Mannerheim!

Pictures and hopefully later on something on his life...Maybe we have some people here who would enjoy reading on him.

 

Great stuff Kai--thanks. i especially loved his award foto.

 

Great Stuff Buddy

[ 23. December 2002, 10:39 AM: Message edited by: Carl G.E. von Mannerheim ]

 

Some info and pics on Mannerheim to start with...

On WW2 and Mannerheim:

After the Soviet attack on 30.11.1939, a state of war was declared in Finland and Marshal Mannerheim was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Finnish Armed Forces. Mannerheim and the headquarters moved to Mikkeli on 3.12.1939.

Mannerheim was 72 years old when he became Commander-in-Chief. In spite of his age, he worked intensively at his duties. He arrived at his office at the headquarters at about 9 a.m. and left in the evening at about 22.30. His working day, which was broken only for lunch from 12.30-14.00 and dinner from 19.30-21.00, included numerous reports and briefings. During the Continuation War, his daily routine was broken by visits to the fronts, which he made in his own train.

In the middle of the war, the Commander-in-Chief celebrated his 75th birthday on 4.6.1942 in Immola. Honouring this special day with their presence were the President of the Finnish Republic, Risto Ryti, and the Government led by the Prime Minister, Jukka Rangell. On the same day, Field Marshal Mannerheim was granted the title of Marshal of Finland. Another less desired guest was the Chancellor of the Reich, Adolf Hitler. As a result of the events of summer 1944, President Risto Ryti, who was responsible for the agreements with Germany, resigned from office on 1.8.1944 after Mannerheim had consented to be his successor. Parliament elected Mannerheim as President of the Finnish Republic on 4.8.1944.

His presidency was a transitional period in which he led Finland to peace. But Mannerheim's health deteriorated rapidly and consequently his term as President was short; he resigned from office on 4.3.1946. The following summer, he retired to his Kirkniemi Manor.


In the autumn of 1947 his health deteriorated further and he was moved to Stockholm for an operation. From there he went to the village of Glion sur Territet near the town of Montreux in Switzerland. He took up residence at the Val-Mont Clinic, where he spent the rest of his life interspersed with a few short visits to Finland.
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Before the war broke out in 1941, England's Prime Minister Winston Churchill sent a letter to Mannerheim and wrote:

"I wish I could convince Your Excellency that we are going to beat the Nazis. I feel far more confident than in 1917 or 1918. It would be most painful to the many friends of your country in England if Finland found herself in the dock with the guilty and defeated Nazis."

Mannerheim answered on December 2, 1941:

"I would regret if these operations, carried out in order to safeguard Finland, would bring my country into a conflict with England, and I will be deeply grieved if you will consider yourself forced to declare war upon Finland. It was kind of you to send me a personal message in these trying days, and I have fully appreciated it."

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In 1943 Nazi "diplomat" von Ribbentrop traveled to Helsinki, Finland, with an empty boat. He told the Finnish leader, Baron von Mannerheim, "We have a ship in the harbor to take your Jews back to Germany for forced labor."

Mannerheim was a decent man. (At least politically. His admirers claim his womanly exploits were such as to make Bill Clinton look like a homosexual.)

Mannerheim was furious. "We have no Jews here," he said to von Ribbentrop. "We have only Finns. And if you touch so much as one of our Finns we will give up the northern front and let the Russians descend upon you."

The ship returned to Germany empty.

Mannerheim was so angry at Hitler that he looked throughout the Finnish armed forces for the highest-ranking Jew he could find. That happened to be First Lieutenant Jack Kotschack, who was immediately appointed liaison to the German forces. That was Mannerheim's insult to Hitler – forcing the Nazis to go through a Jew for every communication with the Finnish army.

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On the 4th of June 1942, it was Finnish Field-Marshal Carl Gustav Mannerheim's 75th birthday. Adolf Hitler took this occasion to fly to Helsinki to visit him in person and to discuss many important issues regarding how Barbarossa was going.
Still, this June 4th meeting between these two, would have remained fairly insignificant within the immense history of the Eastern Front, if it hadn't been for an accident, that 11 minutes of their private conversation had accidentally been taped by a Finnish radio engineer. He had been on hand for their meeting to record their comments for public broadcasts, and had accidentally left his recording machine running. That recording was in the Finnish Broadcasting Corporation's archives and had survived until being recently released for use by historians.

Hitler: ...a very serious danger, perhaps the most serious one - it's whole extent we can only now judge. We did not ourselves understand - just how strong this state [the USSR] was armed.

Mannerheim: No, we hadn't thought of this.

Hitler: No, I too, no.

Mannerheim: During the Winter War - during the Winter War we had not even thought of this. Of course...

Hitler: (Interrupting) Yes.

Mannerheim: But so, how they - in reality - and now there is no doubt all they had - what they had in their stocks!

