Was Finland occupied by the Nazi's during world war 2?

Answer 1

Finland was an early victim of the massive Soviet aggression that preceded the major combat operations of WWII. Like just about every other nation that had geographical contact with Russia, Finland was attacked and bludgeoned into submission. As with other Soviet aggressions, this was essentially ignored by the western powers. Naturally, several of these various victims of Soviet attack were willing to ally to Germany when Germany attacked the Soviets in June 1941. Finland's army fought bravely against the Soviets, being led by the world class general, Mannerheim. (aside: Finland was a 'possession' of the Czarist Russian empire until 1918. When Germany defeated Russia near the end of WWI, Germany was able to demand Finland's independence.) Ultimately the Soviets overwhelmed the Finnish forces and in 1944 Finland asked for an armistice. Surprisingly, the Soviets gave the Finns a relatively respectable peace agreement. Instead of occupying the entire country and ravaging it for years, the Soviets contented themselves with various 'pickin's' including the taking of the only Finnish outlet to the Arctic Sea, a major military base on Finlands Baltic coast, a big slice of eastern Finish territory, and various other arrangements that basically made Finland indefensible from attack. Following the war, the term Finlandization came into being. This term was meant to describe a situation where a major power does not wholesale occupy a smaller nation, but instead destroys it politically and militarily to the point where it is a weak vassal state unable to defend itself or resist further aggression.

Answer 2

part of Finland in ww1Though autonomic, during WW1 Finland was still part of Russia, and finnish army was part of the Russian army. After revolution in October 1917 Finland wanted to become independent, and it was even approved by Lenin, because he thought it would make revolution Finland easier. Finland declared itself independent on 6th of December 1917. It had its civil war starting in 1918, but revolution never came.

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Answer 3

Finland became involved in World War Two on the side of the Axis powers when invaded by the Soviet Union on November 30, 1939 as a result of the same treaty in which Poland, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia were divided between the Soviets and the Third Reich and Bessarabia was given to the Soviets. The Soviet Union was expelled form the League of Nations for this invasion, but the real consequences of the war were not felt until June 1941, 14 months after Finland's part in the war ended.

The Red Army invaded, but, despite the Soviets huge advantage in manpower and equipment, the Finns were able to defeat them for three reasons:

1) The Red Army depended on tanks and the Finnish terrain was not suited to tanks. Too many lakes and ponds, which when frozen made good tank traps.

2) The hand held machine gun called a "grease gun" (Suomi-konepistooli KP-31). The Finns were able to use it to make offensive warfare and infantry support of tanks difficult.

3) The use of bottles filled with gasoline to burn tanks. If you could keep the crews inside the tank and destroy the infantry support there are many blind spots that can be exploited to throw one of these on a tank. These were called "Molotov Cocktails" as an insult to the Soviet Foreign Minister and Politburo member, Vyacheslav Molotov.

The Finn's involvement ended in March 1940, when they ceded 9% of their territory, but the Red Army's terrible performance (Stalin had purged, which means murdered 50% of all officers just before war started, so the military leadership was inexperienced) led to Operation Barbarossa, the June 1941 Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, which in turn led to Stalin "rehabilitating" (return from the Gulag) Zhukov, who then led the victory at Stalingrad which was the turning point for the war in Europe.

Answer 4

In short: Finland first fought a small war alone, then another as an axis country, and finally one as an allied country.

Finland was invaded by the Soviet Union in November 1939. The hostilities lasted until March 1940, when the two countries signed a peace treaty. Finland ceded about 10% of its territory to the Soviet Union.

After the war Finland allied with Nazi Germany. In June 1941, as part of the Operation Barbarossa, they invaded the Soviet Union with help of Germans, attempting to regain the territories that they had lost. They were very successful at first, but the war slowly started going wrong and in 1944 Finland had to make sign another peace treaty, in which it lost even more of its land area.

Finally, between October 1944 and April 1945, Finland fought a war against Nazi Germany, because part of the peace treaty was that Finland must remove all German troops from its territory.

Answer 5

Not exactly, but Finland was a special case. Finland had once been a part of Russia and had only been an independent nation for a relatively short time, historically speaking - a few generations. The border between Finland and the Soviet Union (Russia) was not very far from Leningrad (St Petersburg), the Russian city built as a "window on the Baltic Sea" and to be a national capital. The Soviets had moved the capital back to Moscow but coveted Finnish territory near St. Petersburg. For two years, Hitler and Stalin were partners, from the signing of the Non-Aggression Pact between them in late August, 1939, which cleared the way for Germany to invade Poland - the step widely regarded as starting WWII - and the German invasion of Russia in June 1941. During those two years Hitler and Stalin were busy invading any country they chose and gobbling up their neighbors, and Hitler invaded eight countries while Stalin invaded five. But, Hitler was more successful as a conqueror than Stalin. But Stalin felt free to invade Finland and start a war to obtain the land he coveted in the vicinity of St. Petersburg. This was called "The Winter War". The only problem was the Finns proved surprisingly tough with their tiny army of only eight divisions, and the ensuing fiasco was a tremendous embarrassment to Stalin. Stalin had just about two years earlier killed more than half of his own army officers of the rank of colonel or general in a great purge, and the professionalism and ability of those slaughtered professional officers was sorely missed during the Winter War. The difficulties of the Soviets in handling teeny tiny Finland, and the incompetence displayed by their army, probably encouraged Hitler to proceed with his plans to betray his partner and turn on the Soviets, before they could regain a minimal level of competence militarily.

And when Hitler did turn on Stalin, he received enthusiastic assistance from the Finns, who were eager to regain their little bit of lost territory and give the Russians another black eye.

Allied leaders understood the circumstance which had led to Finland fighting on the side of the Germans. No one in the west cared for Stalin and his communist regime, and he was only allied with Britain and the US because Hitler had invaded Russia, on the principle that "me enemy's enemy is my friend". Two weeks after the Germans had invaded Poland in 1939, pursuant to their secret agreements with the Soviets, the Soviets also invaded Poland, from the other side, and Germany and Russia divided up Poland between them. While Britain and France had declared war on Germany for their first invasion, two weeks later nobody declared war on the Soviet Union. I suppose Britain and France felt there would be time enough to deal with Stalin when, and if, they had defeated Hitler. But Stalin's greed and aggressiveness weighed in Finland's favor with the western Allies, and they agreed that Finland would not be treated with the harshness intended for the other minor allies of Germany (none of whom had much realistic choice in that alliance).

Answer 6

Yes, Germany occupied Finland in 1941.

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Finland was an Axis ally of Germany and was not occupied.

Answer 7

Because Russia invaded Finland, and then Germany invaded Russia (Soviet Union) so the Finnish wanted revenge so entered the war on Germany's side

Answer 8

Yes , the nation of Finland was allied with Nazi Germany during WW2 .

Answer 9

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