History Question...

There's no question that the Finns were closely aligned with Germany. The German army operated in Finnish territory in concert with the Finns, against the Soviets. I've seen photos of Finnish soldiers wearing German kit.

Not surprisingly, the alliance broke up toward the end of the war and there was some limited fighting between the Finns and Germans.

The Finns were allies of Germany, but more as a response to Soviet aggression rather than any ideological alignment. They needed material support for the 'Continuation war' and the Allies could not supply it, they turned to Germany. Once Norway and Denmark fell they did not really have many options.

Wasn't one of the first American killed in WW2 lost fighting for Finland?
Wasn't the Soviet aggression towards Finland widely condemned, even the British offering harsh words?

yes, I believe the Soviets were kicked out of the league of nations for it.

Thank you gents i was having some difficulty finding a good source for reference.

I know the finnish air force used hurricanes and Me 109s at the same time

So, after we kicked the soviets out in the Winter war (mostly due the winter and poor soviet military-leadership), Allies were "yeee little Finland doing okay" etc, but not much else. The amount of kit/weapons/aid from western allies was really little. We asked for help, as we knew the soviets would be coming for another round. What we received was pretty much a gesture, kind words, rather than real help. The germans had helped the "white" side of the civil war in 1918 (the side that won), and were offering to help us again (they saw the tactical benefit of finnish troops halting the soviets in the North, so they would invest troops and equipment there instead of the eastern front against operation Barbarossa, double-crossing bastards that they were). Another part was, that the finns we're keen on getting back the areas we lost after the Winter war during the peace talks. An idea of "Great-Finland" which the germans could help us achieve. Foolish thinking, since we lost that area and more after Continuation war, we should just have attacked to the old border and stayed there (My family is from the part we had to give up, Karelia). I have no doubt we could not have held the soviets during the Continuation war without their help, airplanes, Panzerschrecks and other AT-weapons (I believe our own AT-weapons were a log and a molotov cocktail/explosive, you would stick a log in the threads so the tank would stop, and climb up and throw molotov/explosive through the hatch) were invaluable to stopping the soviet army. After the we stopped them and the peace-negotiations began the soviets were pretty firm about the germans not being in Finland, so we asked them to go, they wouldn't, so we had to force them. In the process they burnt down half of Lapland (the northern part). So after the war we we're not that pleased with them either.

Here, in Finland, it is taught in history classes, that we we're never allies with the germans, just "comrades in arms". Seems like just another word for ally to you, for us it is important to differentiate ourselves from the Nazis. But in our defense, we really did not have choice. Britain, I believe, declared war on us, the US never did.

When the USSR invaded Finland in 1940, one of the motives for the Allied expedition to Norway was to provide direct aid overland to the Finns. This was still at a time when the Allies entertained mad delusions of attacking the USSR as well as Germany. Fortunately it came to nothing but the planned bombing raids on Baku were only stopped at the last minute as the Germans invaded France. Equally fortunately, the planned Allied invasion of Norway was forestalled by the German one. Bit of a poor show invading neutral countries, although it didn't stop us invading Persia/Iran later on in conunction with the USSR.

I think anyone who has studied WW2 recognises that the Finns were never full 'allies' of the Germans, but German troops were stationed on Finnish soil and fought the Russians from there. As mentioned above, once the Finns and Soviets made peace in 1944, the Finns forcibly ejected the Germans.

As for the wearing of Y straps, well, ymmv depending on time period, theatre, specific units etc. Same for British troops wearing their small packs, or not.

All very interesting this stuff.

Cheers
Martin

thanks and Gents, Iceman/Martin - greatly appreciated run down of events, it confirms what i was thinking and why i did not watch the rest of the program, as the Russian were clearly stating Finland as an "Ally" of German - with no mention of them invading Finland and starting it off. Its a threatre of WW2 I knew very little about, but you know that feeling you get when you are hearing something which just isn't right....this show gave me that feeling. Finland stays on my list of the "good Guys"

with no mention of them invading Finland and starting it off.

Well, there were actually two wars. The Winter War, when the USSR invaded Finland and The Continuation War, when the Finns joined in the Axis attack on the USSR.

Finland was also part of Russia for 108 years and only broke away during the upheaval caused by the Russian Revolution.

So, the Russian/Soviet/Communist view of Finland was somewhat complex.

Cheers
Martin

We were a part of Sweden before that and for way longer. And they still don't/didn't want to invade us. As far as I know

careful of those Swedes Iceman, while playing Total War the other day they kept declaring war on me every 5 minutes very imperialist you know, dont believe the guise they hide behind of being lovely furniture makers and free lovers

I've been reading up on the politics of Finland on and during the war. And, yes they do come out well from it.

The "alliance" with Nazi Germany was all they could really do to survive. They'd tried alliances elsewhere, but nobody was really able to help their plight. Moscow had even offered to "ally" (involving 30 year leases of certain islands), but the Finns suspected foul play there and told them where to go. In the end Moscow was certainly the "evil aggressor" in Finland's involvement in WWII.

However one thing still makes it awkward to explain to some, the Finns use of the swastika. I understand that it was used by the Finns before the Nazis started to use it? That's a whole story I don't know much about though.

Yeah, Finland used it for ages, well only officially since the end of WWI obviously. Swastikas were a popular little design.

Yes Mannerheim is well revered in Finland much like Churchill in Britain, he had tough choices to make and didn't want to side with Hitler but felt it the best of 2 evils. He is just about the only Axis leader to come out of WW2 with continued respect from his country.

I seem to remember something about audio recordings being found of this meeting several years ago, or maybe someone had been lip reading can't remember now.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fyRYvw_ilc

EDIT got to love youtube it's all there.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClR9tcpKZec

The Finnish Air Force uses the swastika as an emblem, introduced in 1918. The type of swastika adopted by the air-force was the symbol of luck for the Swedish count Eric von Rosen.
The swastika was also used by the women's paramilitary organization Lotta Svärd, which was banned in 1944 in accordance with the Moscow Armistice between Finland and the allied Soviet Union and Britain.

So yeah, we had before Nazis.

Everybody used swastikas, America, Poland, Britain,was it the boy-scouts?

But remember Mannerheim wasn't really an 'Axis Leader', he only become leader in time to break the alliance with Germany, so he was insulated from any association there. Which helps with post war popularity.

Back to the minutae of wearing Y-straps or not, most of these 48-minute TV dinner military history programs feature footage which is not from the correct period / front, so they're not good kit reference material. Far better to look at period photos, which are date / front verified. Tunics after the M40 did not have the facility for the internal (over the shoulder) belt hook straps, so the wearing of Y-straps was essential. Most photos post '42 show Y-straps in abundance.

most of these 48-minute TV dinner military history programs feature footage which is not from the correct period / front,

Indeed there laziness in applying correct footage is one of my pet hates, King Tigers smashing through the Ardennes when there talking about the 1940 invasion of France

Surely you proof read a book, I could do the same for these TV shows, for a small fee of course