Furumo farm was located about 150 meters (490 ft) from

5494-501: The Dano-Norwegian koiné , known as "cultivated everyday speech." A small adjustment in this direction was implemented in the first official reform of the Danish language in Norway in 1862 and more extensively after his death in two official reforms in 1907 and 1917. Meanwhile, a nationalistic movement strove for the development of a new written Norwegian. Ivar Aasen , a botanist and self-taught linguist, began his work to create

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5628-978: The Germans demanded forced road construction and offered prisoners to the Directorate of Public Roads to carry out the work. It was agreed to prioritize the three road systems in Korgen, in Botn in Saltdal, and around Beisfjord in Ofoten . The new road over Korgfjellet ( no ) (a mountain) in Korgen Municipality was intended to replace another ferry connection along Highway 50 between Elsfjord and Hemnesberget . On June 23, 1942, Yugoslav prisoners of war were brought to two camps: to Fagerlimoen (in Korgen) and to Osen (in Knutlia). The camps were active until

5762-455: The Ministry of Culture, official spelling, grammar, and vocabulary for the Norwegian language. The board's work has been subject to considerable controversy throughout the years. Both Nynorsk and Bokmål have a great variety of optional forms. The Bokmål that uses the forms that are close to Riksmål is called moderate or conservative , depending on one's viewpoint, while the Bokmål that uses

5896-479: The North Germanic languages. Faroese and Icelandic are not mutually intelligible with Norwegian in their spoken form because continental Scandinavian has diverged from them. While the two Germanic languages with the greatest numbers of speakers, English and German, have close similarities with Norwegian, neither is mutually intelligible with it. Norwegian is a descendant of Old Norse , the common language of

6030-429: The OT were later augmented with compulsory contracts, forcing construction companies to work for the OT. The construction company contracted became a self-contained unit within the OT, composed of technical and administrative staff with the skill and equipment necessary to execute the construction tasks assigned to it. Smaller companies were hence combined to form an Arbeitsgemeinschaft . The organisation of OT contractors

6164-529: The Public Roads Administration after it had been ordered to build barracks at the beginning of June 1942. The camp was fenced by two barbed-wire fences, which were about 2 meters (6 ft 7 in) high and had a 0.5-meter (1 ft 8 in) interval between them. There were three guards at the camp. Two barracks were built with simple boarded exteriors and floors without a foundation. The barracks contains five-tiered bunk beds. Outside

6298-631: The Reich Labour Service ( Reichsarbeitsdienst , RAD). The second period lasted from 1938, when the Organisation Todt group proper was created, until February 1942, when Todt died in an aeroplane crash. After the invasion of Poland , Todt was named the Minister for Armaments and Munitions in 1940 ( Reichsminister für Bewaffnung und Munition ), and the projects of the OT became almost exclusively military. The huge increase in

6432-589: The SK: The NSKK supplied motor vehicle transportation for the OT until 1944. The role of the NSKK began in 1938, with the NSKK-Transportbrigade Todt in charge of motor transportation for the construction of the Siegfried Line . In 1939, NSKK-Transportbrigade Speer was organised and put in charge of the motor transportation for the air base constructions under Baustab Speer within the OT. Foreign drivers were, however, recruited into

6566-719: The Western Allies. Many went on to serve in the post-war British and U.S. Labor Services in occupied Germany before emigrating to Britain, Australia, Canada and the United States. The U.S. Labor Service was considered the forerunner of the new German army. The Organisation Todt itself was found not guilty of war crimes at Nuremberg, although its leader Albert Speer served 20 years in Spandau Prison after admitting his crimes against humanity. Categories Classification of personnel according to nationality During

6700-475: The camp was the barracks for the guard crew. When the guard was installed on June 20, the building was not yet finished. The commandant of the camp was Hauptsturmführer Franz Kiefer, and he was in charge of six officers and two NCOs , all members of the SS. In addition, there were ten to twelve military police and another NCO. The commandant of the Osen camp, Sturmbannführer Dolph, was also given oversight over

6834-467: The camp when the Wehrmacht took over. On April 12, a new group of 300 prisoners arrived at the camp, including the then 20-year-old Ostoja Kovačević, who wrote the book En times frihet (One Hour of Freedom). The first Sunday that he was in camp, all of the new prisoners had to wash themselves outside in a small lake where ice was still floating. The German soldiers beat the prisoners and forced them into

