Command Centre Bjorn: the conflict heritage of a Swedish Cold War military installation

Abstract

This text presents the results of a contemporary archaeological investigation of an important Swedish Cold War installation, Command Centre Bjorn. This centre was connected to the Air Force Attack Squadron and together with the coastal artillery and the navy it constituted a crucial part of the Swedish defence efforts during the Cold War period. The text also discusses questions concerning heritage processes, and it stresses that a contemporary archaeology approach can contribute with new insights into the Cold War and its heritage in Sweden, as well as canalize and offer guidance to the huge public interest in the material remains from this period in Sweden.

The Cold War in European museums – filling the ‘empty battlefield’

“…Transgressing these museological discussions, Wayne Cocroft and colleagues have emphasised the breadth of the material legacies of the Cold War, which 'went far beyond military installations, embracing or influencing many aspects of popular culture, science and technology, architecture, landscape and people's perceptions of the world' (Schofield and Cocroft 2007, 15; see also Cocroft 2007Cocroft , 2014. Discussions on Cold War heritage are especially vibrant in northern Europe, mainly because of the abundance of relevant sites there (Axelsson et al 2018;Farbøl 2015). Other work has tried to use the heritage sites for community projects that fill the empty sites of potential future battles with meaning and to relate this to the sounds, smells and feelings that these sites evoke today (Wilson 2007).…”

Identification and preservation of the Cold War sites in Italy

“…In particular, Sweden 2 was one of the first case in which the possibility to preserve these sites was studied already in the 1990s because of the massive demilitarisation and the need to decide what to do about several regimental museums voluntarily created by the military. Recently, a group of also Swedish researchers (Burstrom, Gustafsson, Karlsson, 2009, 2011Axelsson, et al, 2018) began working on the study of Cold War military sites, with an archaeological approach following the example of J. Schofield and W. Cocroft which have been working on comparisons between Eastern and Western bloc and transnational heritage trails. The used methods to record and interpret the Cold War era sites are architectural survey and photography, characterisation of the place to guide future management, recording to capture the "feel" of the place (Schofield, Klausmeiser, Purbrick, 2006).…”