Coins of Norway 25 Krone Silver Coin 1970 25th Anniversary of Liberation
Commemorative issue: 25th Anniversary of Liberation
Obverse: Profile portrait of King Olav V and his father King Haakon VII of Norway.
Lettering: HAAKON VII · OLAV V · ALT FOR NORGE · ØH.
Engraver: Øivind Hansen.
Reverse: Royal Monograms of King Haakon VII of Norway & King Olav V of Norway.
Lettering: 7H FRIGJØRINGEN 8 · MAI 1945 25 KRONER 1970 AB.
Engraver: Øivind Hansen.
Edge: Plain, repeated pattern of circles and rectangles.
Value: 25 Kroner.
Metal: Silver (.875).
Weight: 29 g.
Diameter: 39 mm.
Liberation of Norway May 1945
Lapland War, Soviet advance, and retreat of the German army
With the beginning of the German withdrawal from Lapland, the initial German plan was to retain the essential nickel mines around Petsamo in the far North held by the 19th Mountain Corps under General Ferdinand Jodl, but events led to the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht ordering the entire 20th Mountain Army out of Finland to take up new defensive positions around Lyngen and Skibotn just to the north of Tromsø — a new operation which came to be called "Operation Nordlicht" (Operation Northern Light). This proved to be a huge logistical undertaking. General Lothar Rendulic, replacing General Eduard Dietl, who had been killed in an air crash, set about evacuating supplies by sea through Petsamo and the Norwegian town of Kirkenes.
In early October 1944, some 53,000 men of the German 19th Mountain corps were still some 45 mi (72 km) inside Russia along the Litsa River and the neck of the Rybachy Peninsula. The plan was for them to reach Lakselv in Norway, some 160 mi (260 km) west, by 15 November. By 7 October however, the combined Soviet 14th Army and Northern fleet, consisting of some 133,500 men under Field Marshal Kirill Meretskov, attacked the weakest point of the German line, the junction between the 2nd and 6th Mountain Divisions.
A Soviet Naval Brigade also made an amphibious landing to the west of Rybachy, thereby outflanking the Germans. Rendulic, fearing an encirclement of his forces, ordered the 19th Mountain Corps to fall back into Norway. With the Soviets hard on their heels, the Corps reached Kirkenes by 20 October. The German High Command ordered Rendulic to hold the Soviets at bay whilst vital supplies amounting to some 135,000 short tons (122,000 t) could be shipped to safety. Five days later, when the German army prepared to withdraw, only around 45,000 short tons (41,000 t) had been saved.
As a result of the German scorched earth policy, Kirkenes was virtually destroyed by the Germans before pulling out: the town was set on fire, port installations and offices were blown up and only a few small houses were left standing. This scene was to be repeated throughout Finnmark, an area larger than Denmark. The Germans were determined to leave nothing of value to the Soviets, as Hitler had ordered Rendulic to leave the area devoid of people, shelter and supplies. Some 43,000 people complied with the order to evacuate the region immediately; those who refused were forced to leave their homes. Some nonetheless stayed behind to await the departure of the Germans: it was estimated that 23,000-25,000 people remained in East-Finnmark by the end of November, they hid in the wilderness until the Germans had left.
The Soviets pursued the Germans over the following days, and fighting occurred around the small settlements of Munkelv and Neiden to the west of Kirkenes around 27 October. The German 6th Mountain Division, acting as rear-guard, slowly withdrew up the main road along the coast (known as Riksvei 50, now called the E6) until reaching Tanafjord, some 70 mi (110 km) north-west of Kirkenes, which they reached on 6 November. It was to be their last contact with Soviet troops.
However, the advancement of the Soviet troops stopped and West-Finnmark and North-Troms became a no man's land between the Soviet army and the German army. Here, several thousand people lived in hiding the whole winter 1944/45. These people were called cave people. They lived in caves, in huts made of driftwood and/or turf, under boats turned upside down, etc. The risk of being discovered by patrolling German boats was a constant threat during the months waiting for liberation.
Exiled Norwegian troops liberate Finnmark
On 25 October 1944, the order was given for a Norwegian force in Britain to set sail for Murmansk to join the Soviet forces now entering Northern Norway. The envoy was named Force 138 and the operation was called "Operation Crofter".
Led by Oberst Arne D. Dahl:
A military mission responsible for creating a liaison with the Soviets and setting up a civil administration,
Bergkompani 2 under Major S. Rongstad with 233 men,
A naval area command with 11 men,
"Area command Finnmark" consisting of 12 men.
