Nordstern (city)

The new city and base would give Germany unprecedented maritime control over the North Atlantic area, a move strongly supported by Großadmirals Erich Raeder and Karl Dönitz.

Prior to the outbreak of war, the retired Vizeadmiral and naval strategist Wolfgang Wegener had already long stressed the strategic benefits that acquiring bases along the Norwegian coastline would give Germany.

[2] These and other motivations—such as Swedish iron ore shipments from Narvik—led the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (Armed Forces High Command; OKW) to classify the possession of Norway in general and Trondheim in particular as strategically vital to the German war effort.

[6] Preparatory work on the possibility of turning the bay around Trondheim into a new German naval base was already started at the Führer Headquarters before the project was officially commissioned by Hitler in 1941.

[7] On 1 May 1941, Speer received the necessary information on the spatial and structural requirements for a large shipyard from Vizeadmiral Werner Fuchs [de] of the Oberkommando der Marine (Naval High Command; OKM).

It was supposed to provide living quarters for about 300,000 German inhabitants (more than three times the size of 1940s Trondheim), and for this purpose 55,000 residential houses were to be built on an area of approximately 300 hectares (1.2 sq mi).

[2] During the Nuremberg Trials, it was admitted that Hitler intended to retain not only Trondheim, but also numerous other maritime cities such as Brest and Cherbourg in France as German exclaves (Festungen, i.e. "strongholds") for the Third Reich, similar to the Soviet military base temporarily established in the Finnish town of Hanko after the Winter War.

Together with other cities and island chains in both Europe and Africa, it was to form part of a string of German military bases that would span the entire Atlantic coastline from Norway all the way to the Belgian Congo.

[2] This was to assist Germany with the re-establishment of a large overseas colonial domain in Central Africa known as Mittelafrika, and was also intended for both offensive and defensive operations against the Western Hemisphere, specifically the United States.