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6968-620: The camp, and those that lived there said that the prisoners were marched from the sea up to the camp in smaller groups, while the guards shouted at and struck them, causing many to fall over. The two camps in Botn were so poorly built that the snow made its way into the prisoners' beds. The daily rations were very small, and a former prisoner described the food supplies as follows: Typically four or five men shared one loaf of bread, 50 men shared .5 kilograms (1.1 lb) of margarine, and 100 men shared 1 kilogram (2.2 lb) of sausages. Each man received 0.5 liters (17 U.S. fl oz) of soup

7102-505: The camp. They were from the Hirdvaktbataljon (the Guard Battalion of the Hird ) set up under the NS Ungdomsfylking (the Nasjonal Samling youth organization) in order to protect businesses from sabotage. The members of the Hirdvaktbataljon were as young as 16 and were therefore (or for other reasons) not accepted for service at the front. They were only responsible for preventing escapes and had no responsibility for managing

7236-556: The camps in Saltdal and make their way to Sweden. The locals significantly assisted the escaped prisoners by guiding them on their way and helping with shelter, food, and equipment. Some Saltdal residents worked as border guides and the escape route usually went to the Swedish mountain farm of Mavas via Mount Salt. During the winter, this was a daunting journey and on the Swedish side many miles still remained to reach civilization. The fugitives thus also depended on help from Swedes. There

7370-518: The complete and arbitrary service of the totalitarian state. Many did not survive the work or the war. The autobahn concept had its beginnings in the efforts of a private consortium, the HaFraBa (Verein zur Vorbereitung der Autostraße Hansestädte-Frankfurt-Basel) , initiated during 1926 for the purpose of building a high-speed highway between northern Germany and Basel , in Switzerland. While

7504-503: The construction firm Hans Röllinger KG (Fürth) that they had recently stopped the beating of Yugoslavian inmates on their road construction site in the hope that this would raise the men’s performance." Einsatzgruppe Wiking was responsible for beating and killing of POW during the road construction. Several German construction companies were involved as sub-contractors, that still exist today: Müller-Altvatter (Stuttgart), Eschweiler Tiefbau – J. Pellini (Eschweiler) and Röllinger KG (Fürth) By

7638-542: The construction of the Blood Road in Norway, more than 10,000 slave labourers from eastern Europe and some hundred German political prisoners were worked to death as part of the " vernichtung durch arbeit " ("annihilation by labour"). Several SS guards and local collaborators were sentenced to prison and death after the war in trials in Belgrade and Oslo. The head of the responsible OT unit for Scandinavia, Willi Henne ,

7772-402: The context of an increasingly desperate Germany, in which all production had been severely affected by materials and manpower shortages and by Allied bombing, ranged over almost the whole of the German war-time economy. Speer managed to increase production significantly, at the cost of a vastly increased reliance on compulsory labour. This applied as well to the labour force of the OT. The OT was

7906-553: The course of the Autobahn project, private companies as subcontractors and the primary source of technical engineering expertise, and the Labour Service as the source of manpower. He was appointed by Hitler as a plenipotentiary for labour for the second four-year plan, decreasing Göring's role. Investment in civil engineering work was reduced greatly. Between 1939 and 1943, in contrast to the period from 1933 to 1938, fewer than 1,000 km (620 mi) of roadway were added to

8040-459: The date was determined to be 23 January. Norwegian guards were present at the event, but reportedly only German crews carried out the executions. The local people could not fail to be aware of the conditions in the camps. Although there was no abundance of food in Norwegian homes during the war, some food was given to the prisoners. Especially those that lived near the camps gave as often as they could and recognized "kind" guards that openly permitted

8174-709: The demand for labour created by the various military and paramilitary projects was satisfied by a series of expansions of the laws concerning compulsory service, which ultimately obligated all Germans to arbitrarily determined (i.e., effectively unlimited) compulsory labour for the state: Zwangsarbeit . From 1938 to 1940, more than 1.75 million Germans were conscripted into labour service. From 1940 to 1942, Organisation Todt began its reliance on Gastarbeitnehmer ( 'guest workers' ), Militärinternierte ( 'military internees' ), Zivilarbeiter ('civilian workers'), Ostarbeiter ('Eastern workers'), and Hilfswillige ('volunteer') POW workers. The third period lasted from 1942 until

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8308-644: The eighth grade onwards, pupils are required to learn both. Out of the 431 municipalities in Norway, 161 have declared that they wish to communicate with the central authorities in Bokmål, 116 (representing 12% of the population) in Nynorsk, while 156 are neutral. Of 4,549 state publications in 2000, 8% were in Nynorsk, and 92% in Bokmål. The large national newspapers ( Aftenposten , Dagbladet , and VG ) are published in Bokmål or Riksmål. Some major regional newspapers (including Bergens Tidende and Stavanger Aftenblad ), many political journals, and many local newspapers use both Bokmål and Nynorsk. A newer trend

