Sunken WWII Relic Plundered in Norway

The battleship, namely the Norge, sank during an attack against Narvik harbor on April 9, 1940. The remains of the Norge lie at a depth of about 20 meters, in the middle of Narvik harbor. In recent years, numerous items from the ship, which has been granted protected status by the authorities, have been plundered by divers.

In 1999, it became forbidden to dive near the historic shipwreck, but after the temporary ban was lifted in 2014, the Norge started to attract divers in search of war-era artefacts. According to the Nordland County Council, numerous objects have been removed from the wreck using physical intervention, which was reported as looting.

"Although the city council is not directly responsible for the shipwreck, I look very serious at the looting. The county council has therefore chosen to report this offence to the police," Ingelin Noresjø, the county councilor for culture, environment and public health, told Norwegian national broadcaster NRK.

The county council is now looking at ways of preventing further looting and the destruction of the historic shipwreck in collaboration with Tromsø Museum, which is the administrative authority for the wreck, Narvik Municipality and the Directorate for Cultural Heritage.

Launched in 1900, the ship is over 100 years old and is thus protected by the Cultural Heritage Act. However, this alone has not been enough to keep the looters away. One of the measures now being considered is establishing a conservation zone around the wreck, previously accomplished around the German cruiser the Blücher, which was sunk by the Norwegian coastal defensive batteries in the Battle of Drøbak Sound on April 9, 1940.

Museum leader Ulf Erik Torgersen at Narvik Center pointed out that the wrecks are the final resting place of the fallen in World War II.

"In respect of the fallen, as well as the survivors who lost their relatives in Narvik harbor, the wrecks must be left in peace," Ulf Erik Torgersen told NRK.

The Norge was attacked by German navy vessels on April 9 in Narvik harbor, together with the Eidsvoll, and sank in a matter of minutes. 282 sailors lost their lives, and many of the bodies were never reclaimed from the sea.

While only leftovers remain from the Eidsvoll, the Norge still remains intact. The shipwreck is referred to by the municipality as a "very valuable cultural heritage, which is one of the most fateful WWII moments in Norway."

The German occupation of Norway began on April 9, 1940, after the German forces invaded the neutral Scandinavian country of Norway. During the German attack on Narvik, the Norge entered into the fray, but was unable to hit any of the German ships before being sunk by a salvo of torpedoes from the German destroyers. Following the sinking of the Eidsvold and the Norge, the commander of Narvik surrendered the land forces in the town without a fight. In the rest of the country, the conventional armed resistance to the German invasion ended on June 10, 1940, and the Germans then controlled Norway until the capitulation of German forces in Europe on May 8-9, 1945.