Kongsvinger Grepo HQ
About thirty kilometres from the Swedish border lies Kongsvinger which during the war was a hub in traffic between Norway and Sweden. Kongsvinger’s strategic location allowed the Germans to set up a local office for the border police (Grenzpolizei, Grepo) to monitor traffic. The head of Grepo was SS-Hauptsturmführer Heinrich Mathiesen and the office was located in Sparbanken building. In 1943, when the Norwegian resistance movement, MILORG, increased its activities in the area, Grepo was merged with the local Gestapo office.
Current status: Preserved (2022).
Address: 33 Gågata, 2211 Kongsvinger.
Get there: Walk from central Kongsvinger.
Follow up in books: Höhne, Heinz: The Order of the Death’s Head: The story of Hitler’s SS (1969).
The German border police (Grepo) is of course much less known than Gestapo, SIPO, SD, etc., but still part of the German police. The building are still there but nothing is mentioned about its history during the Second World War.