Module's Annotation

MODULE’S ANNOTATION

DIVERSE ARCTIC

Programmes

The Arctic during the Second World War

Course unit title

Number of ECTS credits allocated: 10 ECTS

classroom load independent load Semester/trimester when the course unit is delivered Spring 2014 Name of lecturer(s) Prof.Mikhail Suprun Сhair Russian History Institute ИСГиПН Type of course unit (compulsory, optional) compulsory

Level of course unit (e.g. first, second or third cycle; sub-level first if applicable)) Language of instruction English

Mode of delivery (face-to-face, blended, distance learning) Face-to-face

Scientific benefit of this student course

This student course will provide both know- how and insight in recent Arctic capita selecta and will concentrate on the history of the Second World War, related topics and the Cold War period as such in the Arctic

Course contents

The contents of this course will be based on publications and archive sources from both the Russian and the Western side, made by authoritative scientific institutes

The Arctic during the Second World war period (10 ECTS=90 hours)

Three periods can be identified in history of the Second World War in northernmost Europe: September 1939 to June 1941, June 1941 to June 1944, and June 1944 to May 1945. First period: September 1939 to June 1941. The first period saw military confrontations in which smaller Nordic nations confronted great European powers: the Soviet-Finnish “Winter” War (November 30, 1939, to March 13, 1940) and the German occupation of Norway (April 8 to June 10, 1940). On 23 August 1939 the long diplomatic manoeuvring preceding a new European war ended when Germany and the USSR signed a treaty of non-aggression, also known as the Molotov- Ribbentrop pact. The secret part of the treaty divided much of the Middle and Eastern Europe into German and Soviet spheres of influence. For Germany the non-aggression pact with the USSR became a carte blanche to launch an attack on Poland, which immediately drew into war France and the UK. Finland, the only Nordic nation explicitly mentioned in it, was recognized as part of the Soviet sphere of influence. In the context of a new European war, the Soviet leadership attempted to negotiate with Finland an exchange or lease of territories aimed to secure Leningrad, the second largest Soviet city located close to the border with Finland. These negotiations, which lasted during October and early November, resulted in a dead end, and the Soviet leadership decided to solve this question by force. On 26 November, Soviet forces organized a border provocation, known as the incident of Mainila, followed by the Soviet declaration of war on Finland on 30 November. On 1 December, a puppet Finnish Communist government was established, headed by a prominent Communist leader Otto Kuusinen and named Terijoki government after first Finnish town captured by the Red Army, which was made its place of residence. A treaty of mutual assistance was signed with the Soviet government, with the aim to de-legitimize the Finnish government in Helsinki. The Red Army had a significant advantage in manpower (425,000 against 265,000), tanks (2,289 against 26), artillery (2,876 against 534) and aviation (2,446 against 270). In the first phase of the Soviet campaign against Finland (30 November 1939 to 10 February 1940) the Red Army advanced in four directions: in the Karelian Isthmus, to the north of Lake Ladoga, in Kainuu and along the Arctic coast. The main offensive in the Karelian Isthmus, aimed at Helsinki, failed to overcome Finnish defences and was stopped until late January. In the meantime, two Soviet armies advancing in the northern sector of the front were confronted by the “North Finland Group.” It effectively withheld Soviet pressure in Kainuu, where the Red Army managed to advance only 35 to 45 km from the state border. The Soviet offensive along the Arctic coast, heading towards Petsamo, was more successful. Soviet forces occupied the Finnish part of the Rybachi Peninsula in the first day of the war, and on 1 December 1939 reached Parkkina. A successful landing operation of the 14th Soviet army then led to the capture of Petsamo, which cut Finland from the Arctic coast to the end of the war. Developing this success, Red Army forces advanced all the way to Hцyhenjдrvi, which they reached on 18 December. Further attacks were halted for the two following months. The outbreak of the Soviet-Finnish War led to a flow of volunteers willing to fight on the Finnish side. Sweden became the largest donor nation, providing a whole Swedish volunteer corps. Altogether, the number of foreign volunteers in the Finnish army amounted to 11,500, of whom 8,402 were Swedes. Most of them were involved in the operations in the northern areas of Finland, known as the “Lapland front.” After repeated failures to break through the Finnish defences in December 1939 and January 1940, the Soviet command amassed 670,500 people to prepare a new offensive, which was launched in early February. On 17 February, the forefront of the Finnish defence line was breached, and developing this success, on 13 March units of the Red Army captured Vyborg (Viipuri), which opened the way to Helsinki. Advances in the south were accompanied by a resumed offensive of Soviet forces in the Arctic. By late February, the Red Army forced Finnish troops to retreat to Nautsi where the front stabilized until the end of the