Finland

[Keaney Michael <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

Shane Mage wrote:

>Not to mention one "democratic" European country
that was allied with the Nazis throughout virtually the entire
war--Finland.

Not for as long as the one "socialist" country was, that is true.

Finland was attacked by the Soviet Union in December 1939. Despite the
Molotov-Ribbentrop pact Stalin et al. suspected the true intentions of the
Nazis and sought to cover their flanks by acquiring from Finland the
Karelian isthmus and the coastline of the Barents Sea. Having refused Soviet
demands troops crossed the border fully expecting to push the Finns aside
and greet the Swedish border guards on completion of their task. Instead
they got a rude awakening in guerrilla warfare, arguably giving them the
necessary fright to prepare them for the blitzkrieg.

Because of the costly lack of progress, the Soviet Union was forced to
compromise -- not that the Finns would have guessed it, ceding a tenth of
their territory. Thus, when Barbarossa was launched in 1941 Finland took the
opportunity to take back its ceded land. This it did, and no more.

Where it gets complicated is when the government, against the wishes of
Mannerheim, accepted the offer of a German division, no doubt fearing that,
on their own, the Finns were not in any position to hold out against any
counterattack.

By 1944, with the Soviet army repelling the Nazi invaders it was able to
resume hostilities with the Finns, driving them back once again to the lines
at which the 1940 truce was called. The Finns sued for peace, and, in
addition to colossal "reparations" to be paid to the Soviet Union, including
the ceding of Karelia (with prime farm land) and the Barents coastline,
agreed to disarm the German division. The Germans promptly went on the
rampage throughout Lapland, and it took several months for the Finnish army
to subjugate it. Even today there are still bitter folk memories of the
Germans in the north.

Finland did not have the happy choice of neutrality during the war, nor did
it have the option of "containing" either the Nazis or the Soviet Union, as
did the British and French prior to September 1939.

Michael K.