8442-487: The end of the war in 1945, when Albert Speer succeeded Todt in office and the OT was absorbed into the renamed and expanded Reich Ministry of Armaments and War Production . Approximately 1.4 million labourers were in the service of the organisation. One per cent were Germans rejected from military service and 1.5% were concentration camp prisoners; the rest were prisoners of war and forced labourers from occupied countries. All were effectively treated as slaves and existed in

8576-506: The escapees exposed themselves to, and what reprisals their fellow prisoners could expect. The circumstances and the dangers in escaping from the Botn camp and other camps in Salten are also thoroughly discussed. About 30 prisoners managed to escape from the camps in Saltdal in the course of three years. Jovanović says that 23 men escaped from the Botn camp, but he does not mention how many of those were successful. The first mass executions at

8710-485: The first centuries AD in what is today Southern Sweden. It is the earliest stage of a characteristically North Germanic language, and the language attested in the Elder Futhark inscriptions, the oldest form of the runic alphabets . A number of inscriptions are memorials to the dead, while others are magical in content. The oldest are carved on loose objects, while later ones are chiseled in runestones . They are

8844-611: The five main camps. The northernmost one was located in Karasjok Municipality , the camp at Beisfjord was the largest, the Botn camp was located in Saltdal Municipality , and in the southern part of Northern Norway were the Osen and Korgen camps. These first five camps were each referred to as a "Serb camp" ( Norwegian : serberleir ). However, there were many more small camps throughout Northern Norway. Between Korgen and Narvik alone there were up to 50 camps with around 30,000 prisoners. It appears certain that here one

8978-501: The forms that are close to Nynorsk is called radical . Nynorsk has forms that are close to the original Landsmål and forms that are close to Bokmål. Opponents of the spelling reforms aimed at bringing Bokmål closer to Nynorsk have retained the name Riksmål and employ spelling and grammar that predate the Samnorsk movement. Riksmål and conservative versions of Bokmål have been the de facto standard written language of Norway for most of

9112-535: The gender can be inferred. For instance, all nouns ending in - nad will be masculine in both Bokmål and Nynorsk (for instance the noun jobbsøknad , which means 'job application'). Most nouns ending in - ing will be feminine, like the noun forventning ('expectation'). Organisation Todt Organisation Todt (OT; [ʔɔʁɡanizaˈtsi̯oːn toːt] ) was a civil and military engineering organisation in Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945, named for its founder, Fritz Todt , an engineer and senior member of

9246-407: The group of prisoners, while the SS guards methodically shot them in the back of the head. When I came out, the Germans had already started the executions, and a boy age 13 was next in line. The boy fell down on his knees and begged for his life, but he was shot in the back of the head and fell into the grave." The prisoners were lined up on the edge of the grave, so that they fell right into it after

9380-415: The guards were, the more brutally they behaved. After the labor shifts, the guards would report poor performance to the camp management. Those accused of lack of effort were punished with 25 strokes of a cane, sometimes up to 50. The prisoners that were beaten frequently rarely lived long. A man living near the Botn camp stated: "I remember that among the Norwegian guards there was a very good man, who helped

9514-417: The historical connection to Old Norwegian. Today, this meaning is often lost, and it is commonly mistaken as a "new" Norwegian in contrast to the "real" Norwegian Bokmål. Bokmål and Nynorsk were made closer by a reform in 1938. This was a result of a state policy to merge Nynorsk and Bokmål into a single language, to be called Samnorsk . A 1946 poll showed that this policy was supported by 79% of Norwegians at

9648-462: The idea did not originate with the Nazis, Adolf Hitler issued a decree establishing a Reichsautobahnen project for an entire network of highways, issued on 27 June 1933. He made it a vastly more ambitious public project and the responsibility was given to Fritz Todt as the newly named Inspector General of German Roadways. By 1934, Todt had succeeded in elevating his office to near cabinet rank. Todt

9782-425: The labor. They had " shoot-to-kill " orders in the event of an escape. They were not formally allowed to punish prisoners, but this was not adhered to. The guard crews had rifles with bayonets, and some had automatic firearms . The young men in the Hirdvaktbataljon mistreated the prisoners by hitting and kicking them, throwing stones, striking them with their rifle butts, and stabbing them with bayonets. The younger

9916-467: The language of the elite, the church, literature, and the law. When the union with Denmark ended in 1814, the Dano-Norwegian koiné had become the mother tongue of around 1% of the population. From the 1840s, some writers experimented with a Norwegianised Danish by incorporating words that were descriptive of Norwegian scenery and folk life, and adopting a more Norwegian syntax. Knud Knudsen proposed to change spelling and inflection in accordance with