war. On 12 March, 1940, a peace treaty was signed in Moscow ending the hostilities the following day. Finland had to accept all Soviet territorial demands and ceded its part of the Rybachii Peninsula in the Barents Sea, as well as much more significant territories in the Karelian Isthmus and around Lake Ladoga. Finland was also compelled to build a railway connecting the Kola Peninsula with Tornio in the Gulf of Bothnia, although its construction was never started. The Winter War claimed heavy casualties on both sides. In 105 days of battle the Finnish Army lost ca. 26,000 and the Red Army ca. 127,000 men killed or missed in action, died of wounds and frozen to death. The Winter War also pushed Finland to military cooperation with Germany which eventually led to a second military confrontation between the USSR and Finland, in which the latter fought on the side of the Axis powers. In the meantime, Norway, despite its officially announced neutrality, grew in prominence in war plans of Germany. Concerns for vital deliveries of iron ore from northernmost Sweden, which could be easily interrupted by Allied forces landing in Norway were one reason; another one was the strategic importance of Norwegian ports which, if occupied by the German navy, could help it break through the British sea blockade and damage Allied naval communications. On 9 April 1940, German forces landed in Norway and quickly occupied the key strategic targets. The Norwegian resistance bought just enough time for the government and royal family to leave the country for the UK, where the government in exile was established. By 2 May Norwegian forces defending southern and western parts of the country surrendered. In North Norway, however, Allied forces were more successful in repelling German attacks in the Battle of Narvik, which lasted from 9 April to 8 June 1940. Although the Allies were victorious both on land and on sea, eventually they withdrew their troops due to the collapse of the Western front in France, and Norwegian forces had to lay down arms. The occupation of Norway compelled Germany to establish supply routes for its troops and bases stationed in northern Norwegian ports. Despite its official neutrality policy, Sweden granted passage through its territories to North Norway for German supplies and, after the surrender of last Norwegian forces, for German troops. A similar agreement was signed between Germany and Finland. First German troops arrived in the Finnish port of Vaasa on 21 September 1940. To provide logistical support for the traffic of equipment, munitions and people between Finnish ports and North Norway, the German Army built living quarters, depots and bases along railway lines from Vaasa and Oulu to Ylitornio and Rovaniemi, and from there along motor roads via Karesuvanto and Kilpisjдrvi or Ivalo and Petsamo to Skibotn and Kirkenes in North Norway. Operations were manned by sizeable German military personnel, which was also stationed in Finnish Lapland. The Soviet Union also became briefly involved in military cooperation with the Nazi Germany in the Arctic. Prior to the occupation of Norway, a possibility to establish a secret German naval base in the Kola Peninsula was discussed between the two governments, with no concrete outcomes. During the summer of 1940, Soviet authorities also granted assistance to the German auxiliary cruiser Komet in passing through the Northern Sea Route to the Pacific Ocean, where it served as a commerce raider disturbing British sea communications. Second period: June 1941 to June 1944. On 22 June 1941, Germany attacked the Soviet Union, and four days later, on June 26, 1941, Finland declared state of war with the USSR. On 29 June the German Alpine Corps Norwegen supported by Finnish military unites launched a two- pronged offensive to Murmansk from Petsamo and to Kandalaksha from Salla. The operation plan was to cut off the railway connection between the port of Murmansk and the rest of Russia and then to capture Murmansk. The German-Finnish force failed to reach its goals and by mid- September 1941 took defence positions along the river Zapadnaia Litsa and the Murmansk railway. The frontline then stabilized until the autumn of 1944. The main operations in the Arctic were transferred to the Norwegian and Barents Seas, which became one of the shortest, but also dangerous routes of shipping lend-lease supplies to the USSR by the Western Allies during 1941–1945. Starting in Scottish and Icelandic ports, it stretched to ca. 2 thousand miles to the destination ports of Murmansk and Arkhangelsk. It took on average ten to twelve days for ships to cover this distance. Convoys to the USSR were, until the end of 1942, identified by the index PQ, while returning convoys used QP in their identification codes. After 1942 the northern convoys were renamed JW and RA, respectively. Military escort of cargo ships was provided by the Allies’ Navy During the summer and autumn of 1941, the Finnish Army occupied most of Soviet Karelia. On 7 September it reached the Svir River between Lakes Onega and Ladoga and on 2 October 1941 it occupied Petrozavodsk, thus cutting the shortest railway connection between the Kola Peninsula and central Russia. In December 1941 Finnish forces reached the White Sea-Baltic Canal, cutting the second important transportation line in the Soviet North. The Svir River and the White-Sea Baltic Canal were two natural frontiers that