Though Sweden was able to maintain an official policy of neutrality during World War Two, the need for munitions became quickly apparent as fighting swept the continent. To that end, a series of secret production facilities were built deep within the forests of the Scandinavian country. These haunting photographs reveal the remains of an abandoned explosives factory, its vast caverns tunneled deep into the bedrock. Even today, their derelict innards remain home to various eerie wartime relics left behind more than 70 years ago.
(Image: AndreasS)
The classified industrial facility is understood to have been built around the time of the outbreak of World War Two, and remained active throughout the conflict. Operated under a blanket of official secrecy until 1945, it ran in conjunction with other propellant production facilities belonging to the likes of Swedish arms manufacturing company Bofors AB.
(Image: AndreasS)
Though the plant included a network of buildings above ground, the production of nitrocellulose propellant largely took place within this gloomy and intriguing underworld located deep beneath an undisclosed mountain. Unconfirmed reports suggest that a German reconnaissance plane came under fire from Swedish anti-aircraft guns, having strayed too close to the concealed complex at the height of the conflict. But the now-abandoned explosives factories continued to operate at full capacity, its veil of secrecy intact.
(Image: AndreasS)
Production of propellant stopped when the Second World War came to an end. For more than a decade thereafter the plant was maintained in working order should it need to be pressed back into service. It was later mothballed and finally decommissioned in the late 1970s.
(Image: AndreasS)
Though much of its production equipment was stripped out around this time, a variety of wartime relics still litter the abandoned explosives factory’s deep subterranean caverns. Mouldy gas masks and once top secret documents dating to the 1940s lie strewn around the broken remains of acid mixing baths, tiled vats and other laboratory apparatus in dark underground chambers measuring as much as 70 metres in length.
(Image: AndreasS)
The derelict shells of several surface buildings have also survived. But unfortunately this important piece of Sweden’s wartime history has reportedly deteriorated heavily over the past decade. Much of the facility has apparently been looted as vandals have moved in – similar to this abandoned Royal Observer Corps (ROC) post at Ponteland, England.
(Image: AndreasS)
Like so many once tightly guarded military production facilities that have fallen into dereliction in recent times, the abandoned explosives factory seems destined to remain at the mercy of the elements and the destructive nature of vandals – assuming that nobody moves in to preserve it before decay completely takes hold.
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