KURT SCHWITTERS ON THE LOFOTEN ISLANDS - A FORGOTTEN CHAPTER

(excerpt)
GWENDOLEN WEBSTER

On April 9, 1940, Germany invaded neutral Norway. For most Norwegians, the war had seemed a far-
distant affair until now, and this unforeseen offensive caught both government and military utterly off
guard. The Allies, likewise unprepared for such a swift and multi-pronged assault, launched a
disarrayed counter-attack, but were forced to retreat ever farther north in the face of a massive
onslaught from Hitlers air, sea and ground forces. In Lysaker, overlooking Oslo harbour, Kurt
Schwitters made agitated plans to flee with his son Ernst and daughter-in-law Esther, capturing their
plight in breathless verse that characteristically blends the grave and the banal.

Do you hear the machine gun?

Dont forget the toothbrushes

Over a thousand kilometres away, the villagers of the remote Norwegian community of Kabelvg, on
the Lofoten Islands, hurriedly prepared for air raids, constructing underground shelters and planning
fire drills. At first their precautions were makeshift. Civil defence operations were directed from the
premises normally used by the police to cool off drunks, then moved to more congenial quarters in the
tiny local theatre. Air raid wardens were posted on the church tower, but as the weather improved they
abandoned it in favour of a more strategic position on the nearby height of Stor-Nakken. At first the
church bells were used as air raid warning signals, but as they were not audible to the whole
community, they were subsequently replaced by the fire alarm. Later an ingenious metalworker rigged
up a bizarre contraption of foghorns that sounded like the bleating of a herd of monstrous goats; no-
one missed that. For sixty-two fraught days, the residents of Kabelvg awaited the outcome of the
invasions, well aware that theirs was a vulnerable location. British war-ships regularly called at the
nearby port of Svolvaer, with its huge oil depot, spies were reputed to be housed in the local
Tremastringen jail, and a succession of fierce battles raged out to sea. Whenever the air raid alarms
sounded, the adults froze, then dived into the shelters, while children who managed to escape their
parents grasp scurried to the hills overlooking Vestfjord to marvel at the spectacle of German bombers
attacking Allied warships and naval artillery blasting fountains of fire into the sky in retaliation.

In mid-May, the prevailing mood of unease was exacerbated when a small band of bedraggled
Germans were escorted into the local Vgan Folkehgskole. From now on, the school was to serve as
an internment camp for a motley company of enemies or friends? who, in those confused days, could
possibly tell one from the other?

The complete article is available free to members of the Kurt Schwitters Society
http://www.kurtschwitterstoday.org/join.html or can be requested at a price of 10 Euros (or
equivalent) plus postage.