To regain the lands occupied by the Russians, Finland made a deal with the devil (i.e. Hitler). But in return, it almost lost its state. The story of a failed revenge

The USSR was not going to leave the Finns alone after the Winter War

A week before the start of World War II, in August 1939, Germany and the USSR signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. According to its secret protocols, Finland, along with the three Baltic states, fell into the Soviet zone of influence.

During the Winter War of 1939-1940, the Soviet Union failed to completely occupy Finland. But the Baltic states were easier to conquer. In the summer of 1940, the USSR occupied Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia with almost no resistance. It installed puppet governments there and soon incorporated these countries into its own as Soviet satellite republics.

Almost immediately after the occupation of the Baltics, the Kremlin began to blackmail the Finns. The head of the USSR Foreign Ministry Vyacheslav Molotov demanded the right to develop nickel deposits in the Petsamo region on the northern coast of Finland.

Later, he began to demand the removal of all military bases from the Åland Islands in the Baltic Sea and permission for Soviet troops to transit through the country. And then it got to the point that Moscow tried to interfere in Finnish domestic politics.

It demanded more preferences for local communists and demanded the resignation of influential Finnish politicians who took an anti-Soviet position. During a visit to Berlin in the fall of 1940, Molotov openly stated that the USSR planned to solve the "Finnish question" according to the "Baltic scenario".

Until 1939, Finland spent a minimum of money on military needs, stayed out of conflicts and, in case of need, hoped for the support of the League of Nations and its neighbours from Northern Europe. The Winter War with the USSR showed that this policy was a failure. Now the Finns had no illusions and decided to rely on their own forces.

After signing the humiliating peace in Moscow in March 1940, the Finnish government declared national defense its main priority. The Finns began to rearm and modernize their army. They established both their own production and the purchase of weapons abroad. Now half of Finlandʼs state spending went to military needs.

How Finland became closer to Germany

After the Winter War, the Finns distrusted the Germans, rightly considering them allies of the USSR. Therefore, Finland initially tried to come to an agreement with Hitlerʼs European opponents. In particular, it concluded a military trade agreement with Britain.

However, everything ended quite quickly in April 1940, after Germany invaded Denmark and Norway. Then the British interrupted all trade and transport ties with the countries of Northern Europe.

After the Blitzkrieg in Western Europe in May-June 1940, Germany became the main power on the continent. So the Finns began to cautiously establish diplomatic relations with the Germans. This was in Hitlerʼs hands.

After all, in the summer of 1940, he began planning an attack on the USSR, so he considered Finland as a potential ally. Already in August, the Germans began to sell weapons to the Finns. And in September, Finland allowed the transit of German troops through its territory.

In December, the Germans informed the Finns that they were going to attack the Soviet Union. Neither the newly elected President of Finland Risto Ryti, nor the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces Carl Gustaf Mannerheim hid their intentions to get even with the Kremlin. However, they put forward a number of conditions for the Germans to participate in the war. These were guarantees of Finlandʼs independence and the supply of food and weapons.

The Finns were going to return to the borders of 1939. And most importantly, they were ready to start hostilities only if the Soviet troops attacked them first.

In general, the Finnish government distanced itself as much as possible from the official status of an ally of Nazi Germany. In particular, the Finns never signed the Tripartite Pact. And in general, throughout World War II, they officially referred to Germany as "a party with which they are conducting joint military operations".

In the spring of 1941, in order to prevent Finland from rapprochement with Germany, the Soviet leadership switched from demands and blackmail to “gestures of goodwill”. Stalin told the Finnish ambassador in Moscow that he “sincerely sought to establish good-neighborly relations”.

That he was no longer against Finland’s rapprochement with neighbouring Sweden. He even offered to donate 20 000 tons of grain, given the crop failure in Finland.

But it was too late. In early June 1941, German troops arrived in northern Finland. On June 18, the Finns carried out a secret mobilization, and within two days, Finnish troops approached the border with the USSR and urgently evacuated civilians from the border areas.

Finnish soldiers go to the front, summer 1941.

sa-kuva.fi

Finnish field kitchen, summer 1941.

Getty Images / «Babel'»

Finnish soldiers cross the Soviet border, established following the Winter War, during an offensive in the summer of 1941.

Wikimedia / «Бабель»

The first successes and the main strategic miscalculation of the Finns

At first, everything was going well for Finland. On the very first day of the German invasion of the USSR on the Eastern Front, June 22, 1941, Soviet aircraft began bombing Finnish cities.

On the morning of June 25, the Soviet command launched an even larger air strike. On the same day, at a meeting of the Finnish parliament, the start of a “defensive campaign in response to a renewed attack by the Soviet Union” was announced.

