German army coastguard searchlight site in Usi and border guard post in Kolka
Infrastruktūra

Foto: Miks Užans
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 Kolka, Talsu nov., Latvija
 +371 26469057
 Talsu TIC

No military infrastructure was planned in Cape Kolka, except for several offshore lighthouses that were rebuilt over a long period of time, either before World War I, during World War I or during World War II. Coastal defence batteries were planned for the narrowest part of the Irbe Strait, between the Sirves Peninsula and the Michael Tower Lighthouse.

The only fortifications of a military nature appeared at the end of 1944, when the German Army Group North was preparing to repel possible landings by the Soviet Baltic Fleet. In the spring of 1945, after the ice retreated, two batteries of the 532nd Artillery Division defended the coast at Cape Kolka. Battery 7 with four 75 mm guns and three 20 mm zenith guns. Battery 8 with four 88 mm mortars, three 20 mm mortars and an 81 mm mortar. The anti-deserter infantry garrison consisted of one of the most famous coastal defence units of the German Navy, the 5th Company of the 531st Artillery Division. Although it was an artillery unit by name, it was an infantry unit by deployment, which started its war in June 1941 at Liepāja. The unit was then garrisoned on islands in the Gulf of Finland and later took part in the fighting on the island of Saaremaa. The remnants of the division were reformed into one company and, reinforced with seven anti-tank guns and three 20 mm anti-aircraft guns, deployed at Cape Kolka.

The Soviet naval landing operation never took place and the German units capitulated in May 1945.

The military infrastructure in Cape Kolka began to be built after the Second World War, when Soviet border guard posts were deployed here and Kolka, like the entire Kurzeme coast from Mērsrags to the Lithuanian border, became a closed zone

Susijusi istorija

German army radar post in Ulmale

The German armed forces deployed radar stations in several locations, which allowed much earlier identification of enemy aviation activity in the Kurzeme area.

Kurzeme coast - closed area

During the Cold War, the entire Kurzeme coastline was a closed zone to the public - Soviet border guards were the main decision-makers here, with guard posts at certain distances and observation towers with spotlight stations on the beach. Civilians were only allowed on the seafront during daylight hours.

Kolka Coast Guard observation tower

The border guard tower is hidden in the last pines of the Cape of Kolka, where the border guard post was constantly located during the USSR and the small masonry wall next to it is now abandoned and destroying destiny.

 
About Kolka coast border guards

Kolka resident Valija Laukšteine's memories of the times in Kolka when there were border guards.