Military Service (Page 17 of 20)

        I don't believe this, you managed to pick the one book/movie about Finlands wars that I absolutely loath!!!!         
Oh boy!

Let me elaborate on this; It is probably the war book that I have read the most of times. What I hate about both the book, and the movies, is the legendary status as the "Official Story" of not only about Finlands wars, but also about the Finnish Male and leadership it has been afforded here in Finland. The writer who wrote that book, was well known for his socialist sympathies, and his attitudes are very much evident also in the text of the Unknown Soldier. His description of both the fighting men in that war as well as of the front line leadership in the army are both false and border on the slanderous. But he was and is very popular among the cultural elites and press, so his writing is always dug up, when ever there is an article in the news paper or a panel discussion about Finnish leadership. It is a f*****g story about imaginary situations, with imaginary people in a historical time. Most of it is unreal, so why do people treat it like it's some sort of gospel!!!?  Anyways, as a war novel, it is entertaining, so I have read it about dozen times since I learned to read, it just is not about real war or real Finnish soldiers.

I have no real opinion on the latest version because I haven't seen it yet.... but by all accounts it should be quite nice as a war flick.

Oh, and about the S-Union not attacking F if G attacked SU, I would not make that assumption. Because, like I already said, it has been proven with Soviet documental evidence, that there were already orders and plans in place at the Leningrad Military District by the end of 1940 to attack Finland, both in case of German attack and in case if Gemany stays out of war.

Last edited by 0073 (6th Nov 2018 13:48)

As far as I have understood the latest research on the situation, is that it was pretty much a pressure from Germany. To be fair there were a strong sentiment, that the Moscow Peace Treaty was nothing short of a robbery, so when Germany presented the chance  to get it all back (with interest) it didn't take too much of a persuasion. Some folks just wanted the old border back, some people dreamed of liberating Karelia and there were also those that dreamed of "The Great Finland" and total destruction of the bolshevik regime in Russia. But, a deciding factor was probably the fact that Finlands supply routes were completely cut off, either by Germany, or by Russia.
The fact that Swedes had trade routes was pretty much thanks to the steel trade and laundering of nazi gold (Christoph Graf 27.Jan.1997), was in no way indicative that Finland could have done the same, since operation Barbarossa already had a role for Finland to play.
For a quite long time, there was a theory called "Driftwood Theory", that explained Finlands participation in operation Barbarossa as something that we were not really willing to do, but we were caught up in the struggle of the super powers and had no choice in the matter. This is not entirely honest approach, and current view is more like that Finland took an proactive stance to defense because of 1) German pressure 2) The offered opportunity and 3) The apparent threat that existed from the Soviet side. Initially, when Germany launched their attack 22nd June, Finland did proclaim neutrality, but by the time Barbarossa had picked up steam in 25th of June soviets bombed all Finnish industrial centres and major cities, which prompted the Finnish parliament to declare war.
And the rest is history.

As a side note on espionage, we are AJB:ing here after all:

I'm currently reading a book about the spying incidents in Finland after the wars, and it is a sobering read. Finlandization plays a major part in it, for an example, for a long time Finnish Security Police didn't pursue journalists, politicians, industrialists or civil servants who kept close contact with DDR or Soviet intelligence operatives, for the reason that it was deemed as "keeping up the foreign relations". Because of this SUPO was considered as hostile service in the west and they were kept out of Club de Bern for a long time. The real counter espionage work was done by the military GHQ investigative services, which in turn were loathe to share any information with civilian law enforcement because of the certainty of leaks and lack of prosecution.

It was part of the gambit to get Finland to participate in the Operation Barbarossa. Remember, Finland was in pretty poor shape already after the winter war.

Don't worry about it, it only makes strategic sense. It's the same thing with the Finlands possible NATO membership; there is a lot of talk about whether we should join or not, but nobody stops to ask if NATO wants the long border with Russia that it has defend in case of war.
Now that you started to talk about the "Finest Hours"; I saw a report/whitepaper once from the '60s or '70s, that speculated with the possibilities to defend against a Soviet attack. One of the suggested courses of action was to infiltrate Russia and to start a terror campaign against civilian population. Pretty much the same that the Tchetchens did back in the '90s.

There are no sources directly saying that "Germany black mailed Finland", but the situation was that after winter war, UK had approached Finland with suggestion that Finland would limit its contact and trade with Germany in exchange to exclusivity in UK foreign trade. But after Germany occupied Denmark and attacked Norway, UK cut immediately all shipments and traffic to the Nordics as well as the negotiations with Finland.
After this there really was no possibility of "Scandinavian Security" option. Next went France and that meant that Finland could not get support from the west. SU occupied the Baltic states, and that left us only with Petsamo as the only trade route that was not controlled either by the Germans or The SU.
In April Finland and Germany started political trade negotiations, but before this could be started we had to switch the lead negotiator, because Germans opinion of the then chairman of the Finnish delegation Axel Solitander was that he was too anglophile. He was replaced with Rainer von Fieandt, who convinced the Germans that negotiations with the west were really just a mistake.
When in the summer of 1940 the Russian pressuring of Finland was all the time increased, it was interpreted to mean a clear and present threat against Finlands independence and democratic values. The government with the wide support of the popular opinion sought to close us with Germany to get political support in the situation. The trade deal was struck in the July '40 and Germany became Finlands most important trade partner.
In December 1940 Finland started negotiations with Germany over the forming of the Finnish-Swedish union (which was promptly rejected), but also about wider support from Germany. According to the diary of the chair of the Finnish delegation in Saltzburg, Berlin and Helsinki during the summer '40 general Erik Heinrichs, the working hypothesis was always that Finland would end up in the war as the result of a Soviet assault, also according to the then minister of trade and industry Väinö Tanner, there were no official political or military agreements. There were however discussions about what kind of strategic plans would have to be followed in case of the Soviet attack.
And then 22.6.1941 Germany attacked Soviet Union, and SU started bombing of Finland, which brought us into the war.

P.S. Please please do not ask anymore of these questions, I have had to abbreviate all of this quite a lot, so I'm afraid that I will give the wrong impression somewhere here. To quote Miranda Frost; I think you "got the thrust of it", but to get the perfect sense of all this you would need to find a quality research in English or Norwegian. Like I said earlier, anything from Ohto Manninen will do!

Last edited by 0073 (8th Nov 2018 14:01)

Funny coincidence; I read about this in the news and then watched this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6tRdRcabGw&t=0s        , isn't that the same ship? There isn't a clear sight of the hull number...

Living in the northern hemisphere I find it cute how some militaries consider cold weather capabilities as something "special"...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cv1dvWu5LlQ

Then again, this summer here in Finland, there were newspaper reports about concerned parents demanding a halt to military training of their poor sons who were in the service because of the excruciatingly hot, above +20°C weather     

Now that's a beast to lug around the fjords and the mountains!!!