10050-610: The language. The Scandinavian languages at this time are not considered to be separate languages, although there were minor differences among what are customarily called Old Icelandic, Old Norwegian , Old Gutnish , Old Danish, and Old Swedish . The economic and political dominance of the Hanseatic League between 1250 and 1450 in the main Scandinavian cities brought large Middle Low German –speaking populations to Norway. The influence of their language on Scandinavian

10184-555: The language. No standard of spoken Norwegian is officially sanctioned, and most Norwegians speak their own dialects in all circumstances. Thus, unlike in many other countries, the use of any Norwegian dialect, whether it coincides with the written norms or not, is accepted as correct spoken Norwegian. However, in areas where East Norwegian dialects are used, a tendency exists to accept a de facto spoken standard for this particular regional dialect, Urban East Norwegian or Standard East Norwegian (Norwegian: Standard østnorsk ), in which

10318-531: The languages in Europe, Norwegian derives from Proto-Indo-European . As early Indo-Europeans spread across Europe, they became isolated from each other and new languages developed. In northwest Europe, the Germanic languages evolved, further branching off into the North Germanic languages , of which Norwegian is one. Proto-Norse is thought to have evolved as a northern dialect of Proto-Germanic during

10452-661: The main culprits with 1,500 witnesses interviewed resulted in not a single conviction, leading Daghani to call the process "merely a farce, a meaningless gesture. None of the OT personnel were sentenced to prison in the Nuremberg Trials or other postwar trials in Germany. Despite a British Secret Service report stating that "Supervisory assignments in OT were generally reserved for Old Party Fighters, Party members with influential connections, and more recently for older SS members in rapidly increasing numbers. [...] The result

10586-561: The majority were under 50 kilograms (110 lb)." Regarding the guard battalion, I would like to ask you as soon as possible to withdraw it, and to send them to the Legion . Because the service these boys are performing is the most horrible I've ever heard of, since they are simply performing what was called "knacker service" in the Thirty Years' War for the Germans. I have constantly heard rumors about what they're doing up there, and

10720-502: The minimal pairs are written alike, since written Norwegian has no explicit accent marks. In most eastern low-tone dialects, accent 1 uses a low flat pitch in the first syllable, while accent 2 uses a high, sharply falling pitch in the first syllable and a low pitch in the beginning of the second syllable. In both accents, these pitch movements are followed by a rise of intonational nature (phrase accent)—the size (and presence) of which signals emphasis or focus, and corresponds in function to

10854-572: The misery. The personal character of the camp commandant was decisive for the conditions in each camp. Road construction was to take place simultaneously with railroad construction. Highway 50 (today E6) traversing Saltfjellet was opened in 1937, but it was a low-quality road. From Rognan to Langset, a few kilometers north in Saltdal Fjord, there was a ferry. Further north in Salten there were also many longer ferry connections. In December 1941,

10988-430: The neutral name Riksmål , meaning 'national language' like Landsmål , and this was officially adopted along with the 1907 spelling reform. The name Riksmål is sometimes interpreted as 'state language', but this meaning is secondary at best. (Compare to Danish rigsmål from where the name was borrowed.) After the personal union with Sweden was dissolved in 1905, both languages were developed further and reached what

11122-458: The next summer only about 750 were still alive. The differences between the camps are apparent from the fact that in the camp at Bakken further up in Saltdal no prisoners died over the span of three years. The conditions in many of the camps were cruel. Responsibility in the camps was split up systematically, so that the individual German officer with responsibility in each camp could with a certain kind of justification declare himself not liable for

11256-414: The normal accent in languages that lack lexical tone , such as English. That rise culminates in the final syllable of an accentual phrase, while the utterance-final fall common in most languages is either very small or absent. There are significant variations in pitch accent between dialects. Thus, in most of western and northern Norway (the so-called high-pitch dialects) accent 1 is falling, while accent 2

11390-412: The north front, transport ore from LKAB via Narvik , nickel from Finland , and personnel and material throughout the entire region. Transport by ship along the Norwegian coast was hazardous due to allied bombing. The road network was poor and insufficiently developed. The Nordland Line went no further north than Mosjøen , and on the trunk roads there were many ferry crossings. Railroad development

11524-416: The number is uncertain. There were up to 18 camps from Saltfjellet (a mountain) and north to Saltdal Fjord, but the treatment that prisoners received in these camps was considerably better. In the trials held after the war, the camps were referred to as extermination camps. It shocked the Norwegian authorities that the Norwegian youths as young as 16 had served as guards in the camp. The youths were members of

