Stützpunktgruppe Hirtshals

The Danish city of Hirtshals was heavily fortified by the Germans during World War II. In the summer of 1941,“Strongpointgroup Hirtshals” was equipped with two gun batteries, each with four captured French 105 mm. guns. Initially, they were in open ring positions, but later were installed in fortified casemates, with a corresponding command bunker and several munitions bunkers.

One gun battery was south of the harbor, by the lighthouse, and the other to the east of the harbor. To protect the two batteries, several defensive fortifications were built with anti-tank weapons, anti-aircraft guns and trenches for point defense, all surrounded by minefields, barbed wire, tank traps and pillboxes. By the harbor, an amplifier station was built to support the telephone connections between Denmark and Norway.

Today there is a museum in the southern gun battery and most of the other bunkers are scattered amongst residential housing and between industrial buildings.