Finns are very touchy about certain subjects

e.polis · Post by **e.polis** » 24 Aug 2004 10:09

It seems to me that the Finns are very touchy about certain subjects and don't like to be associated with the Axis or any thing that may be a bit contraversial, hell if it happened then it happened, build a bridge and get over it, life goes on

Tero · Post by **Tero** » 24 Aug 2004 12:42

e.polis wrote:It seems to me that the Finns are very touchy about certain subjects and don't like to be associated with the Axis or any thing that may be a bit contraversial, hell if it happened then it happened, build a bridge and get over it, life goes on

I blame mostly the Anglo-American history writing. They used to use Nazi documentation and now they have switched to Soviet documentation. Very few Anglo-American has ever used proper Finnish sources (I do not regard Mannerheims memoires to be the best of sources just I do not regard any memoires to be the best sources in general).

All they would have needed to do was just ask us and they would have been given any and all documentation they needed. With translations. IMO the reason for not using Finnish sources is the fact they shed quite different light to established views in the Anglo-American historical community. It is easier to perpetuate the B/W image of WWII era instead starting to question such eminent sources like W.Churchills memoires.

There are still stones left unturned with the Russians but work is underway to consolidate the middle ground and finding the truth.

I hope such prominent historians and mr Glantz has the courage to step into the Finnish chambers to complete his works. He has used Soviet sources to fill the gaps in his earlier works. I hope he repents and starts doing the proper foot work a true historian needs to do.

e.polis · Post by **e.polis** » 24 Aug 2004 14:15

I understand evrything you say, my parents are Latvians and had to escape the post WW2 atrocities that the Russians or Soviets, what ever you want to call them, they did occupy and attempt to destroy a free and democratic country. It took until 1991 when the yoke of communist occupation was discarded into the sewer where it belonged along with the false promises of those like that ...........well lets be kind here to the allied nations like England and others made rubbish promises of freedom to the Baltic states. Churchill and Roosevelt sold the Baltic states to Russia for victory in Europe at any cost.

Life goes on my friend, irespective of where we live.

I am now an Australian, and basicaly that boils down to Hitler, if it was not for WW2 I would not be here and an Aussie.

So thanks Adolf

There are two types of people in the world...........the Ausies, and those that would like to be.

JariL · Post by **JariL** » 25 Aug 2004 07:50

e.polis wrote:It seems to me that the Finns are very touchy about certain subjects and don't like to be associated with the Axis or any thing that may be a bit contraversial, hell if it happened then it happened, build a bridge and get over it, life goes on

Hi,

Well, they once made a book about elephant from the point of view different European Nations. Germans described thousand ways of hunting an elephant, French the most delicious ways of preparing an elephant for dinner, Swedes about how to preserve the elephant to the coming generations and Finns "Elephant, what does it know about Finland?".

Personally I don't think that there are so embarrassing issues in Finnish history that they could not or should not be discussed here. The only reason why I bother writing in this forum are not the mistakes or generalisations that are sometimes made but the problem that if Finnish history is looked from Soviet, German, British or US angle, Finland is not a subject but an object. Invariably in "great power" history small countries do not have a will of their own but do what the big powers tell them to do. This is if they were not on your own side, of course;-)

The problem with this view is that Finnish history is actually about trying with varying degrees of succes to avoid playing ball the way others have wanted us to play and even when we have been forced to play, at least do it in our own way. This then has led to two (or three if we separate the war against Germans 1944-1945) wars and some other minor complications;-)

In the POW and internation camp question for example, it is very tempting to draw a parallel between German and Finnish behaviour and find an ideological link. This is what Soviet history writing did and it is also an image that still dominates today in Russia. From Soviet perspective they fought one big "Patriotic War" and ideological harmonisation fitted that purpose well. In the case of Finland it also wiped out certain less than honorable events that happened earlier. The problem with this approcah is that still in 1939 Finland was not the lakey of Germany but that of Great Britain, France and USA the way Soviet Union saw things. Quite a remarkable change of attitude!

