Second World War histories and archaeology in Northeast Greenland. In: H. C. Gulløv (ed): Northern Worlds – landscapes, interactions and dynamics, Research at the National Museum of Denmark Proceedings of the Northern Worlds ConferenceCopenhagen 28-30 November 2012 (original) (raw)
Related papers
In search of control: Arctic weather stations in the early Cold War
2016
Matthias Heymann discusses the importance of meteorological data from Greenland not only for the successful prosecution of the Allied war effort, but also for support of aviation—both civilian and military—during the Cold War. The US military established and expanded weather observation stations in Greenland during the war, but immediately after, Denmark sought to regain control of the weather stations and their observational data despite a scarcity of resources. However, the US military not only wanted to continue operating these stations, but to build a chain of Arctic weather stations in northern Canada and Greenland. Although Canada and Denmark could not say “no” to the USA, they did work hard to guard their sovereign interests. Investigating the role of Arctic weather stations as contested scientific, political, and military installations, Heymann argues that weather stations not only provided meteorological information—they served as symbols for sovereignty, political, and mil...
Exploring Greenland: Science and Technology in Cold War Settings
Scientia Canadensis: Canadian Journal of the History of Science, Technology and Medicine, 2010
This paper explores a vacant spot in the Cold War history of science: the development of research activities in the physical environmental sciences and in nuclear science and technology in Greenland. In the post-war period, scientific exploration of the polar areas became a strategically important element in American and Soviet defence policy. Particularly geophysical fields like meteorology, geology, seismology, oceanography, and others profited greatly from military interest. While Denmark maintained formal sovereignty over Greenland, research activities were strongly dominated by U.S. military interests. This paper sets out to summarize the limited current state of knowledge about activities in the environmental physical sciences in Greenland and their entanglement with military, geopolitical, and colonial interests of both the USA and Denmark. We describe geophysical research in the Cold War in Greenland as a multidimensional colonial endeavour. In a period of decolonization aft...
The northern review, 2023
Reviewed by Glenn Iceton During the onset of the Cold War, the Canadian and American governments engaged in a joint effort to establish weather stations in the High Arctic. Th ese developments occurred concurrently with increased American presence in the Canadian Arctic due to other military endeavours. With some exceptions, northern Canadian historiography examining this era has consequently been characterized by a focus on the American presence in the Arctic and associated sovereignty concerns on the part of the Canadian government. In Th e Joint Arctic Weather Stations, historians Daniel Heidt and P. Whitney Lackenbaur substantially broaden this scope of inquiry. While providing a nuanced analysis of sovereignty issues related to the establishment of Joint Arctic Weather Stations (JAWS)-and, in the process, challenging many previously-held assumptions-Heidt and Lackenbaur also provide numerous insights into the civilian components surrounding the establishment of the weather stations and the logistical challenges faced by planners and station personnel as they attempted to construct and maintain these stations in such harsh environments. Th is broad focus allows the authors to provide significant historiographical contributions not only to diplomatic history, but also to scientific and environmental history. The book is divided into nine chapters. Th e first four chapters are chronologically organized. Chapter 1 focuses on the lead-up to negotiations regarding the establishment of JAWS, setting the context of early meteorological and scientific research in the Canadian North as well as Canadian sovereignty concerns in the decades preceding the Cold War. Chapter 2 discusses the negotiations that ensued between Canada and the United States to allay the former's sovereignty concerns and pave the way for JAWS. The following two chapters discuss the logistics of establishing the first weather stations in the High Arctic and expanding the network of stations.
The Joint Arctic Weather Stations: Science and Sovereignty in the High Arctic, 1946-1972
University of Calgary Press, 2022
This is the first systematic account of the Joint Arctic Weather Stations (JAWS), a collaborative science program between Canada and the United States that created a distinctive state presence in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago from 1946-1972. These five meteorological stations, constructed at Eureka, Resolute, Isachsen, Mould Bay, and Alert, became remote hubs for science and sovereignty, revealing the possibilities and limits of modernity in the High Arctic. Drawing on extensive archival evidence, unpublished personal memoirs, and interviews with former JAWS personnel, this book systematically analyzes the diplomatic, scientific, social, environmental, and civil-military dimensions of this binational program. From the corridors of power in Washington and Ottawa to everyday life at the small outposts, The Joint Arctic Weather Stations explores delicate statecraft, changing scientific practices, as well as the distinctive station cultures that emerged as humans coped with isolation in polar environments.
2018
This dissertation discusses the material heritage of the German presence in Finnish Lapland during the Second World War (WWII), as seen through archaeological and multidisciplinary studies intitiated by the author in 2006. Over a decade of fieldwork, the research has evolved from a purely archaeological inquiry of the WWII materialities into an interdisciplinary survey of long-term perceptions of and engagements with the ruins and finds from the WWII. Since 2014 this has taken place within the project "Lapland's Dark Heritage: Understanding the Cultural Legacy of Northern Finland's WWII German Materialities within Interdisciplinary Perspective", funded by the Academy of Finland. The Nazi German presence as brothers-in-arms in northern Finland has been a debated, difficult and downplayed issue on multiple levels throughout the postwar decades. Until the past two decades there have been few historical studies on the subject, and even fewer archaeological enquiries. This study presents the first wider, problem-oriented and theoretically informed investigation about the archaeologies, materialities and heritage of the German WWII presence. However, even this work barely scratches the surface of this multifaceted subject and sets out future research directions.
Teillager 6, Sværholt: The Archaeology of a POW camp in Finnmark, Arctic Norway
Fennoscandia Archaeologica
This article presents the results of fieldwork undertaken over the last four summers at a World War II prisoner of war camp at Sværholt in northernmost Norway. The labour camp for Soviet prisoners was established in 1942 as part of the construction of the German coastal battery at Sværholt, a fortification within the Atlantic Wall. In late fall 1944 the camp, the coastal fort, and the local Norwegian hamlet were abandoned and destroyed in step with the massive and abrupt German retreat from this northern region. This paper describes the remains of the camp and the coastal fort, as still manifest in the barren landscape, and presents in detail the findings of excavations and associated investigations conducted in the camp area. Analysing these findings, particular emphasis is placed on the question of what an archaeological approach can divulge concerning the camp, its construction and conditions, and the ‘trivial’ details of everyday life often passed over by historical accounts. Ultimately, we suggest that the things found challenge our common assumptions about the relationship between prisoners, guards, and locals, and further discuss to what extent the forced encounter at Sværholt also may have included some measures of sympathy within the yet hostile context of war and occupation.