Lapland war 1944-45: Germans out of Finland

As far as I know, Finnish Army and Air Force got their German (captured or mfrd.) on credit, the bill to be paid after the final victory of Germany.
As a part of peace treaty the Soviet Union demanded that the Finns pay them what Finland owed to Hitler.
Soviet Union could not find Finnish IOUs to Hitler, so Finnish officials cooked their books and reduced the sum to be paid to 1/3 of the actual sum.
(Then much later a Finnish company, Sonera, bought a 3G licence in Germany for 3.500 million € - which proved a worthless investment. Wags claim that this was poetic justice, a late payment for the arms not paid during IIWW. Finland - the country that pays her debts!)

 

A good book on the retreat from Lapland is Black Edelweiss about the SS Nord Divison , obviously written from the German point of view.

 

The evil v evil (or even pro-German) attitude the Fins have about WW2 is slightly worrying because the Germans were absolute evil and the Soviets for all the bloody horrors of High Stalinism were much more morally ambiguous.

If the Germans had won ''Nazi'' Europa'' would've be a decaying culturally sterile, technologically backward, (‘’Nazi science’’ is an oxymoron, once pre-Nazi Weimar/Kaiserreich born scientists die/retire they’re screwed) , economically moribund mass of corruption, dissent and increasingly repressed nationalism to a much worse degree than the OTL Warsaw Pact. Eastern Europe, Russia Ukraine & Belarus would of course have been charnel houses. Also in the end they Germans would've screwed Finland far worse than the Soviets did.

Lastly the Germans ''save'' anything, had the Soviets really wanted to occupy Filand in 1944 they'd have done so.

 

Can't agree with you!

The SU was AT LEAST as evil as nazi-Germany. Communism, a product of the SU, caused many more deaths than nazism and the evils of communism - and it's effects - still continue to enslave and harm millions of people even today.

Hitler did not want major war in Europe - at least not in 1939. The war in Europe was Stalin's wish. He got what he wanted when the SU started the WW2 in Europe TOGETHER with Germany.

The victory of the SU (and naivety of the USA and cynicism of the UK) DID INDEED cause hole Eastern Europe to be practically destroyed in all those senses you mentioned.

Yes, the SU could have eventially occupied Finland if she wanted to. For that the SU would have needed a brand new major attack with new troops, supplies and preparations. That would have taken several extra months at least, which Stalin did not feel he any more had - thanks to Finland's stubborn resistance with invaluable German aid and consequent defensive victories on all parts of the front.

Stalin REALLY wanted to occupy Finland both in 1939 and 1944 (and 1940-41). He could not do so with the effort and time he felt he could allocate for the task. In summer 1944 the time run out and the race for Berlin became the top priority - which was not what Stalin had originally planned...

Yes, Germany - and our own soldiers of course - indeed saved Finland in summer 1944. Still we are not overly thankful for that, since it was Hitler who sold Finland to Stalin in the first place in 1939 and thus made the soviet attack possible.