The University of Bergen is a research-intensive state university located in Bergen, Norway. The university today has over 4,000 employees and 18,000 students. It was established by an act of parliament in 1946 based on several older scientific institutions dating back to 1825, and is Norway's second oldest university. It is considered one of Norway's four "established universities" and has faculties and programmes in all the fields of a classical university including fields that are traditionally reserved by law for established universities, including medicine and law. It is also one of Norway's leading universities in many natural sciences, including marine research and climate research. It is consistently ranked in the top one percentage among the world's universities, usually among the best 200 universities and among the best 10 or 50 universities worldwide in some fields such as earth and marine sciences. It is part of the Coimbra Group and of the U5 group of Norway's oldest and highest ranked universities.
Cap Arcona, named after Cape Arkona on the island of Rügen, was a large German ocean liner and the flagship of the Hamburg Südamerikanische Dampfschifffahrts-Gesellschaft. She made her maiden voyage on 29 October 1927, carrying passengers and cargo between Germany and the east coast of South America, and in her time was the largest and quickest ship on the route.
The Commando Order was issued by the OKW, the high command of the German armed forces, on 18 October 1942. This order stated that all Allied commandos encountered in Europe and Africa should be killed immediately without trial, even if in proper uniforms or if they attempted to surrender. Any commando or small group of commandos or a similar unit, agents, and saboteurs not in proper uniforms who fell into the hands of the German forces by some means other than direct combat, were to be handed over immediately to the Sicherheitsdienst for execution.
HMS Cossack was a Tribal-class destroyer named after the Cossack people of the Russian and Ukrainian steppe. She became famous for the boarding of the German supply ship Altmark in Norwegian waters, and the associated rescue of sailors originally captured by the Admiral Graf Spee. She was torpedoed by the German submarine U-563 on 23 October 1941, and sank four days later.
Missing in action (MIA) is a casualty classification assigned to combatants, military chaplains, combat medics, and prisoners of war who are reported missing during wartime or ceasefire. They may have been killed, wounded, captured, executed, or deserted. If deceased, neither their remains nor grave has been positively identified. Becoming MIA has been an occupational risk for as long as there has been warfare.
The Altmark incident was a naval incident of World War II between British destroyers and the German tanker Altmark, which happened on 16–17 February 1940. It took place in what were, at that time, neutral Norwegian waters. On board the Altmark were some 300 allied prisoners, whose ships had been sunk by the pocket battleship Graf Spee in the Southern Atlantic Ocean. British naval forces cornered the tanker and later the destroyer Cossack attacked the German ship near the Jøssingfjord and freed all the prisoners, killing eight German seamen with firearms and wounding ten others, five of them seriously. A British and a Norwegian sailor were also seriously wounded in the action. Germany claimed that the attack was a grave violation of international law and of Norwegian neutrality.
Mørsvikbotn or Mørsvik (Norwegian) or Murgosvuodna or Murgos (Lule Sami) is a small village located in the north part of Sørfold Municipality in Nordland county, Norway. The village sits at the end of the Mørsvikfjorden arm of the Nordfolda fjord. The European route E6 highway passes through the village. The lakes Mørsvikvatnet and Sildhopvatnet are located northeast of the village. Mørsvikbotn has a school, a grocery shop, Mørsvikbotn Chapel, an aquaculture co-op, and a few camping sites.
Vardøhus Fortress is located in Vardø Municipality in Troms og Finnmark county, Norway. It is located in the town of Vardø on the island of Vardøya on the Barents Sea near the mouth of the Varangerfjord in northeastern Norway near the Russian border.
MS Rigel was a Norwegian vessel built in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 1924. The ship was used as a German prisoner of war (POW) transport during World War II, and was sunk by British Fleet Air Arm aircraft off Norway on 27 November 1944 with more than 2,500 dead, mostly POWs.
The Vefsnfjord or Vefsnfjorden is a fjord in the Helgeland traditional district of Nordland county, Norway. It is about 51 kilometres (32 mi) long, reaching a maximum depth of about 440 metres (1,440 ft) below sea level. The fjord flows through the municipalities of Alstahaug, Leirfjord, and Vefsn.
The German War Graves Commission is responsible for the maintenance and upkeep of German war graves in Europe and North Africa. Its objectives are acquisition, maintenance and care of German war graves; tending to next of kin; youth and educational work; and preservation of the memory to the sacrifices of war and despotism. Former head of the Bundeswehr Wolfgang Schneiderhan was elected President of the organisation in 2016, succeeding SPD politician Markus Meckel. The President of Germany, currently Frank-Walter Steinmeier (SPD), is the organisation's patron.
West Ham Jewish Cemetery is a cemetery for Jews in West Ham in the London Borough of Newham, England. It was established in 1856 by the New Synagogue on Great St. Helen's, soon joined by the Great Synagogue in Duke's Place, both of them London congregations.
In the years following World War II, large numbers of German civilians and captured soldiers were forced into labor by the Allied forces. The topic of using Germans as forced labor for reparations was first broached at the Tehran conference in 1943, where Soviet premier Joseph Stalin demanded 4,000,000 German workers.
Sigve Tjøtta is a Norwegian mathematician.
Ravensbrück was a German concentration camp exclusively for women from 1939 to 1945, located in northern Germany, 90 km (56 mi) north of Berlin at a site near the village of Ravensbrück. The camp memorial's estimated figure of 132,000 women who were in the camp during the war includes about 48,500 from Poland, 28,000 from the Soviet Union, almost 24,000 from Germany and Austria, nearly 8,000 from France, and thousands from other countries including a few from the United Kingdom and the United States. More than 20,000 of the total were Jewish. More than 80 percent were political prisoners. Many prisoners were employed as slave labor by Siemens & Halske. From 1942 to 1945, The Nazis undertook medical experiments to test the effectiveness of sulfonamides.
Tjøtta is an island in Alstahaug Municipality in Nordland county, Norway. The 11.3-square-kilometre (4.4 sq mi) island lies at the entrance to the Vefsnfjorden, just south of the island of Alsta. The U-shaped island is relatively flat, and the highest point is the 77-metre (253 ft) tall Kalvberghaugen, just east of the village of Tjøtta. The island has two main villages on it: Tjøtta and Svinnes. The Norwegian County Road 17 crosses the island and it connects it to the neighboring islands of Offersøya and Alsta by two causeways.
Royal Naval Cemetery is a cemetery on the Isle of Portland, Dorset, England. The site overlooks Portland Harbour, and is found below the main entrance to the Verne Citadel. As the name suggests, the graveyard holds deceased servicemen and officers of Portland's Royal Navy which was stationed at the island until 1995. The cemetery holds 140 identified casualties in total to date, and is owned by the Ministry of Defence.
Tjøtta Russian War Cemetery on Tjøtta has more than 7,500 war graves, mostly Russians who were taken prisoners by Nazi Germany. The Soviet prisoners of war who died in North Norway during World War II were buried in ordinary cemeteries. After the war, however, the Norwegian authorities decided that they should be moved and brought together in a common cemetery on state ground at Tjøtta. The cemetery was consecrated in 1953 and comprises an enclosed common grave to the north with 6,725 dead, and 826 individual graves to the south.
Stalag Luft II was a Luftwaffe-run prisoner-of-war (POW) camp during World War II, in Łódź, in the occupied territory of Poland.
