PRISONERS OF WAR DEATHS PRISONERS PRISONERS OF WAR OF DEATHS WAR In World War II Finland held in custody around 70,000 registered Soviet Prisoners- Of-War (POW), and roughly 26,000 interned Soviet civilians. Mortality among the POWs was fairly modest during the Winter War of 1939-40, but boomed in 1941-1944, during the Continuation War. During Finland’s alliance with Germany in 1941- AND PEOPLE HANDED OVER TO NAZI-GERMANY 1944, the Finns handed over THE SOVIET UNION IN FINLAND approximately 2,500 POWs and civilians to the German authorities. Roughly 42,000 surviving Soviet POWs were PRISONERS repatriated to the Soviet Union, partly contrary to their OF WAR DEATHS own wishes – a few thousand PEOPLE HANDED OVER of them had fought along with and the Finnish forces. to GERMANY The National Archives carried out a research project on these topics in 2004-08. The book THE and SOVIET UNION sheds light upon these crucial events. 1939-55 IN 1939–55 ISBN 978-951-53-3140-3 A Research Report by the Finnish National Archives 9 789515 331403 POW DEATHS AND PEOPLE HANDED OVER TO GERMANY AND THE SOVIET UNION IN 1939–55 A research report by the Finnish National Archives Edited by Lars Westerlund Painopaikka: Oy Nord Print Ab, Helsinki 2008 Kannen suunnittelu: Heigo Anto List of contents Foreword Introduction……………………………………………………………………....7 Oula Silvennoinen The Mortality Rate of Prisoners of War in Finnish Custody between 1939 and 1944……………………………...14 Lars Westerlund The Unlawful Killings of POWs During the Continuation War 1941–44….………………………………….85 Antti Kujala The German Strategic Use of POW Labor in the Far North………………………………………………95 Lars Westerlund POW Transfers during the Continuation War 1941–44…………………………………………….136 Ida Suolahti The Transfers of Civilians to German Authorities 1941–44……………………………………………165 Oula Silvennoinen Soviet Demands for Repatriations from Finland between 1944 and 1955…………………………………….180 Juha Pohjonen Sent, Returned and Repatriated from Finland to the Soviet Union: The Logic, Tragedy and Humanities of Fate…………………………….212 Pekka Kauppala The authors - Lars Westerlund, RPD, reader, Research Director of the research project “POW deaths and People Handed Over in Finland in 1939-55”, Helsinki - Antti Kujala, PhD, reader, Vantaa - Juha Pohjonen, PhD, Joensuu - Oula Silvennoinen, PhD, Helsinki - Pekka Kauppala, researcher, Espoo - Ida Suolahti, researcher, Helsinki Foreword The research project `POW deaths and People Handed Over in Finland in 1939-55` was carried out by the National Archives in 2004-08. The aim of the project was to look into the circumstances surrounding the war-time deaths of Prisoners-of-War (POW) in Finnish prison camps, as well as into the handing over and exchange of people between Finnish and Nazi-German authorities during WWII, and to the Soviet Union in the post-war period. To support their research, the members of the project collected and compiled several databases arranged according to the names of the perished POW, internees, people handed over to the Germans, and prisoners repatriated to the Soviet Union; altogether, individual electronic cards were made for 36,772 people. The Finnish data legislation allows free access only to information on dead individuals, so the National Archives published and placed on the internet, in the fall of 2007, only the cards of already deceased individuals. All in all, these databases, arranged by name, contain 24,000 cards (http://kronos.narc.fi/). The researchers of the project produced, for their own part, several monographs on the different sub-topics of the project. Their central observations and findings have been gathered into this book in the form of articles. The book starts with an introduction presenting the particular situation of Finland as a parliamentary- governed ally of Germany in 1941-44. The next two articles explore the extent of and the reasons for the high mortality among the Soviet POWs and interned civilians held in Finnish camps. An article also casts some light on the Germans’ POW camps on Norwegian and Finnish soil. Two further articles examine the handing over of Soviet POWs, civilians, and refugees to the Nazi-German authorities. The book concludes with a couple of articles on the role of the Finnish authorities in the repatriation of Soviet POWs and civilians in the post-war period, and on the fates of the repatriated in the Soviet Union. Helsinki, November 2008 Lars Westerlund Introduction Oula Silvennoinen Most of the current territory of Finland was integrated into the Swedish empire over the course of the Middle Ages. Linguistically, most of the population in the area spoke a Finno-Ugric language, and could be called Finns. Geographically however, the region had no clearly defined borders. The area understood to be Finland in the Swedish state never had more than a portion of the Finns within it. In addition, those who spoke Finnish and the groups who spoke closely related languages lived in a big region