Open Access“Railroad of Death”: History and Archaeology of the German-built Second World War Hyrynsalmi–Kuusamo Railway 1942–1944
Author(s) -
Oula Seitsonen,
Mari Olafson Lundemo
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
tekniikan waiheita
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2490-0443
pISSN - 0780-5772
DOI - 10.33355/tw.103303
Subject(s) - german , world war ii , first world war , history , state (computer science) , spanish civil war , archaeology , economic history , ancient history , computer science , algorithm
During the Second World War the frontal responsibility of northern Finland was held by German troops, who carried out large building projects to enhance the poor infrastructure of this peripheral region. This paper focuses on one of the biggest infrastructure projects performed by the Wehrmacht and Organisation Todt in Finland during the Second World War. The Hyrynsalmi-Kuusamo railway was to be built through a challenging landscape, by people who constantly overestimated their own abilities, and at the great expense and suffering of the workers who were mostly prisoners-of-war and forced labourers. Besides their own contemporary memories and experiences from this event, this construction project and its physical traces live in the local memories and have become part of the transgenerational heritage and remembrance of the war years. Using the wartime construction of the track as a starting point, this study goes on to map the heritage value, archaeological potential, and the state of research related to this German wartime project.