Now the Finnish army was much better armed. Therefore, by the end of August 1941, it had liberated all the territories occupied by the USSR as a result of the Winter War. At first, the Finns stopped at the borders of 1939 and assured other countries that they would not go further, but would switch exclusively to defense.

It got to the point that the Soviet leadership even withdrew several divisions from the area on the Karelian Isthmus, from where, in the event of a breakthrough, the way to Leningrad would open.

However, the Finns then made a strategic miscalculation. Even during the planning of the operation, part of the political and military leadership, including President Ryti and Commander Mannerheim, were sure that the Soviet Union would quickly collapse. So they thought about "collecting Finnish lands" within the borders of Greater Finland. In the fall of 1941, Mannerheim gave the order to attack East Karelia.

To the international community, primarily the British, such actions were explained solely as “reaching more advantageous defensive lines in the fight against Bolshevism”. Churchill spent several months persuading Mannerheim in personal letters to stop. But he replied with excuses.

The Finns stopped the offensive only on December 6, 1941 — the day after Britain officially declared war on them. By this time, the Finns had reached Lake Onega in East Karelia, capturing the cities of Petrozavodsk and Medvezhogorsk. Active hostilities on the Finnish-Soviet border ceased until the summer of 1944.

The 1939 invasion caused discontent in the parliament, the army, and Finnish society in general. The government even had to announce partial demobilization, but this did not relieve the tension.

The publicʼs confidence was falling, and even the top army leadership was divided. Not to mention the ordinary soldiers, who did not particularly like being occupiers.

Finland is caught between a rock and a hard place

After Hitler was bogged down near Moscow in late 1941, it became clear that there would be no quick victory over the USSR. After the German defeat at Stalingrad in February 1943, the balance of power in the World War II had changed completely. That same month, the Finnish parliament declared that Finland had the right to withdraw from the war at any time it wished.

However, this was not so easy to do. On the one hand, the USSR immediately put forward more stringent conditions for an armistice than after the Winter War, and the British continued to bomb military facilities in Finland. But Hitler, of course, did not like such statements either.

He stopped the supply of weapons and provisions to the Finns and threatened to occupy the entire country. In the fall of 1944, the already weakened Finnish army had to drive the Germans out of its northern province of Lapland.

This resulted in significant destruction. After all, the Germans, retreating, used "scorched earth" tactics.

The United States was the only major power in the anti-Hitler coalition that did not declare war on the Finns. In 1943, the White House even offered diplomatic mediation to get Finland out of the war. But the Finns rejected the offer, because at that time they still hoped to negotiate directly with the Kremlin on more or less acceptable terms.

But the USSR was not going to soften its demands on Finland. Having received another refusal, Stalin launched a counteroffensive on the Finnish positions in June 1944. The Soviet troops were stopped approximately at the line that Finland held at the end of the Winter War.

At the end of August 1944, President Ryti resigned along with the government. The new Finnish authorities had to resume peace negotiations and agree to the Kremlinʼs terms. The new Moscow Armistice was signed on September 19, 1944. The day before the signing, the new Finnish Prime Minister Antti Hakkel suffered a stroke, from which he never recovered and was forced to retire from politics.

Finland now lost even more territory than it had after the Winter War, including the mineral-rich northern region of Petsamo. It had to lease the Porkkala peninsula, just 30 km west of the capital Helsinki, for Soviet military infrastructure. It had to pay reparations of $300 million. And of course, the Finns had to expel the Germans from their territory. Fulfilling this condition led to the Lapland War.

In addition, the USSR received the right to interfere in the internal affairs of Finland. It achieved an improvement in the positions of the Finnish Communist Party. Also, under the control of the commission for compliance with the agreement headed by the Soviet Union, trials were held in Finland against "those responsible for starting the war".

Former President Risto Ryti, former Foreign Minister Väinö Tanner and five other government officials received prison terms. But Mannerheim not only escaped punishment, but with the consent of the Kremlin in 1944 was elected the new president of Finland.

All these conditions were finally fixed by the peace treaty in Paris in 1947. At that time, the West was sure that Finland would soon join the ranks of the socialist countries controlled by Moscow.

However, they perceived this as punishment for military cooperation with Germany. Thus, Finland found itself in a kind of “gray zone” of international politics — essentially left alone with the USSR.

The Finns faithfully fulfilled all their obligations under the agreement, built constructive relations with the Kremlin, thanks to which they were able to preserve their sovereignty. And the Kremlin also understood that conquering Finland by force would not be easy.

Already in his later years, the former USSR Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov said: "We treated Finland mercifully. But we were wise enough not to occupy it. The Finns would never forgive us for this... they are stubborn, extremely stubborn."