Czechoslovaks in German uniform and Norwegian society during WW II

This project takes its outset in the approximately 13 000 Wechmacht soldiers who were conscripted in Czechoslovakia. The aim is to scrutinize the national composition of the Wechmach soldiers in Norway and Finland.

In the enemy Uniform

„Non-German” Wehrmacht soldiers in uniform.

The war is already fading into the mists of history, and so are its witnesses—much like these two soldiers, who seem to vanish symbolically into the morning fog. Their faces are obscured, with only their silhouettes visible against the sun. Yet the distinctive shape of their helmets is so deeply ingrained in our memory that, even after many decades, they immediately identify them to today’s observer: they are German soldiers in Adolf Hitler’s army.
But who are these two unknown men on the morning watch?;

Enemies?

Occupiers?

Nazis?

Soldiers of a hostile army?

Ordinary people in uniforms?;

Strangers on our land?

The Wehrmacht was a uniformed behemoth. But were all soldiers in German uniforms truly the same? Were they all Nazis? Were they all enemies and perpetrators? Weren’t some of them less hostile? And were they even all Germans?

This exhibition highlights that citizens of the occupied lands were also conscripted into the Wehrmacht, placing them in a “grey zone” between occupiers and the occupied. It corresponds to the larger Grey Zones Project developed at NTNU, which challenges Norway’s traditional black-and-white narratives of the occupation.

Learn more about Czechs in the Wehrmacht