Now to draw the line from the past to this day as you did above when you said "build a bridge over it". The problem is that the bridge has not been built. It is, or at least was slowly being built when Finnish and Russian historians work together to study the events bases on archives on both sides. Now we at least seem to have the same battles and events in the history books, which has not always been the case. But still things like the number of people who were internated, fate and life of POW's and many other things need more work. I think that the future generations live safer in this corner of the world when the bridge really has been built. In the mean while I believe the discussion will go on with varying degrees of passion and intensity-)

Regards,

Jari

e.polis · Post by **e.polis** » 25 Aug 2004 08:27

A very good reply and explaination Jaril, perhaps it has cleared the situation for myself and others. The elephant did not like Finland, firstly it was too cold and secondly too many reindeer runing around the frozen country side. And finaly there may be a few Germans and French men on vacation there.

PS I have a friend who is a bridge builder, works for our Government

Topspeed · Post by **Topspeed** » 25 Aug 2004 08:58

e.polis wrote:It seems to me that the Finns are very touchy about certain subjects and don't like to be associated with the Axis or any thing that may be a bit contraversial, hell if it happened then it happened, build a bridge and get over it, life goes on

I think finns have absolute nothing against the time or anything to hide about the time 1941-1944 when soldiers of both Wehrmacht and FDF on the front fought the RKKA. Mannerheim in his order of the Day 1941 said that german soldiers are our brothers in arms. They were, but no written agreement was done.

FDF tried to get Karelia back and when they saw it did not succeed and country would have been othervise occupied by soviets our government made a deal with soviets to push the germans out of the country's northern part.

Finland was never an axis power, but president Ryti on 1944 in his own name made a pact with Hitler to stay in battle to the last man standing in order to get new Me 109 G-6s for the battle in Karelian Isthmus. Ryti resigned and the deal was off with Adolf Hitler. So president Ryti personally was allied with Hitler for few months and gained independency and full stop of the invasion of the RKKA. I think he was a clever operator that president Risto Ryti.

I am wondering why is it so hard for the outside world to see that if a 3 mio people country is about to be run over by 120 mio country it needs more than a wooden club for its protection and it makes no different if the help is given by a jew or a nazi or black or white !

It is not intelligent to say:" Yeah the finns were on the nazis side ! ", since in the Winter War the Nazis were against us in ally with CCCP !

Futhermore since our leaders well knew what it would have meant to fully become a member of Axis ( deportation of our jews and German occupation..that never happened ! ).

Maybe this gave E.Polis little to think about ! : )

regards,

Juke T

PS: We have lotsa bridges in Finland, wellcome to visit.

Mika68 · Post by **Mika68** » 27 Aug 2004 09:21

e.polis wrote:It seems to me that the Finns are very touchy about certain subjects and don't like to be associated with the Axis or any thing that may be a bit contraversial, hell if it happened then it happened, build a bridge and get over it, life goes on

I'm Finnish myself, but I recognize facts. I don't understand why some Finnish defends so touchy clear war crimes?

Topspeed · Post by **Topspeed** » 27 Aug 2004 09:24

Mika68 wrote:
e.polis wrote:It seems to me that the Finns are very touchy about certain subjects and don't like to be associated with the Axis or any thing that may be a bit contraversial, hell if it happened then it happened, build a bridge and get over it, life goes on
I'm Finnish myself, but I recognize facts. I don't understand why some Finnish defends so touchy clear war crimes?

Excuse me...can you point out a single war crime that finns did in order to maintain independency ?

regards,

Juke T

Ostuf Charlemagne · Post by **Ostuf Charlemagne** » 28 Aug 2004 02:50

Maybe are they as touchies as the brits about their war crimes in the Falklands in 1982 .......

David Thompson · Post by **David Thompson** » 28 Aug 2004 03:31

Ostuf. -- (1) Your remark is off topic.

