Tank Firing Range at Trandumskogen

The tank firing range at Trandumskogen is one of the most striking and unsettling WWII remnants in Norway. Built by the German occupation forces during the Second World War, the structure was designed as a training facility for tanks and heavy weapons. It consists of a roughly 300-metre-long corridor formed by tall reinforced concrete walls, spaced at intervals with firing openings, ending in a solid earthen and rock backstop.

The construction served several purposes. It functioned as a controlled shooting range, reduced noise from tank exercises, and prevented stray shells from travelling beyond the area. Its location, however, places it within a far darker historical context. Trandumskogen is nationally known as the execution site where 194 people were executed and buried in mass graves by the German occupiers between 1941 and 1944.

The tank firing range itself was not the execution site, but it played an indirect role in concealing the sound of gunfire from executions carried out elsewhere in the forest. Today, the remaining concrete walls create a cold, almost cathedral-like ruin in the woods. The site stands as a stark reminder of how military infrastructure and systematic murder coexisted side by side during the occupation.