Hitler’s Secret City

My podcast today is about the huge secret city Adolf Hitler and his master architect Albert Speer planned to build on the Trondheim Fjord. A secret city?! Well, obviously it wasn’t a secret for the inner circle of Nazis around Hitler. But the plans to build New Trondheim were kept a closely guarded secret from Norwegians – from the people in whose land it was planned to become the largest conurbation. And why did the Nazis keep plans for the new city on the Trondheim Fjord secret from Norwegians? Well, they weren’t going to be allowed anywhere near it! Only Germans would be invited to relocate to the new fabulous cultural capital in the north – they were to become the New Vikings! Hitler planned for an opera house and a huge gallery, and wished to be the patron of New Trondheim.

CONTACT
Twitter: @northbynorway
Email: northbynorway@gmail.com

EPISODE PHOTO
On an island in the Oslo Fjord, huge blocks of granite still lie where they lay after the war. They have been expertly sculpted – ready to be shipped to Berlin for Hitler’s Victory Monument, and north to the fabulous secret city, New Trondheim.
Photo: Andrew J. Boyle

THANKS TO
Actor Solveig Boyle for her vocal contributions.

LINKS & SOURCES
Despina Stratigakos
Hitler’s Northern Utopia: Building the New Order in Occupied Norway
Princeton University Press, 2022

https://www.tekniskmuseum.no/grossraum
https://medium.com/heritage-times/sognefjord-a-poetic-natural-masterpiece-bc65a9a42a5f
https://www.riksantikvaren.no/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Store-Råholmen-fredningsdokumentasjon-1.pdf
https://www.dagsavisen.no/demokraten/kultur/2009/10/24/lyn-fredet-for-a-unnga-haerverk

MUSIC
00:00 North by Norway
written on GarageBand by Andrew J. Boyle, using the Norwegian folksong ‘I Ola-dalom, i Ola-tjønn’

03:20 Rustle of Spring
Christian Sinding

11:15 Oseberg
Andrew J. Boyle

Music performed on GarageBand by Andrew J. Boyle