11658-584: The oldest written record of any Germanic language. East Germanic languages West Germanic languages Icelandic Faroese Norwegian Danish Swedish Around 800 AD, the script was simplified to the Younger Futhark , and inscriptions became more abundant. At the same time, the beginning of the Viking Age led to the spread of Old Norse to Iceland , Greenland , and the Faroe Islands . Viking colonies also existed in parts of

11792-527: The organisation can be divided into three phases. From 1933 to 1938, before the organisation existed, Fritz Todt 's primary post was that of the General Inspector of German Roadways ( Generalinspektor für das deutsche Straßenwesen ) and his primary responsibility, the construction of the Autobahn network. He was able to draw on "conscripted" (i.e., compulsory) labour, from within Germany, through

11926-621: The other day I received confirmation from a man who came from there on leave because he came into my office and said " Heil og sæl , I am a trained killer." He told me that the Serbs they are guarding up there were sentenced to death in Serbia, but for one reason or another were brought up to Finnmark, and from there they will not escape alive; and it is these young Hird members' despairing duty to finish off each of these prisoners. From what my informant said, and from what I have also heard from others,

12060-442: The principles of Norwegian orthography, e.g. zebra in Norwegian is written sebra . Due to historical reasons, some otherwise Norwegian family names are also written using these letters. Some letters may be modified by diacritics : é , è , ê , ó , ò , and ô . In Nynorsk, ì and ù and ỳ are occasionally seen as well. The diacritics are not compulsory, but may in a few cases distinguish between different meanings of

12194-400: The prisoners from Yugoslavia were political prisoners, but the criminologist Nils Christie explains that their backgrounds varied, and so it is difficult to fully characterize them. Christie also offers some hypotheses for why it is probable that they were politically active. A portion of them were both political prisoners and Partisans , and they came from all walks of life and of all ages;

12328-419: The prisoners to receive food. However, most often food was given by hiding it at construction sites or along the roads. Helping the prisoners could be dangerous because of reprisals. Julie Johansen lived near the Botn camp and became known as the "Yugoslavs' mother"; for her efforts she received an award from Josip Broz Tito after the war. In the course of three years, around 30 prisoners managed to escape from

12462-428: The prisoners with news and food, and who did not force them to work. But the Germans found out, and he suddenly vanished." After the war, it was also ascertained that the young men's behavior in the camp had also shocked the highest levels of Nasjonal Samling. In a private letter (see excerpt at right), Vidkun Quisling was urged to transfer the youths away from this service. SS Hauptsturmführer Franz Kiefer, who

12596-403: The prisoners' relatives and other people unaware of their fate. This system was used against resistance members both in Germany and in occupied areas. In addition, the camps constituted an important economic base for the SS -dominated state. The expenses for labor were very small and the labor supply was almost unlimited. The Botn camp was active from July 1942 to June 1944. The camp was built by

12730-561: The reason was that they were so starved that they had no strength to work. According to the Yugoslav War Crimes Commission, this execution occurred on November 26, 1942 and 73 prisoners were shot. The shooting was ordered by Untersturmführer August Riemer. The next mass execution of sick prisoners took place in January 1943. The War Crimes Commission established that 50 people were executed on this occasion and

12864-527: The rhotic / ɾ / depends on the dialect. In Eastern, Central, and Northern Norwegian dialects, it is a flap [ ɾ ] , whereas in Western and Southern Norway, and for some speakers also in Eastern Norway, it is uvular [ ʁ ] or [ χ ] . And in the dialects of North-Western Norway, it is realized as [ r ] , much like the trilled ⟨rr⟩ of Spanish. Norwegian

12998-548: The road its name was a cross of blood that was painted on a rock cutting in June 1943. The blood came from a prisoner that was shot along the route, and the cross was painted by his brother. The prisoners lived in a primitive camp in the village of Botn, just 2 kilometers (1.2 mi) outside Rognan. The prisoners of war had very small daily rations, long working hours, poor clothing for winter use, primitive barracks, and miserable sanitation, and they were treated cruelly. The Botn camp

13132-551: The scope of the Transportflotte Speer , the Speer river fleet. Organisation Todt was notorious for using forced labour . Most of the so-called "volunteer" Soviet POW workers were assigned to the Organisation Todt. The history of the forced labour by Nazi Germany has three main phases: All members of the Organisation Todt, even forced labourers, with the exception of Jews, were regarded as Wehrmachtsgefolge , that

13266-407: The shot was fired. They were shot in groups of ten, which were lined up at the edge in turns. The Norwegian guard walked to the grave and saw that several were still alive. He lost control and shouted, "But they're still alive!" He was immediately threatened with a gun by one of the SS guards and taken away from the execution site. When he talked about this at the barracks, the other guards said that he

