To this day, there still exists a substantial amount of barbed wire in the Norwegian environment. For example, one newspaper article mentions the removal of about 10–20 metric tons of barbed wire from [an Axis] fort on Merraneset in Namsos in 1991 (Røed 1991).
As mentioned in the introduction, the municipality of Tromsø has an active clean-up initiative today for a “barb-free wilderness.” From the war until the present day, the archives of local Norwegian newspapers demonstrate the lingering presence of barbed wire. There is not a decade without articles mentioning the issues and presence of barbed wire from the war (Steinsvik 1946; Sør-Varanger Avis 1954; Finnmarksposten 1968, 2; 1974, 4; 1981, 5; Beddari 1992; Grønvik 2001; Kristensen 2015; Lian 2021).
[…]
Even if barbed wire is designed as a “non-lethal” obstacle for humans, not to say that is always true, it is not uncommonly the cause of death and suffering of animals. Because material heritage is ecological in one sense or another (Farstadvoll 2021), the things we leave behind always impact its environment, both negative and positive (Farstadvoll 2019a, 93).
The impact barbed wire has on animals is a topic that regularly appears in local Norwegian newspapers, from immediately after the war’s end until the present day. Interestingly, I have had very little success finding mentions of people being hurt by [Axis] barbed wire, but animals are another story.
Domestic animals, like sheep and cows, getting hurt are the most common. For example, cows often got wounds in their udders from barbed wire hidden in grass and bushes (Finnmarksposten 1962, 4). For wild animals, the effects are probably more hidden.
Even in the research literature about the impact of barbed wire on wildlife, there are few systematic observations on the number of animals being hurt and killed; mostly, it is acknowledging what kind of animals that are getting hurt and how (see Allen and Ramirez 1990; van der Ree 1990; Bevanger and Henriksen 1995, 11).
(Emphasis added.)
A Norwegian friend of my mother told her that she has seen this, too. ‘Norway is peppered with WWII cannon outposts on the coast, and around these there was a lot of barbed wire. Molde […] had a lot of these.’
As lurkers will know, this is not the only way that the Fascists are wreaking havoc from their graves. See the mines in Finland and the unused chemical weapons in Germrany for more examples.
[Positive note]
Articles in local newspapers and other sources tell a story in the post‐war years where civilians had to organize the clean‐up themselves through collective efforts such as dugnad (for closer definition, see Magnani et al. 2021, 5–6). This work included everything from the Scouts and 4‐H youth organizations (Falnes 2000, 50) to political youth organizations like the Workers’ Youth League and the Communists’ Youth League (Iversen 2011, 101).
Although they only cleaned up a portion of it, I still find it poetic to see present‐day communists mopping up messes left by the Axis. It isn’t the same thing as partisan warfare, but you’ll be fighting Fascism all the same!