Norwegian saboteur who stopped Nazi nuclear plans dies at age of 99
A Norwegian resistance fighterwho sabotaged nazi germany’ s nuclear weapons ambition s during World War Two has died at the age of 99.
Saboteur Joachim Roenneberg headed a five-man team that daringly blew up a plant producing heavy water, depriving the Nazis of a key ingredient it could have used to make nuclear weapons.
Norwegian prime minister Erna Solberg described Roenneberg, who died on Sunday, as “one of our finest resistance fighters”.
Ronneberg fled Norway after
the Nazis invaded in 1940. The then 21-year-old escaped with eight friends by boat to Scotland, but was determined to return and fight. He was tapped by the Special Operations Executive – Britain’s war- time intelligence gathering and sabotage unit – at the age of 23 to destroy key parts of the heavily guarded plant in Telemark in southern Norway in a raid in February 1943.
Parachuting on to snow-covered mountains, the group was joined by a handful of commando soldiers before skiing to their destination. They then penetrated the fortress-like heavy-water plant to blow up its production line.
Roenneberg said he made a last-minute decision to cut the length of his fuse from several minutes to seconds, making sure the explosion would take place, but making it more difficult to escape.