that extended to the White Sea, to Ingria and to the areas east of Lake Onega. The Finns in the area of modern Finland accepted Western traditions in governance and the Lutheran faith, although a significant Russian Orthodox minority lived in the eastern portions of this territory. Finland remained a part of the Swedish kingdom until Russia conquered it during the Napoleonic Wars and made it part of its empire in 1809. Finland was granted extensive administrative autonomy. This autonomy allowed the area to remain a separate unit within the Russian empire. Finnish nationalism grew from this basis in the 19th century when the administrative connection with Sweden was broken and awareness of a linguistic and cultural distinctiveness was born. --- Two negations determined some of the defining characteristics of Finnish nationalism. An old Finnish saying attributed to A. I. Arwidsson can be used to illustrate the point: "Swedes we are not, Russians we do not want to become, let us therefore become Finns." The Finns could not be Swedes, not only for the obvious linguistic reasons, but also because they had been administratively cut off from Sweden with the coming of the 19th century. The Finns did not wish to become Russians because of the long Western traditions in governance and because of linguistic differences. The only thing left was to be Finns, and to create and cherish their own cultural and linguistic identity. This Finnishness naturally needed the support of a nation-state before long. When the grip of the Russian empire on its border regions began to weaken at the beginning of the 20th century, the goal of independence gradually changed from a day dream to a realistic objective. Simultaneously the Russians increasingly began to be depicted as the opposite of Finnishness, as enemies of Finland, and oppressors. The Russian authorities further aggravated the situation at the 7 beginning of the 20th century by launching a period of Russification. These Russification policies endangered the administrative and cultural distinctiveness of the Finnish position in the Russian empire. They also increased the creditability of the propaganda of the nationalist agitators. By the beginning of World War One, there was a group in Finland that actively pursued separation from the Russian Empire. With the start of the war, support for an armed uprising to gain independence was received from Germany. Young Finnish men began to secretly travel to Germany to receive military training in hopes of an armed rebellion. Along with many other peoples in the border regions, Finland broke away from the Russian Empire in 1917. This was a perfect moment as the Bolshevik government was then incapable of effective counteractions. It consented to recognize Finnish independence in the belief that the coming world revolution would also soon return Finland to the socialist motherland. This belief also had a basis, as revolution soon began in Finland as well. Finnish social democrats shared the fate of their fraternal colleagues in Russia in that there also was a fundamental dispute over policy in Finland. At the beginning of the 20th century, Finnish social democrats were radicalized in favor of the wing supporting an armed rebellion. The organizations for Finnish workers armed themselves and founded their own Red Guard units. On the right, the Civic Guards were established to fight for order. The situation came to a head at the end of 1917. The Finnish parliament issued a declaration of independence on December 6, 1917. This day is celebrated as Finnish Independence Day, but it was not immediately clear to whom control of the country would belong. The leadership of the radical wing of the social democrats saw a golden opportunity to launch an armed uprising. The Red Guards were mobilized at the end of January 1918. Industrialized Southern Finland become the Red base. The Civic Guards simultaneously began to create a base for themselves in northwestern and northern Finland by disarming the Russian units still in the area. The so-called Jägers, who had received training in the German Army, returned to Finland and joined the White Army being built around the Civic Guards. A short, but bitter and bloody, civil war followed in Finland. Imperial Germany intervened in the Finnish Civil War in the spring of 1918 be sending one division to fight on the White side. In the end, the Whites won and the Reds fled to Soviet Russia. The 1920 Tarttu Peace Agreement ended the de facto state of war prevailing between Finland and Soviet Russia. The agreement was supposed to resolve the smoldering territorial and ethnic disputes in the regions near Finland. However, it did not satisfy the nationalist-minded territorial aspirations of some in Finland. The Soviet government was also not really interested in completely implementing the provisions of the treaty. In the end, the Finnish eastern border was defined in a way that was quite favorable to Finland.