NSAA Ice Palace

The Ice Palace or Führer-bunker was a fictional former-Soviet military bunker utilised as the headquarters, and planning control command post, of Konrad von Glöda and his National Socialist Action Army (NSAA). The isolated facility was located in Russia approximately 10-12 km (6-7 miles) east of the Finnish border. It appeared in John Gardner's 1983 James Bond continuation novel, Icebreaker.

Appearance

Likely dating from the late 1930s, the so-called "Ice Palace" was a refurbished Soviet bunker on the Russian side of the Russo-Finnish Border. Unaware of his true intentions, the Soviet authorities had allowed von Glöda to use the bunker: ostensibly for mineral prospecting. Under the control of the NSAA it became their headquarters in the region and a major staging point for the smuggling of arms and munitions stolen from Red Army bases. It was renovated over the course of six months by teams brought in from South America, Africa, and England. Accessed through a pair of huge, white-camouflaged doors in the side of a slope, it was a highly symmetrical structure of steel and concrete with a large and active underground complex. The complex was divided into two areas: one for vehicles and stores, the other a vast honeycomb of living quarters which could accommodate approximately a thousand people. On the surface, an airfield was concealed among the trees to service light aircraft and von Glöda's jet. Discovering the site's illicit activities, and at the behest of the KGB's Nicolai Moslov, the site was completely demolished by Russian military aircraft.