No sore point there. I only wish to deny you the high ground of moral indignation.your point of view are mostly supported by arrogance and smileys rather than facts but I try to answer as good natured as I can.
Get off your high horse. So far you have not presented any data that would have exhonorated the Swedes from charges of collaborating more closely with the Germans than Finland did.
Aha, thats the sore point.
I do not understand why I have to prove that your accusations are wrong,
I am brought up in a society where the Prosecutor has to prove his point.
I never denied that. But I stated it is my opinion Finland gained more from Continuation War than Germany. And what Germany benefitted from it was not much apart from a steady supply of critical minerals. They suffered several prestige defeats in the North themselves plus they had one (more) unreliable cobelligerent to worry about which eroded their political prestige as the war wore on.I stated that Germany benefited by the continuation war,
Jari described what he (and I) thought was beneficial to Germany.
Drawing your attention to the bolded guestion. I may have misunderstood it previously or I misrepresented my POV. To recap: IMO the Swedish trade with Germany between 1941 and 1945 was of greater value to Germany (relatively speaking) than the Swedish help was to Finland during Winter War. I do not wish to down play the Swedish help. But when talking in relative terms the support Sweden gave was too little too late in the sense that any and all political support needed before the war was denied and when the shit did hit the fan the Sweded made sure their arse was not too far in the sling vis-a-vis USSR and her political agenda.John Posted: Fri Aug 20, 2004 10:23 pm wrote:Jari helped to explain what benefits Germany recieved by having a common enemy with Finland.Tero wrote:How did it help the Nazi cause, exactly ? IMO Swedish contribution to the Nazi cause was of more significant consequence. Finland needed Germany more than Germany needed Finland. Yet the Finnish leadership was able to retain its distance to the Nazi leadership and, more importantly, the freedom to manouvre politically was retained.Do not make every finn a Nazi but it did help the Nazi cause.
The same did many of Swedens actions during ww2.
I do not know how to compare the German benefits from Swedish trade and Finlands suffering 1941-44.
Rethorical question:
If Swedish trade with Germany was so important for Germany, relative the contination war, how do you compare Swedish support to Finland during the winter war, was it more important than the Finnish army?
In such case we got the hidden origin of the winter war.
I am afraid we have to keep searching for the hidden origin...
Cheers
/John T.
Agreed.Sweden's commercial trade with Germany where to the mutual benefit for both nations.
Swedish Iron ore and ball bearings where the most desirable products for Germany.
Finland's commercial trade with Germany, where less in volume but did also include some precious metals, copper, nickel and if I remembers correctly molybdenum, highly desired by Germany.
That Sweden's commercial trade with Germany was of greater significance to Germany than Finland's leaves no doubt.
Out of respect of the dead and wounded soldiers I refuses to compare the scales, casualties with commercial benefit.
Geographically the area was easily defendable. The amount of troops tied down by the Finnish war effort was not a big strain to the Red Army, especially since the Finnish war goals did not threaten the Murmansk rail link and Leningrad directly. The German war effort in the North was more of a strain to the German resources than it was for the Red Army resources.I ask you to value the military consequences for USSR that Finland and Germany had a common enemy and explain to me in what way Sweden did further Nazi Germany more than Finland did?
Politically the common enemy routine did not play against USSR too much since the British and the Commonweath could be pressured to deglare war on Finland thus putting the political pressure on the Finnish political leadership thus forcing the tip of the wedge between any further warming up of the Finnish-German relationship. (Stalin must have been one hell of a poker player ).
Why I think Swedens input did more to help the Nazi cause than the Finnish input: the Swedish input directly contributed to the prolongment of the war. Without the Swedish trade the German war industry would have starved. Finland IMO was more of a strain to the German resources. Not too detrimentaly I guess but in the overall picture Finland was a factor among others when the German war effort was saturated.