the Finnish command stopped at. The frontline then stabilized until the summer of 1941. In the occupied territories of Soviet Karelia Finnish authorities organized ethnic segregation, dividing the local population into a privileged group which included Finno-Ugric ethnic groups (ca. 36,000 people) and a “non-privileged” group, mostly ethnically Russian population (ca. 50,000 people). In those northern territories which remained under the Soviet control, martial law was introduced since the first day of the war. From 30 June 1941, the USSR was governed by the extraordinary organ of power, the State Defence Committee. Local power was, in a similar fashion, concentrated in city defence committees. All resources were mobilized for the warfare, which resulted in harsh shortages affecting daily needs of the populace. In Soviet North, where communications with central regions were often weak, this lead to wide-spread starvation. In Arkhangelsk alone, more than 40,000 people, or 20% of the entire population, died of starvation and deceases during the war. Another 25,000 people from Arkhangelsk died in battle. Due to the general mobilization of people and resources for the Red Army, only a third of Arkhangelsk enterprises continued to work, most of them for the military needs. In Norway, a collaborationist government by German authorities was established with Vidkun Quisling at the head. Despite this, the majority of Norwegians remained antagonistic to the German occupation regime, with many actively involved in the resistance movement. They also rendered help to Soviet prisoners of war, whose number in concentration camps established in Norway amounted to 110,000 people. In North Norway, the resistance movement established close contacts with the Soviet intelligence and participated in sabotage operations. Throughout the war Sweden kept its formal neutrality, and from August 1943, when the military initiative was seized by the Allies, the government of Sweden prohibited the transfer of German soldiers and military supplies through its territory. At the same time Finland started to explore opportunities to disengage from the military confrontation with the USSR and the UK. Third period: June 1944 to May 1945. The key events of the third period in northernmost Europe were the Vyborg-Petrozavodsk operation held by Soviet forces against the Finnish Army in the summer of 1944, the Lapland War between Finnish and German forces from September 1944 to April 1945, and the Soviet Petsamo-Kirkenes operation of the autumn of 1944. On 10 June 1944, the Soviet Union launched a large-scale offensive against Finnish positions in the Karelian Isthmus and in Soviet Karelia, known as the Vyborg-Petrozavodsk operation. On 28 June 1944, the Red Army liberated Petrozavodsk and later the rest of Soviet Karelia. By 9 August 1944, the front line temporarily stabilized, and the Finnish leadership intensified its attempts at negotiating a separate peace treaty with the Allies. Peace negotiations led to the announcement of a cease-fire on 4 September and the signing of the armistice in Moscow on 19 September. The Moscow armistice of 1944 and the Paris peace treaty of 1947 confirmed the loss of territories that Finland ceded as result of the Winter War and additionally made it cede the entire region of Petsamo. The armistice also obliged Finland to expel German troops from its territory, which resulted in extensive warfare in Finnish Lapland lasting from September 1944 to April 1945, known as the Lapland War. At the same time as forcing German units out of Lapland, Finland was also bound to demobilize its armed forces. The Finnish government managed to uphold its obligations enforced by the armistice, which prevented the entry of the Red Army to its territories. In October 1944, the Red Army launched an offensive in the Kola Peninsula, leading to the capture of German-held Petsamo on 15 October. On 22 October Soviet detachments crossed the Norwegian border in the direction of Kolosjoki (Nikel) and Kirkenes. On 25 October Soviet troops entered Kirkenes. On 6 November 1944, a Norwegian military mission from Great Britain headed by colonel Arne Dahl arrived in Murmansk and continued aboard a Soviet ship to Kirkenes, which it reached on 10 November. The goal of the mission was to peacefully reinstate the Norwegian administration in Sшr-Varanger. In the meantime, German raids from the air, sea and land continued throughout the winter, and only by 26 April 1945 Finnmark was completely cleansed from German detachments. The last German forces in Norway, numbering totally ca. 400,000 men, eventually capitulated on 8 May 1945. Soviet troops remained on the Norwegian territory until 25 September 1945, when the London Conference of Allied Foreign Ministers regulated their withdrawal without any territorial or political demands to Norway.

Prerequisites

The participating students should make themselves acquainted with general literature on these topics/ including for example the Wikipedia system at the internet

Planned learning activities and teaching methods

Teaching will take place in a lecture room. Where necessary with the use of power point and overhead systems, as well as video

Assessment methods and criteria

Students will be asked to write essays with a limited amount of words on given topics. This assessment method could be supplemented by multiple choice schemes and personal oral exams

…