Cold War Museum Fort Langeland

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In 1997 Denmark got its first cold war museum, Cold War Museum Fort Langeland. Since then the museum has expanded its activities and we are engaged in a lot of projects.

The exhibitions
Today the main exhibition is found in underground bunker complexes build in the 1950's. Here we exhibit the original operations/war room and one of the gun positions from where the Warsaw Pact mine sweepers would have been attacked in the attempt to sweep the mine field outside Fort Langeland.

The Planes
In the northernmost hangar you will find a Danish hunter of the type “Draken”. The aircraft was donated to the the to the museum by the Historical Collection of the Danish air force in Karup. It was brought to the museum in the spring of 2002. The aircraft is a Saab F-35 “Draken”, built as a hunter/bomber in Linköping by the “Svenska Aeroplan Aktie-Bolag (SAAB). In the shelter beside the Draken hangar you'll find a aeroplane of the type MiG 23 MF, The plane was produced in the Soviet Union in 1982. It was purchased in Poland in 2001 and transported by sea to Langeland. It had been stationed at a Polish airbase called Radzikowo near the city of Slupsk.

The Vessels
The museum has a Danish submarine, Springeren, as one of the main exhibits. But why did Denmark possess submarines in the first place? Submarines played an important part in the cold war. The superpowers had large, ocean going submarines which were capable of firing missiles with nuclear warheads. They were important for maintaining the balance of power; on the other hand, submarines were very effective for the quite extensive espionage and intelligence-gathering work that was so typical of that period. The mine sweeper MHV 81 Askø was built in 1941 for the Danish navy. In 1965 she was handed over to the naval home-guard and until she was decommissioned in 2005 this vessel served its country for a record breaking period during the cold war before she became a part of the cold war exhibition at Cold War Museum Fort Langeland.

STASI
From July 8th 2010 and until the end of October Cold War Museum Fort Langeland will present the travelling STASI exhibition of the German BStU. Hopefully a lot of visitors will get a rare insight about the STASI and its activities against the GDR population.

New Cold War exhibition
We have received funding for a new exhibition which will be finished for opening in 2012. In order to present new and interesting cold war items we have purchased a large and unique collection from a German collector. The collection gives a unique insight in the life in Eastern Europe

The Thunderflash exhibition
We have purchased one of the most historical planes in the entire Danish airforce. It is a Thunderflash RF-84 (C-651) and it took part in the surveillance flights over Danish waters and international water around Denmark before and during the Cuban Missile Crisis. It was Fort Langeland and the airforce planes that in April 1962 discovered Soviet ships with missiles on the deck. This was reported to the Americans.
We hope to raise more money in order to get the plane fully restored and placed in its own shelter!

Tarantul
A new attraction is on its way to the Cold War Museum Langelandsfort. It is a Soviet missile corvette of the “Tarantul”-Class, which the Museum has obtained free of charge from a museum in Peenemunde in the former GDR. A few formalities still remain to be fulfilled, before the contract with the present owners can be signed.

Other activities
Within a five-ten year we hope to find funding for a new and provocing museum building. It's a very ambitious project and we hope it will create some attention. We are members of the Baltic Network and work closely together with University of Southern Denmark (SDU).
www.sdu.dk/?sc_lang=en
We are also interested in expanding our network and team up with new cooperation partners.

The history of Fort Langeland
While upgrading the Danish Navy to reach NATO standards after the Second World War, it was decided to establish two coastal fortifications. The Stevnsfort was to control the southern reaches of the Øresund, whereas the Langelandsfort should control the Langelandsbelt. For this purpose, the estate “Holmegard” with about 90 ha was purchased. The available buildings were rebuilt into barracks. The buildings service of the Danish armed services was responsible for overall planning.
In case of war, the fort would have two duties: 1) To prevent alien fleet units from entering the Belt, 2) to protect the Danish minefields in the southern part of the Great Belt. For this purpose fFourteen large buildings were erected from reinforced concrete, together with:
• 4 gun-emplacements with crew accommodation and munitions rooms;
• 2 bunkers with diesel generators to provide emergency electricity;
• 1 command bunker and 1 fire-direction bunker;
• 6 anti-aircraft-artillery- and close-range defence batteries, each with a fire-direction tower and personnel- and munitions storage bunkers;
• 1 advanced fire-direction bunker on the coast to the east of the fort.

For more information, please visit www.langelandsfortet.dk/