13400-606: The southern part of northern Norway ( Nordland county). Today, Nynorsk is the official language of not only four of the nineteen Norwegian counties but also various municipalities in five other counties. NRK , the Norwegian broadcasting corporation, broadcasts in both Bokmål and Nynorsk, and all governmental agencies are required to support both written languages. Bokmål is used in 92% of all written publications, and Nynorsk in 8% (2000). Like some other European countries, Norway has an official "advisory board"— Språkrådet (Norwegian Language Council)— that determines, after approval from

13534-679: The summer of 1943. A temporary bridge was set up over Beis Fjord in Ofoten in July 1943 and a ferry connection was set up between Fagernes and Ankenes . This was replaced by the Beisfjord Bridge in 1959. The Beisfjord camp was located in Beisfjord , 13 kilometers (8.1 mi) south of Narvik , and was active from June 1942 until the end of the war. The Blood Road was a road section northeast of Rognan in Saltdal Municipality . The road

13668-401: The three grammatical genders from Old Norse to some extent. The only exceptions are the dialect of Bergen and a few upper class sociolects at the west end of Oslo that have completely lost the feminine gender. According to Marit Westergaard , approximately 80% of nouns in Norwegian are masculine. Norwegian and other Scandinavian languages use a suffix to indicate definiteness of

13802-442: The time. However, opponents of the official policy still managed to create a massive protest movement against Samnorsk in the 1950s, fighting in particular the use of "radical" forms in Bokmål text books in schools. In the reform in 1959, the 1938 reform was partially reversed in Bokmål, but Nynorsk was changed further towards Bokmål. Since then Bokmål has reverted even further toward traditional Riksmål, while Nynorsk still adheres to

13936-490: The treatment of these men is inhuman. He claimed that in the time he has been there they have had to kill about seven hundred by shooting or hanging. That the Fører ' s young idealistic political soldiers should have to perform this kind of service is impossible and must be completely rejected. Excerpt from a letter from Hird leader Oliver Møystad to Vidkun Quisling On August 1, 1942 about 30 Norwegian guards arrived at

14070-426: The unofficial Høgnorsk is more conservative than Nynorsk and is far closer to Faroese , Icelandic and Old Norse . Norwegians are educated in both Bokmål and Nynorsk. Each student gets assigned a native form based on which school they go to, whence the other form (known as Sidemål ) will be a mandatory school subject from elementary school through high school. For instance, a Norwegian whose main language form

14204-447: The vocabulary coincides with Bokmål. Outside Eastern Norway , this spoken variation is not used. From the 16th to the 19th centuries, Danish was the standard written language of Norway. As a result, the development of modern written Norwegian has been subject to strong controversy related to nationalism , rural versus urban discourse, and Norway's literary history. Historically, Bokmål is a Norwegianised variety of Danish, while Nynorsk

14338-501: The war's end, the Wehrmacht had used 140,000 POWs as slave labor in Norway. Of these, about 1,600 were Poles, 1,600 were Yugoslavs, and the majority, around 75,000, were Soviet citizens. The prisoners of war were sent through central Europe to Stettin on the Baltic Sea. On the way to Norway, they were quartered at various German camps. The transport from Stettin was by ship to either Bergen or Trondheim , and then further north to

14472-691: The water. Norwegian language Norwegian ( endonym : norsk [ˈnɔʂːk] ) is a North Germanic language from the Indo-European language family spoken mainly in Norway , where it is an official language. Along with Swedish and Danish , Norwegian forms a dialect continuum of more or less mutually intelligible local and regional varieties; some Norwegian and Swedish dialects , in particular, are very close. These Scandinavian languages, together with Faroese and Icelandic as well as some extinct languages , constitute

14606-446: The way they should be." Another witness from the Hirdvaktbataljon stated: "We were so shocked that we didn't understand anything. It was snowing and cold, sad and rugged. Pigsties. The prisoners milled around and scowled, aware that something was amiss. The Germans behaved shockingly. The camp commandant Kiefer came directly from an insane asylum in Germany. He walked around with a little whip that he used to beat us and others. I myself

14740-568: The word, e.g.: for ('for/to'), fór ('went'), fòr ('furrow') and fôr ('fodder'). Loanwords may be spelled with other diacritics, most notably ï, ü , á and à . The two legally recognized forms of written Norwegian are Bokmål (literally 'book tongue') and Nynorsk ('new Norwegian'), which are regulated by the Language Council of Norway ( Språkrådet ). Two other written forms without official status also exist. One, called Riksmål ('national language'),

