Lofoten War Memorial Museum


The Lofoten War Memorial Museum is an apolitical association and private World War II Museum in Svolvær that engages in informative work on the Second World War with particular emphasis on events in the Lofoten aera and Northern Norway. The museum opened on June 15, 1996 after long-term collection activities and planning by William Hakvaag and is part of Museum Nord.

Exhibits

The museum houses an unusually large and varied collection of uniforms and smaller items from World War II, both military and civilian. Many of these are related to well-known people and events in the war, such as a peaked cap belonging to Siegfried Wolfgang Fehmer and a jacket belonging to Ernst Weiner, both of whom worked for the Gestapo in Oslo, peaked caps belonging to General Carl Gustav Fleischer and Birger Eriksen, Josef Terboven's letter file, lanterns and a compass from Leif Larsen's boats, a lamp from the German battleship Tirpitz, and a case believed to have belonged to Eva Braun. The museum also displays curiosities and rare items from everyday life, such as cigarette packages and condoms, as well as Christmas decorations with a swastika. In 2008, Hakvaag purchased a painting that may have been painted by Adolf Hitler; the frame around this image hid four sketches of Disney cartoon characters signed "A. H." The museum also has a rich library of books, printed matter, and photos from the war.