(2) Your remark is unsourced. If you have proof that the British committed war crimes in the Falkland Islands war, let's see it. If you have no proof, then your allegation is a forbidden national insult which I won't hesitate to delete.

Tero · Post by **Tero** » 28 Aug 2004 05:19

Topspeed wrote:
Mika68 wrote:
e.polis wrote:It seems to me that the Finns are very touchy about certain subjects and don't like to be associated with the Axis or any thing that may be a bit contraversial, hell if it happened then it happened, build a bridge and get over it, life goes on
I'm Finnish myself, but I recognize facts. I don't understand why some Finnish defends so touchy clear war crimes?
Excuse me...can you point out a single war crime that finns did in order to maintain independency ?

regards,

Juke T

More importantly: AFAIK internment of foreign nationals deemed a hazard to the occupation force is not a war crime.

The conditions in the camps during the first winter of the Continuation War were a disgrace. But meager rations when the entire population goes hungry is not a war grime.

Tom Houlihan · Post by **Tom Houlihan** » 28 Aug 2004 05:21

Well, I can't argue that history written from the Anglo-American position is slightly skewed. What research I've been doing (on hold lately, though!), shows that Finland found itself in a tough situation. They did what they needed to do to maintain their own sovereignty and national identity. It must have worked, because they didn't have the problems that Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia had. From where I'm sitting, I think they did alright, considering the facts.

Remember, the majority of us are looking backwards at this, with the added knowledge of open archives. Folks like President Ryti didn't have this advantage. They had to make decisions with limited knowledge. Ryti did what he did to tend to his nation. That was his priority, not aiding the Germans, even though sometimes the two goals were the same.

Tero · Post by **Tero** » 28 Aug 2004 06:35

By Tom

Well, I can't argue that history written from the Anglo-American position is slightly skewed.

Slightly ? SLIGHTLY ???

I'm OK with the relative weight given to certain aspects of the Finnish involvement since these are heavily dependant on the POV. Then again the Finnish history writing places extra amount of attention to the political wheeling and dealing, often in the expence of militarily interesting facts. In the Anglo-American history writing it is the other way around. New works are published concerning the latest research on the gear, ORBAT and combat events. It seems the political aspects of WWII have already been wiped clean when Churchill wrote his "definitive" memoires.

What does get me is the fact the interepretations are almost always based on German and (especially later) Soviet version of the facts. IMO When Titans Clashed by Glantz is a prime example of this.

Tom Houlihan · Post by **Tom Houlihan** » 29 Aug 2004 20:00

Tero wrote:Slightly ? SLIGHTLY ???

Okay, so I wrote that just a little tongue in cheek!

What does get me is the fact the interepretations are almost always based on German and (especially later) Soviet version of the facts. IMO When Titans Clashed by Glantz is a prime example of this.

Tero, for my own reasons, I will say that if good, accurate, authoritative books are written about Finland and her involvement in the Winter War and Continuation Wars, I will buy them! I'll even read them!

Right now my knowledge of the Finnish side of those conflicts is limited to the six inches or so of paper I've printed of the internet, this forum, and the bits and pieces I've received from a few Finns in particular.

On this side of the pond, there is a severe lack of knowledge about these subjects. Give us knowledge!

Topspeed · Post by **Topspeed** » 29 Aug 2004 20:11

E.Polis,

I was actually little touchy when someone said a finnish doc shot an badly wounded soviet prisoner when a soldier who was commissioned to shoot him refused. I don't even know if that is a fact, but someone had a story like this traslated at this site.
Of course during the course of war when everything is scarce there are situations when own side troopers get the priority in food and medication.

It is awful, but circumstances can sometimes help to get over them. Is there an army who fought 3-5 years who did not have loose cannons amongst them ?

rgrds,

Juke t

Axis History Forum

Finns are very touchy about certain subjects

I agree

Re: I agree

Re: I agree