Swedish volunteer unit war diaries

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StefanSiverud
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Swedish volunteer unit war diaries

#1

Post by StefanSiverud » 18 Sep 2014, 20:40

I'm looking for the SFB (at Hangö) war diaries/records at the Finland National Archives. Finding the SFK and JR55 records was quite easy but I'm having no luck with SFB searching in Swedish or Finnish.
What I'm looking for specifically are notes on the death of a local volunteer, Göte Karlsson of 2./Ruots.vap.eht.P on 1941-09-05.

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peeved
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Re: Swedish volunteer unit war diaries

#2

Post by peeved » 18 Sep 2014, 22:02

I doubt the SFB diaries have been digitised yet. However JR 55 war diaries seem to have something on the SFB on 5.9.41 at http://digi.narc.fi/digi/view.ka?kuid=3080924 if you can read chicken scratch.

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Re: Swedish volunteer unit war diaries

#3

Post by StefanSiverud » 18 Sep 2014, 22:17

I see, if they're still in the digitization que, maybe that's why I can't find any trace of them.
And yes, I did find several entries of JR55 subunits mentioning the SFB, but nothing concrete on casualties (not that I had expected JR55 to have anything).

Thanks!

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peeved
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Re: Swedish volunteer unit war diaries

#4

Post by peeved » 18 Sep 2014, 22:55

According to http://forum.skalman.nu/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=834&p=10973 Karlsson was hit by a direct fire gun shell splinter.

BTW have you already tried locating issues of Förbundet svenska Finlandsfrivilligas tidning in Swedish libraries? I assume those might contain excerpts of war diaries etc.

Markus

Mangrove
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Re: Swedish volunteer unit war diaries

#5

Post by Mangrove » 19 Sep 2014, 11:12

StefanSiverud wrote:I'm looking for the SFB (at Hangö) war diaries/records at the Finland National Archives.
According to the Finnish National Archive's databases [1] [2], no records, diaries or other written documents, of the unit exists there. From companies (or equivalent) upward, all units had to keep a diary. Since one does not exist in the database, we can assume one of the following happened:

1) The diary and/or the rest of the documents were destroyed during the Continuation War.
2) The diary and/or the rest of the documents have been misplaced in the National Archive.
3) The diary and/or the rest of the documents are not kept in the National Archive.

Considering the amount of material submitted by the different units to the Archive during the end of the Continuation War, I think the case number 2 is the most probable one.

CF Geust
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Re: Swedish volunteer unit war diaries

#6

Post by CF Geust » 19 Sep 2014, 20:39

The entire archive (including war diaries, incoming and outgoing correspondence and other documents) of SFB (Svenska Frivilligbataljonen) is kept by the Military Archive (Krigsrarkivet) in Stockholm, Sweden.

See eg. the detailled book "Svenska frivilliga i Finland 1939-1944" (517 pages, Militärhistoriska förlaget 1989), in particular the list of sources for the 128-page SFB-article (with archive sources listed on pages 368-369).

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peeved
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Re: Swedish volunteer unit war diaries

#7

Post by peeved » 19 Sep 2014, 21:19

At least part of the material in Stockholm (e.g. documents concerning unit N:o 7946; 3./Ruots.vap.eht.P) archived under the header 0853 Förbundet Svenska finlandsfrivilliga 1940 – 2000: http://sok.riksarkivet.se/?Sokord=F%C3% ... S08_Balder
and others under header 0271 Frivilliga i Finland 1918 – 1944: http://sok.riksarkivet.se/?Sokord=%22Fr ... d%3Ac|#tab

Markus

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Re: Swedish volunteer unit war diaries

#8

Post by StefanSiverud » 19 Sep 2014, 21:45

Thank you for confirming. The original documents are probably all in the Swedish War Archives, (Krigsarkivet), as are (supposedly, I haven't checked) the Nils Löfgren research notes on Swedish volunteers KIA.

I have ordered the Löfgren book "De stupade svenska frivilliga i Finlands försvarskamp 1939-1944" which should provide the relevant details, and if I need/want the war diary entries I guess I will have to take a trip to Stockholm. I was just hoping there would be a digitized version on the FNA site as it's so much easier, but no such luck this time!

Thanks for helping me check!

EDIT: Looks like you beat me to it!

