Re: Military Service
Now now, play nice. 1st of all, to say that Soviet Union would have left us alone, when Germany had occupied Norway and Denmark, is conjecture at best. Before operation Barbarossa, SU had already made further territorial demands, as well as demands for the right to use Finnish rail system for troop movements. There was also the attack order for the occupation of Finland given to the Leningard Military District, that was dated 18th september '40 in case of a new war. 25th november '40 it was clarified with order for the situation that Finland was the lone party in that possible war.
After this The Finland affairs were transferred under the jurisdiction of the Main Directorate of Security under Peoples Commissariate of Internal Affairs (GUGB) . Russia started to organize troops for attack on their western border on Finland and Vjatseslav Molotov went to Berlin to secure permission from The Reich for the occupation of Finland.
Hitler said no, since operation Barbarossa was already in the books.
So you see, there was no "Swedish Alternative", with German strangle hold on the Baltic sea routes and growing Soviet hostility we were in the bind. There was no choice. To simplify and say anything else, with time honed 20/20 hind vision.... well it just is not something that I would advocate.
There was a real hard push in Finland after the war, especially in '60s and '70s, from Soviet friendly politicians and scholars to make it look like, that the continuation war was our own fault, and even they couldn't really show convincingly that there had been a real alternative.
2nd Like I said, we were politically on the loosing side, but we were not occupied and we fought our own fight... Like the old joke says, if Soviet Union was the Winner of the war, Finland came in second.
P.S. If there ever would be a chance to get your hands on a book by Finnish historian Ohto Manninen called "Miten Suomi Valloitetaan" or "How To Conquer Finland", I recommend it immensely. Written 2008 it was the first book of it´s kind that utilized previously closed and secret Kremlin archives. These archives included, for example the detailed Russian attack plans and relevant orders from the 1940.
Last edited by 0073 (6th Nov 2018 12:01)
-Mr Arlington Beech