14874-449: The work was compensated, at a rate slightly greater than that of unemployment assistance. The working conditions of the labour force would change drastically for the worse over the course of the following ten years. The OT was not given an official name until Hitler bestowed one soon after coming to power in 1933. During 1938 Todt initiated the Organisation Todt proper as a consortium of administrative offices which Todt had established in

15008-488: The youngest were only 13 to 14 years old. The majority were Serbs , but some were also Croats . The labor camps in Norway and in other areas conquered by the Germans were often as bad as the " Nacht und Nebel " camps, where political prisoners in particular would "disappear." Resistance movements arose in countries occupied by Nazi Germany. Executions of captured resistance member were counterproductive because they hardened public opinion. The "Nacht und Nebel" camps would keep

15142-508: Was a foreign worker that swore an oath of allegiance, wore a uniform, but were not normally armed. They could not include Czechs, Poles, Jews, or Communists. At the end of the war, their designation became OT-Legionäre. OT-Eigenes Personal was the organic personnel of the OT, as opposed to the OT-Firmenangehörige, employees of the contractors working for the OT. At wars end, all Org Todt members received blanket amnesty from

15276-472: Was a new section of Norwegian National Road 50 between Rognan and Langset on the east side of Saltdal Fjord, where there was a ferry connection before the war. The Blood Road itself now corresponds to a section of today's European route E6 between Saltnes and Saksenvik . The prisoners that built the road belonged to the Botn camp. The prisoners of war were generally treated poorly during the construction. They received small portions of simple food, their clothing

15410-557: Was also an escape route across the Sulitjelma massif somewhat further north. Some employees of the Sulitjelma Mines who lived in the small mining community of Jakobsbakken were a known group of border guides. When they took people into the mountains and were gone a few days, this was not registered as an absence and they were paid as though they had been at work. Before coming to the mountain village of Sulitjelma , there

15544-532: Was an extremely capable administrator, and by 1938 the organisation had built more than 3,000 km (1,900 mi) of the roadway. The Autobahn project became one of the show pieces of the Nazi regime. In that period, Todt had also put together the administrative framework of what would become the Organisation Todt. Initially, the Autobahn project relied on the open labour market as a source of workers. Germany

15678-632: Was at this time still recovering from the effects of the Great Depression and there was no shortage of available labour. As the economy recovered and the supply of labour became a more serious issue, the OT was able to draw on conscripted (i.e., compulsory) workers, from within Germany through the Reich Labour Service (RAD) from 1935. As per the law of 26 June 1935, all male Germans between the ages of 18 and 25 were required to perform six months of state service. During this period,

15812-588: Was centrally seen as the only solution to obtain satisfactory transport. Adolf Hitler ordered the rapid development of the Polar Line to Kirkenes ; the German commander in Norway, Generaloberst Nikolaus von Falkenhorst , demanded 145,000 prisoners of war to carry out development of the railroad to Kirkenes within four years. The very comprehensive plan was set aside, and in the first round 30,000 POWs were brought in to carry out railroad construction from Mosjoen to Tysfjord Municipality . The Todt Organization

15946-758: Was developed based upon a collective of spoken Norwegian dialects. Norwegian is one of the two official languages in Norway, along with Sámi , a Finno-Ugric language spoken by less than one percent of the population. Norwegian is one of the working languages of the Nordic Council . Under the Nordic Language Convention , citizens of the Nordic countries who speak Norwegian have the opportunity to use it when interacting with official bodies in other Nordic countries without being liable for any interpretation or translation costs. Like most of

16080-692: Was extradited to the Soviet Union and served 10 years as a prisoner of war before returning to Hessen in West Germany. While building the main military road for Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union, the so-called " Durchgangsstrasse IV " or Road of the SS from Lemberg to Donetsk , approximately 20,000 Jews were worked to death or shot dead in Nazi-occupied Poland. and 25,000 in German-occupied Ukraine, as well approximately 50,000 Soviet prisoners of war. The road

16214-676: Was first led by the SS , and under their direction mass executions were also carried out. When the Wehrmacht took over management of the Botn camp in October 1943, the conditions gradually improved. The conditions further improved when the Red Cross learned of the camps and several inspections were conducted. The Botn camp was one of five original prisoner-of-war camps in Northern Norway. The camp held prisoners from Yugoslavia ,

16348-402: Was going on. The prisoner that escaped was intercepted by Norwegian guards; when he understood that the attempt was unsuccessful he tried desperately to cut his throat with a lens from his glasses. The two Norwegian guards mistreated him so brutally that they kicked out one of his eyes and broke an arm. He was brought back to the camp, where he was kept for three days without food or water. Then he

