The Secret Cold War: How Antarctica Became a Wartime Chessboard

Nature · Published 20 October 2026 · Updated 22 October 2026 Swipe more like this →

In short: While the world burned in the 1940s, a silent tug-of-war unfolded at the bottom of the globe. Nations scrambled to plant flags in the ice, driven by fears of naval raids, resource hunger, and the desperate need to secure territory before the maps were redrawn forever.

During World War II, Antarctica served as a theater for geopolitical posturing rather than direct combat. Nazi Germany initiated the Third German Antarctic Expedition in 1938, aiming to establish a whaling base in 'New Swabia' to secure whale oil and prevent reliance on Norwegian imports. This mission was a strategic move by Hitler to secure raw materials. The expedition was brief, lasting only from December 1938 to February 1939, and left no permanent settlements, despite the 16,000 aerial photographs taken by their Dornier Wal seaplanes.

The United States and Britain responded to these encroachments with their own initiatives. In 1939, President Roosevelt commissioned the United States Antarctic Service Expedition, led by Richard E. Byrd. This mission established two bases—East and West—to map the coastline and conduct polar science. However, as the war intensified, the U.S. evacuated these bases by early 1941. Simultaneously, Britain launched 'Operation Tabarin' in 1943. While publicly framed as a search for Nazi U-boats, it was secretly designed to establish a permanent British presence and deny the Kriegsmarine access to the Falkland Islands Dependencies.

The era was defined by overlapping claims and rapid expansion. Chile and Argentina both asserted new territories in 1940 and 1943, respectively, often overlapping with existing British claims. These tensions eventually paved the way for the 1950s transition toward the Antarctic Treaty, a cooperative framework that replaced the era's competitive secrecy with international scientific cooperation. Today, myths of massive hidden Nazi cities persist, but declassified documents confirm the German presence was limited to a single month of surveying in 1939.

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