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Finland The Lapland War
As early as the summer of 1943, the German high command
began
making plans for the eventuality that Finland might
conclude a
separate peace with the Soviet Union. The Germans planned
to
withdraw forces northward in order to shield the nickel
mines
near Petsamo. During the winter of 1943 to 1944, the
Germans
improved the roads from northern Norway to northern
Finland, and
they accumulated stores in that region. Thus the Germans
were
ready in September 1944, when Finland made peace with the
Soviet
Union. While German ground troops withdrew northward, the
German
navy mined the seaward approaches to Finland and attempted
to
seize Suursaari Island in the Gulf of Finland. Fighting
broke out
between German and Finnish forces even before the
Soviet-Finnish
preliminary peace treaty was signed, and the fighting
intensified
thereafter, as the Finns sought to comply with the Soviet
demand
that all German troops be expelled from Finland. The Finns
were
thus placed in a situation similar to that of the Italians
and of
the Romanians, who, after surrendering to the Allies, had
to
fight to free their lands of German forces. The Finns'
task was
complicated by the Soviet stipulation that the Finnish
armed
forces be reduced drastically, even during the campaign
against
the Germans.
The capable Finnish general, Hjalmar Siilasvuo, the
victor of
Suomussalmi, led operations against the Germans; in
October and
November 1944, he drove them out of most of northern
Finland. The
German forces under General Lothar Rendulic took their
revenge,
however, by devastating large stretches of northern
Finland. More
than one-third of the dwellings in that area were
destroyed, and
the provincial capital of Rovaniemi was burned down. In
addition
to the property losses, estimated as equivalent to about
US$300
million (in 1945 dollars), suffered in northern Finland,
about
100,000 inhabitants became refugees, a situation that
added to
the problems of postwar reconstruction. (After the war the
Allies
convicted Rendulic of war crimes, and they sentenced him
to
twenty years in prison.) The last German troops were
expelled in
April 1945. As a final, lingering effect of the Lapland
War, the
Germans planted numerous mines during their retreat; some
of the
mines were so cleverly placed that they continued to kill
and
maim civilians who triggered them as late as 1948.
Data as of December 1988
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