59°52′16″N 8°29′29″E / 59.87111°N 8.49139°E / 59.87111; 8.49139
Vemork is a hydroelectric power plant outside the town of RjukaninTinn MunicipalityinTelemark county, Norway. The plant was built by Norsk Hydro and opened in 1911, its main purpose being to fix nitrogen for the production of fertilizer. At opening, it was the world's largest power plant with a capacity of 108 megawatts (145,000 hp).[1]
Vemork was later the site of the first plant in the world to mass-produce heavy water developing from the hydrogen production then used for the Haber process. During World War II, Vemork was the target of Norwegian heavy water sabotage operations. The heavy water plant was closed in 1971, and in 1988 the power station became the Norwegian Industrial Workers Museum.
A new power plant was opened in 1971 and is located inside the mountain behind the old power plant.[2]
In 1906, the then newly founded Norsk hydro-elektrisk Kvælstofaktieselskab started construction of what was to be the world's largest hydroelectric power plant. The 108-megawatt (145,000 hp) Vemork power station at the Rjukan Falls was the world's largest power plant when it opened in 1911, after four years of construction.[1] The project was so expensive that the works had to be financed by overseas sources. The plant became the corporate precursor to Norsk Hydro. Ten 6-megawatt (8,000 hp) T/G sets were supplied by Voith and AEG (units 1–5) and Escher Wyss and Oerlikon (units 6–10).
In 1911, construction was complete. The plant itself, was built to power a factory producing artificial fertilizer by a new method invented by Kristian Birkeland. Later, Norsk Hydro developed and realized another project: the production of heavy water by means of electrolysis. The company built a unit for producing high concentrations of heavy water at the Vemork plant at Rjukan, although for what purpose was not stated. Production started in December 1934.
In 1940, the French Government purchased the entire stock, then available, of heavy water from Norway. The Germans had also offered to purchase it, but the Norwegian Government was told of its possible military use and gave it to a French agent, who smuggled it to France via England. That supply eventually went back to England. (see Tube Alloys#Paris Group)
During the German occupation of Norway in World War II, the production of heavy water was judged to be a serious enough threat that at least five separate attacks were launched[3] in order to prevent the Germans from making an atomic bomb.
It was later discovered that the Germans were not as close to making an atomic bomb as had been initially feared.
Today, the original power plant is an industrial museum. Its exhibitions cover both the heavy-water sabotage operations and the early Norwegian labor movement.
A Norwegian movie about the sabotage operation against the heavy water power plant was made in 1948, starring several of the original saboteurs, titled Operation Swallow: The Battle for Heavy Water (USA).[4]
In 1954, a non-fiction account of the operation by one of its operatives, Knut Haukelid, Skis Against the Atom, was published by Willian Kimber, later revised by Fontana Books in 1973, and then by North American Heritage Press in 1989.
In 1965, director Anthony Mann made a rather less accurate film version of the story entitled The Heroes of Telemark,[5] starring Kirk Douglas and Richard Harris.
In 1975, a non-fiction book by Thomas Gallagher called Assault in Norway was published by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.[6] The book's cover states that the book is "the true story of the secret mission that blasted Hitler's dream of an atomic bomb."
Swedish metal band Sabaton put the song "Saboteurs" on the Coat Of Arms album in 2010 which tells the story
In 2003, British survival expert Ray Mears made a BBC documentary series and book called The Real Heroes of Telemark[7] giving a more realistic view of the difficulties encountered in the mission to sabotage the heavy-water power plant.
In 2015, Håkon Anton Fagerås made a statue in bronze of Joachim Rønneberg on commission. It was unveiled by Princess Astrid in Ålesund. [8]
In May 2016, a book by Neal Bascomb, The Winter Fortress: The Epic Mission to Sabotage Hitler's Atomic Bomb, was published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.[9] Bascomb also wrote a young adult book, Sabotage: The Mission to Destroy Hitler's Atomic Bomb, published May 2016 by Arthur A. Levine Books.[10]
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