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Juha Tompuri
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Re: Swedish volunteer unit war diaries

#9

Post by Juha Tompuri » 19 Sep 2014, 22:13

peeved wrote:BTW have you already tried locating issues of Förbundet svenska Finlandsfrivilligas tidning in Swedish libraries?
According to Image http://www.antikvariat.net/ROD44063.cgi
at the Förbundet svenska Finlandsfrivilligas tidning 3/1975 there is a memorial article written by a member of Company
Bråkenhielm

Regards, Juha
Last edited by Juha Tompuri on 19 Sep 2014, 23:36, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: adding info

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peeved
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Re: Swedish volunteer unit war diaries

#10

Post by peeved » 19 Sep 2014, 23:23

The Heavy Company's war diaries can be found in Krigsarkivet under the header 0035:0108 Bråkenhielm, Harald, arkiv: http://sok.riksarkivet.se/?Sokord=frivi ... S08_Balder

CF Geust
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Re: Swedish volunteer unit war diaries

#11

Post by CF Geust » 20 Sep 2014, 07:28

It is in fact rarther strange that no copy of the records of SFB at Hanko in 1941 was delivered to the Finnish War archive, like for instance the records of the Winter war SFK (Svenska frivilligkåren) in Lapland, the war diaries of which can be accessed by internet, as Stefan pointed out.

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peeved
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Re: Swedish volunteer unit war diaries

#12

Post by peeved » 20 Sep 2014, 11:38

Maybe transferring the documentation on Swedish Continuation War volunteers out of Finland was a life insurance policy for volunteers and their families. I remember reading (don't remember where) that dozens of crates of Finnish War Archive material were taken eastward by the Soviet-led "Control Commission" of 1944-47. Does anyone happen to know exactly what was removed? Previously I thought the book was Valvontakomission aika by Aulis Blinnikka but haven't refound the relevant passage in that work yet.

Since especially in 1944 there was no way of knowing how far the Eastern enslavers would spread, sending the Swedish volunteer records concerning the internationally significantly less popular war than the 1939-40 one to a safer location could very well have been an attempt to keep the volunteers and their families off NKVD liquidation lists.

Markus

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Re: Swedish volunteer unit war diaries

#13

Post by StefanSiverud » 20 Sep 2014, 22:47

Actually, I think the original SFK documents were taken to Sweden and put in Krigsarkivet: http://sok.riksarkivet.se/?Sokord=%22Fr ... S08_Balder
I would say the digitized material in the Finnish archives appears to be scanned from microfilm copies, even if they are remarkably clean and easy to read for being microfilm copies. If the SFB documents were microfilmed and the rolls were kept in Finland, they might simply have been misplaced or skipped at the time of digitization. I doubt they were culled for fear of the NKVD, but I suppose there's always a chance.
Juha Tompuri wrote:
peeved wrote:BTW have you already tried locating issues of Förbundet svenska Finlandsfrivilligas tidning in Swedish libraries?
According to Image http://www.antikvariat.net/ROD44063.cgi
at the Förbundet svenska Finlandsfrivilligas tidning 3/1975 there is a memorial article written by a member of Company
Bråkenhielm

Regards, Juha
Thanks, I will try to track that issue down if the book doesn't supply the information I need! I suspect the article and the book are written by the same person, Nils Löfgren, who is reported (in another issue of the SFM paper) to have spent a large amount of time gathering information and writing about the Swedish volunteers killed in the Finnish wars.

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Juha Tompuri
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Re: Swedish volunteer unit war diaries

#14

Post by Juha Tompuri » 21 Sep 2014, 21:40

StefanSiverud wrote:Thanks, I will try to track that issue down if the book doesn't supply the information I need! I suspect the article and the book are written by the same person, Nils Löfgren, who is reported (in another issue of the SFM paper) to have spent a large amount of time gathering information and writing about the Swedish volunteers killed in the Finnish wars.
The author of the book is Nicolas von Schmidt-Laussitz (AHF member, or atleast used to be).
He might have some additional info about the case.
At the book there is not much about it, just a mention that also Nils Kothoff was mortally wounded from the splinters of the same shell that mortally wounded Göte Karlsson.

Regards, Juha

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Re: Swedish volunteer unit war diaries

#15

Post by Mangrove » 22 Sep 2014, 07:48

peeved wrote:Maybe transferring the documentation on Swedish Continuation War volunteers out of Finland was a life insurance policy for volunteers and their families. I remember reading (don't remember where) that dozens of crates of Finnish War Archive material were taken eastward by the Soviet-led "Control Commission" of 1944-47. Does anyone happen to know exactly what was removed?
Surely this was not the case as the documents of the Päämaja's vapaaehtoistoimisto ("volunteer bureau"), including all of the personnel files, were not taken or destroyed after the Continuation War.

Perhaps the largest pile of documents handed over to the Soviets were the aerial photographs and maps created from the Soviet Union during the war. These made up 15 780 735 sheets of paper or around 38 full freight cars. Finns kept a few copies of the map leaves, but most of the operational bombing and mapping aerial negatives and prints are still missing.

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