The force arrived in Murmansk on November 6 and went with a Soviet ship to Liinakhamari in North-western Soviet Union (former North-eastern Finland), from where trucks took them to Norway, arriving on November 10. The Soviet commander, Lieutenant General Sherbakov, made it clear that he wanted the Norwegian Bergkompani to take over the forward positions as soon as possible. Volunteers from the local population were hastily formed into "guard companies" armed with Soviet weapons pending the arrival of more troops from either Sweden or Britain. The first convoy arrived from Britain on 7 December and included two Norwegian corvettes (one of which was later damaged by a mine) and three minesweepers.
It soon became obvious that reconnaissance patrols needed to be sent out to discover what the Germans were up to and to find out if the local population to the West had been evacuated or were still there. The reports came back stating that the Germans were in the process of pulling back from Porsanger but were laying mines and booby-traps along the way, a few people were left here and there and many of the buildings were burnt down.
This remained the situation as 1944 slipped into 1945. The new year would see the Norwegian forces slowly taking back a battered Finnmark, helping the local population in the bitter arctic winter and dealing with occasional German raids from the air, sea and land as well as the ever present danger from mines. Reinforcements arrived from the Norwegian Rikspoliti based in Sweden as well as convoys from Britain. A total of 1,442 people and 1,225 short tons (1,111 t) of material were flown in by Dakota from Kallax in Sweden to Finnmark and by April the Norwegian forces stood at over 3,000 men. On 26 April the Norwegian command sent out a message that Finnmark was free. When the Germans finally capitulated on 8 May 1945, the 1st company of the Varanger battalion was positioned along the Finnmark-Troms border to the west of Alta.
German capitulation and end of occupation
Towards the end of the war, in March 1945, Norwegian Reichskommissar Josef Terboven had considered plans to make Norway the last bastion of the Third Reich and a last sanctum for German leaders. However, following Adolf Hitler's suicide on 30 April, Hitler's successor Admiral Karl Dönitz summoned Terboven and General Franz Böhme, Commander-in-Chief of German forces in Norway, to a meeting in Flensburg, where they were ordered to follow the General headquarters' instructions. On his return to Norway, General Böhme issued a secret directive to his commanders in which he ordered "unconditional military obedience" and "iron discipline".
On 5 May the day that German forces in Denmark surrendered, General Eisenhower dispatched a telegram to resistance headquarters in Norway, which was passed on to General Böhme; it contained information on how to make contact with Allied General Headquarters.
Dönitz dismissed Terboven from his post as Reichskommissar on 7 May, transferring his powers to General Böhme. At 21:10 on the same day, the German High Command ordered Böhme to follow the capitulation plans, and he made a radio broadcast at 22:00 in which he declared that German forces in Norway would obey orders. This led to an immediate and full mobilisation of the underground resistance movement known as Milorg – more than 40,000 armed Norwegians were summoned to occupy the Royal Palace, Oslo's main police station, as well as other public buildings. A planned Norwegian administration was set up overnight.
The following afternoon, on 8 May, an Allied military mission arrived in Oslo to deliver the conditions for capitulation to the Germans, and arranged the surrender, which took effect at midnight. The conditions included the German High Command agreeing to arrest and intern all German and Norwegian Nazi party members listed by the Allies, disarm and intern all SS troops, and send all German forces to designated areas. At this time there were no fewer than 400,000 German troops in Norway, which had a population of barely three million.
Following the surrender, detachments of regular Norwegian and Allied troops were sent to Norway, which included 13,000 Norwegian troops trained in Sweden and 30,000 British and American troops. Official representatives of the Norwegian civil authorities followed soon after these military forces, with Crown Prince Olav arriving in Oslo on a British cruiser on 14 May, with a 21-man delegation of Norwegian government officials headed up by Sverre Støstad and Paul Hartmann, with the remainder of the Norwegian government and the London-based administration following on the troopship Andes. Finally, on 7 June, which also happened to be the 40th anniversary of the dissolution of Norway's union with Sweden, King Haakon VII and the remaining members of the royal family arrived in Oslo. General Sir Andrew Thorne, Commander-in-Chief of Allied forces in Norway, transferred power to King Haakon that same day.
Following the liberation, the Norwegian government-in-exile was replaced by a coalition led by Einar Gerhardsen which governed until the autumn of 1945 when the first postwar general election was held, returning Gerhardsen as prime minister, at the head of a Labour Party government.
Norwegian survivors began to emerge from the German concentration camps. By the end of the war 92,000 Norwegians were abroad, 46,000 of whom were in Sweden. In addition to the German occupiers, there were 141,000 foreign nationals in Norway, most of them prisoners of war who had been held by the Germans but who were now liberated. Of these, 84,000 were Russians.
A total of 10,262 Norwegians lost their lives either during the war or while they were imprisoned. Approximately 50,000 Norwegians were arrested by the Germans during the occupation. Of these, 9,000 were consigned to prison camps outside Norway, including Stutthof concentration camp.