German Arctic Weather Stations During WW II
Accurate Weather Reports and the Strategic Bombing Campaign
Oct 6, 2009
When the war began the BBC stopped broadcasting weather reports. This was just one of the daily inconveniences of living in wartime Britain, but it denied a valuable resource to the Germans. The series of systems which create the weather fronts which sweep across the British Isles and into continental Europe are born high in the north Atlantic and the arctic. To predict the weather in Europe, observations have to be made at the source, in Greenland, Spitzbergen and the arctic islands north of Russia and Norway.
Germans Establish Weather Stations on GreenlandBeing able to predict the weather was one of the elements which allowed planners in Britain to direct the strategic bombing of Germany, and not having that information made it difficult for the Germans to predict raids and counter them. This information was of such importance that both the Kriegsmarine and Luftwaffe made repeated efforts to establish manned and automatic weather stations in the arctic in areas nominally under the control of the allies.
Although the Americans were well established on the west coast of Greenland and there was a constant stream of bombers flying over the island to bases in the United Kingdom, the Germans tried to locate manned and automatic stations on the east coast of the island. Teams of up to twelve men were transported by small freighters or U-boats from Norway. They brought with them prefabricated huts, food and fuel for at least a year, weather balloons, recording apparatus, radios, batteries, guns, ammunition, mines and musical instruments. The stations were carefully camouflaged and the teams settled into a routine of twice daily atmospheric observations, the results being broadcast in short burst transmissions to Germany.
The Americans were aware of the German presence. They could hear the broadcasts even if they were unable to accurately triangulate their source, but they did engage in threatening counter-broadcasts. It was the Greenland Sledge Patrol which located and destroyed some of the stations, followed by US Coast Guard landings which finally destroyed the remainder.
German Automatic Weather Stations
Station Haudegen on Spitzbergen
The best known of the Spitzbergen stations was Haudegen on Nordaustlandet which operated from September 1944 to September 1945 when the station surrendered to the Norwegians four months after the end of the war. It was not only the last German manned station but the best known, with its daily life meticulously recorded and photographed by its leader Wilhelm Dege. His account of that year in Spizbergen was edited and republished in English as, War North of 80 by William Barr. In an interesting twist, Wilhelm Dege's son accompanied a Norwegian museum expedition to the remains of Haudegen in 1985. The station's buildings were still standing and the expedition was able to recover diaries, scientific papers as well as rifles which had been cached before the surrender.
Station Kurt in Labrador
One of the automatic stations was discovered almost intact on the northern coast of Labrador in 1981. Station Kurt had been landed from a U-boat but it only broadcast for a short time before falling silent. Almost forty years later it was recovered and sent to the Canadian War Museum for restoration and display.
Sources:
DEGE, Wilhelm and BARR, William (Ed.): War North of 80, the Last German Arctic Weather Station of World War II, University of Calgary Press, 2004.
HOWARTH, David: The Sledge Patrol, a WWII epic of Escape, Survival and Victory. Lyons Press, 2001.
DOUGLAS, W.A.B. : The Nazi Weather Station in Labrador. Canadian Geographic Magazine Vol.101, # 6, Dec 1981/Jan 1982.
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