16482-560: Was hanged in front of everyone. Those that took him down said he was bruised all over his body from punches and kicks. The next and last escape attempt that was made when the SS-Vaktbataljon was in charge of the camp was carried out by Svetislav Nedeljković (a.k.a. "Crazy Sveta"). This occurred on February 12, 1943 and was also unsuccessful. After it became known that a prisoner had escaped, extensive searches were carried out in all houses and buildings in Botn. The civilian population

16616-409: Was interrogated and accused of hiding the fugitive. After the Wehrmacht took over guard duties, Cveja Jovanović was one of the prisoners who managed to escape to Sweden. His book Flukt til friheten (Escape to Freedom) was published in Norwegian in 1985. The book describes his escape and also presents other escape attempts that were made from camps in Norway. Jovanović describes in detail the risk that

16750-445: Was issued by the SS that also rented slave labour and half-free labour to OT. OT subcontracted to German building companies and German engineers oversaw work of the more than 2000 km road. The survivor Arnold Daghani published his memoirs in 1960 in German translation, accusing companies like Dohrmann and others to have assisted SS, SD and auxiliary troops in the deliberate killing of slave workers. A two-decade-long process against

16884-452: Was not suitable for winter use, and the hygiene conditions were extremely deficient with much lice infestation. The largest and best-known camp in Saltdal was in Botn near Saltdal Fjord , about 2 kilometers (1.2 mi) from Rognan. The camp was set back from the other buildings in Botn, but was still close to the work and the fjord. Around Botn there are high mountains, and the areas to the east are bare deserted mountainous terrain. Before

17018-529: Was responsible for all road development in the occupied countries, and a sub-unit named Einsatzgruppe Wiking (the Viking Task Force) took responsibility for building the railroad between Mo i Rana and Fauske . The head of Todt Organisation for Norway was Willi Henne and the sub-division "Einsatzgruppe Wiking". The head of Einsatzgruppe Wikings road construction department, Hermann Hesse, wrote to Willi Henne, of June 1943 "that he had been informed by

17152-439: Was soft. A prisoner who buried the bodies told the Norwegian guard that around 77 prisoners were shot, and that their ages ranged from around 12 to 70 years. The corpses lay at one end of the grave. They were covered with only a thin layer of soil because more new prisoners were buried every day. The German SS guards said that the detainees were ill and were being executed to avoid infection. The Norwegian guard himself thought that

17286-430: Was standardised through instructions issued by Wirtschaftsgruppe Bauindustrie , the German construction industry association. Among the OT contractors were also construction companies in occupied Europe. French, Danish, and Norwegian companies contracted with German companies as sub-contractors for OT building projects. There were several kinds of contracts between OT and OT contractors. The most important were: In 1942

17420-404: Was struck in the face by him. When he was drunk he was completely out of control. 'Why didn't you take off?' people asked afterwards. I didn't know where I was, only the general direction, and around us there were snow, ice, and mountains everywhere." Christie notes that Kiefer certainly did not come from an insane asylum, but it is interesting as a characterization. Kiefer had a hammer forged with

17554-471: Was succeeded by Albert Speer as Minister of Armaments and Munitions, and de facto manager of the Organisation Todt. Despite Todt's death, the OT continued to exist as an engineering organisation and was given more assignments. At the beginning of 1943, in addition to its continuing work on the Atlantic Wall, the organisation also undertook the construction of launch platforms in northern France for

17688-435: Was the commandant at the Botn camp, was an exceptionally brutal man according to all witnesses. A young man from the Hirdvaktbataljon stated in an interview with Christie: "The Germans up there were insane. Kiefer was a devil like no other. He put his fist up in our faces when we arrived. We had to obey orders, otherwise we would be hanged immediately. Fifteen- and sixteen-year-olds lived only as long as they thought things were

17822-513: Was the security guards of the OT, whose mission was to maintain discipline and order among the foreign workers, as well as guarding the OT construction camps, buildings, and other property against enemy activities and theft. During marches the SK guarded the foreign workers in order to prevent escapes; the ratio of one SK-man per twenty foreign workers was used normally. Organisation Auxiliary field gendarmery Two special organisations existed within

17956-402: Was viewed as an odd character. He was recommended to fugitives who came from the prison camps. Among the people in Saltdal, it became an adage to say: "Send him to Båtskar!" when someone was in a difficult situation. Conditions at the camp improved when the Wehrmacht took charge at Easter 1943. Of the 472 prisoners who had arrived the camp, at least 302 had died. Thus, there were 170 prisoners in

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