World War II-era Finland was all over the shop. First, she was fighting against the
**pre-**Allied-power USSR, then against the Allied-power USSR with the Germans, and then
against the Germans. No doubt you've heard of open-relationship Finland before, though much of
the focus tends to be on the Winter War, in which the Finns first fought the Soviets. In this video,
we're going to shed a little light on Finnish and German World War II-era relations instead.
Now, we do have to talk a little about the Winter War, as this is what put Finland on her back foot
and turned her head towards Germany. Long story short, Joseph Stalin threw as many as 760,000
Red Army soldiers at Finland in the hopes of stealing a whole chunk of her territory which
bordered the USSR. Stalin ultimately got what he wanted — and some — but this came at a high price.
Around 381,000 Soviets became casualties of the Winter War, in exchange for Finnish
casualties of 70,000, and the Soviet Union's friendly Bolshevik rep was deeply tarnished.
As one unnamed Red Army general put it, "We have won just about enough ground to bury our dead."
Black and blue, the Finns knew the "peace" which followed their concession of Finnish territory to
the Soviets would be brief, and they also knew they hadn't the steam to fight the Soviets all
over again when the war inevitably continued. So, in the lead up to the German invasion of the USSR,
the Finns forged a naughty relationship with the Germans and were grateful for all the guns and
fuel and ALDI hampers the Germans offered them. In return, the Germans gained a springboard from
which they could launch their assault on northern Russia, as well as valuable shipping waters,
among other things. When the ashes of the Winter War turned once more to flames, the
Finns were backed by the Wehrmacht, and they went on the offensive — at least for a little while.
From the 25th of June 1941, the so-called Continuation War raged for just under three
years and three months. In this time, the Finns sustained 225,000 casualties, the Germans 84,000,
and the Soviets as many as 944,000. Though, it was only in the first
several months of this war that the Finns pushed back the Soviet lines.
After they had reclaimed the territory they lost in the Winter War and taken a sneaky bit extra,
namely East Karelia, they dug in, and the Continuation War devolved into a period of
trench and unconventional warfare which lasted until the Vyborg–Petrozavodsk Offensive.
It wasn't all beers and *bratwurst* in combined Finnish and German operations, however.
In Operation Silver Fox, for example, the Finns and Germans sought to take the Port of Murmansk
from the Soviets, and this turned out to be an expensive failure. The Germans were ill-prepared
for the Arctic fighting which ensued, sustaining more than 21,500 casualties, while the Finns took
only around a quarter as many. This likely made the Germans question just what they were doing
all the way up there in the cold while Operation Barbarossa was in effect in the heart of the USSR.
Additionally, the Finns weren't all that keen to answer Hitler's call and lay
waste to the Russian city of Leningrad — or, at least, they have done a good job hiding it. While
the Finnish lines certainly closed Leningrad off from the north, Finland's cooperation with
Germany's two-year-and-four-month siege on the city is debatable.
Some historians believe Finland supported Germany's starvation of the city, while
others believe the Finns simply held their defensive lines. The excellently moustached
Finnish Commander-in-Chief Baron Mannerheim, however, said that "Leningrad was not [their]
goal and that [they] should not take part in it," much to the displeasure of Hitler.
After Operation Barbarossa hit a wall, the Soviets aimed over 450,000 soldiers,
10,500 artillery pieces, 800 tanks, and 1,600 aircraft at Finland, itching to take back the land
they had been playing tug-of-war over for years, and knock Finland out of the war. This offensive
was aforementioned Vyborg–Petrozavodsk Offensive or Karelian Offensive, and while the Finnish
defenders predicted they would be unable to stave the Soviets off for more than a matter of months,
Finnish President Risto Ryti told Germany that Finland would fight alongside Germany
to the bitter end, so the Germans kept up the ALDI hampers. Unfortunately for Ryti,
he was discarded and subsequently replaced by moustachio Mannerheim,
who negotiated for peace with the Soviets in the Moscow armistice.
As part of this, Mannerheim agreed to stick his boot up Hitler's butt-flap and eject the Germans
from his country. As it turned out, however,the Germans weren't too hot on leaving Finland,
whose soldiers they had come to know as their brothers in arms. What ensued was the Lapland War.
At the start, the Germans withdrew relatively peacefully, but then the Soviets turned up
the pressure, forcing the Finns to chase the Germans out with their tails between their legs.
Between the 15th of September 1944 and 27th of April 1945, the Finns sustained more than
3,900 casualties ejecting their former allies with violence, killing or wounding around 3,000
Germans and taking a further 1,300 as prisoners of war. Much of this conflict took part in the
Lapland region of northern Finland, where the Germans employed scorched earth and land mine
strategies to delay their Finnish pursuers. All in all, they destroyed 14,900 buildings, accounting
for between 40 and 46% of the region's property, and set at least 1,142,000 mines, cartridges, and
other explosives — bear in mind that this number accounted for just the explosives the Finns found
and demined over the next few decades. Talk about leaving a place "better" than how you found it.
While we've covered the Winter, Continuation, and Lapland Wars, we haven't yet paid any attention to
Finland's participation in German war crimes and atrocities. Just to be clear, Finnland
had nothing on Romania, but some Finns got up to some questionable stuff throughout their alliance
with the Nazis. Just last year, the Finnish government commissioned the National Archives
of Finland to produce an investigative report on over 1,400 Finns who served under the 5th SS
Panzer Division Wiking between 1941 and 1943. These men — while supposedly unsympathetic to
Nazi ideology — were volunteers assigned to the SS division in an effort to appease Heinrich Himmler,
who had demanded the same of some of Germany's other allies. The Wiking division took part in
Operation Barbarossa, and the Finnish National Archive director-general said, "It is very likely
that [the Finnish volunteers] participated in the killing of Jews, other civilians and prisoners of
war as part of the German SS troops." One of such men was the infamous Lauri Törni, who fought not
only in the Finnish Volunteer Battalion but also the Finnish Army and the SS throughout the war,
and for the Americans in the Vietnam War after that — an interesting story in itself.
While this isn't quite on the same scale, the Finns also turned over 2,916 Soviet POWS to the
Germans in exchange for 2,714 Finnish POWs the Germans had been holding. While around 2,000
of the Soviet POWs ended up fighting *for* the Germans in the Russian Liberation Army,
the rest likely yielded to the terrible conditions and violence of Nazi concentration camps.
Lastly, the Finns also let the Germans hold Soviet POWs in Finland, where they undertook forced
labour. The Finns held Soviet POWs too, and, interestingly, Soviet death rates in German camps
in Finland were around 20%, while Soviet death rates in *Finnish* camps were around 10% higher.
What we must acknowledge is that Finland *never* signed on as an Axis power,
and it also managed to keep its armed forces from falling under the German command structure.
Despite this, Finland *was* deemed an ally of Nazi Germany at the end of the war. Heavy
war reparations were imposed upon the nation, and an area near its capital city, Helsinki,
remained under Soviet control until 1956 — before which time industrious old Finland
had already paid off its monetary debts. What is also interesting is that there was *never*
an official peace agreement between Finland and Germany; it just sort of... fizzled out.
But what do you think? Were you aware of Finland and Germany's romantic relationship before this?
Do you think Finland allying with Germany in the first place was a reasonable thing to do?
Please share your thoughts in the comments.