Hitler: Absolutely, This is - they had the most immense armaments that, uh, people could imagine. Well - if somebody had told me that a country - with...(Hitler is interrupted by the sound of a door opening and closing.) If somebody had told me a nation could start with 35,000 tanks, then I'd have said: "You are crazy!"

Mannerheim: Thirty-five?

Hitler: Thirty-five thousand tanks.

Another Voice In Background: Thirty-five thousand! Yes!

Hitler: We have destroyed - right now - more than 34,000 tanks. If someone had told me this, I'd have said: "You!" If you are one of my generals had stated that any nation has 35,000 tanks I'd have said: "You, my good sir, you see everything twice or ten times. You are crazy; you see ghosts." This I would have deemed possible. I told you earlier we found factories, one of them at Kramatorskaja, for example, Two years ago there were just a couple hundred [tanks]. We didn't know anything. Today, there is a tank plant, where - during the first shift a little more than 30,000, and 'round the clock a little more than 60,000, workers would have labored - a single tank plant! A gigantic factory! Masses of workers who certainly, lived like animals and...

Another Voice In Background: (Interrupting) In the Donets area?

Hitler: In the Donets area. (Background noises from the rattling of cups and plates over the exchange.)

Mannerheim: Well, if you keep in mind they had almost 20 years, almost 25 years of - freedom to arm themselves...

Hitler: (Interrupting quietly) It was unbelievable.

Mannerheim: And everything - everything spent on armament.

Hitler: Only on armament.

Mannerheim: Only on armament!

Hitler: (Sighs) Only - well, it is - as I told your president [Ryte] before - I had no idea of it. If I had an idea - then I would have been even more difficult for me, but I would have taken the decision [to invade] anyhow, because - there was no other possibility. It was - certain, already in the winter of '39/ '40, that the war had to begin. I had only this nightmare - but there is even more! Because a war on two fronts - would have been impossible - that would have broken us. Today, we see more clearly - than we saw at that time - it would have broken us. And my whole - I originally wanted to - already in the fall of '39 I wanted to conduct the campaign in the west - on the continuously bad weather we experienced hindered us.

Our whole armament - you know, was - is a pure good weather armament. It is very capable, very good, but it is unfortunately just a good-weather armament. We have seen this in the war. Our weapons naturally were made for the west, and we all thought, and this was true 'till that time, uh, it was the opinion from the earliest times: you cannot wage war in winter. And we too, have, the German tanks, they weren't tested, for example, to prepare them for winter war. Instead we conducted trials to prove it was impossible to wage war in winter. That is a different starting point [than the Soviet's]. In the fall of 1939 we always faced the question. I desperately wanted to attack, and I firmly believed we could finish France in six weeks.

However, we faced the question of whether we could move at all - it was raining continuously. And I know the French area myself very well and I too could not ignore the opinions, of many of my generals that, we - probably - would not have had the élan, that our tank arm would not have been, effective, that our air force could not been effective from our airfields because of the rain.

I know northern France myself. You know, I served in the Great War for four years. And - so the delay happened. If I had in '39 eliminated France, then world history would have changed. But I had to wait 'till 1940, and unfortunately it wasn't possible before May. Only on the 10th of May was the first nice day - and on the 10th of May I immediately attacked. I gave the order to attack on the 10th on the 8th. And - then we had to, conduct this huge transfer of our divisions from the west to the east.

First the occupation of - then we had the task in Norway - at the same time we faced - I can frankly say it today - a grave misfortune, namely the - weakness of, Italy. Because of - first, the situation in North Africa, then, second, because of the situation in Albania and Greece - a very big misfortune. We had to help. This meant for us, with one small stoke, first - the splitting of our air force, splitting our tank force, while at the same time we were preparing, the, tank arm in the east. We had to hand over - with one stroke, two divisions, two whole divisions and a third was then added - and we had to replace continuous, very severe, losses there. It was - bloody fighting in the desert.

This all naturally was inevitable, you see. I had a conversation with Molotov [Soviet Minister] at that time, and it was absolutely certain that Molotov departed with the decision to begin a war, and I dismissed the decision to begin a war, and I dismissed him with the decision to - impossible, to forestall him. There was - this was the only - because the demands that man brought up were clearly aimed to rule, Europe in the end. (Practically whispering here.) Then I have him - not publicly...(fades out).

Already in the fall of 1940 we continuously faced the question, uh: shall we, consider a break up [in relations with the USSR]? At that time, I advised the Finnish government, to - negotiate and, to gain time and, to act dilatory in this matter - because I always feared - that Russia suddenly would attack Romania in the late fall - and occupy the petroleum wells, and we would have not been ready in the late fall of 1940. If Russia indeed had taken Romanian petroleum wells, than Germany would have been lost. It would have required - just 60 Russian divisions to handle that matter.

In Romania we had of course - at that time - no major units. The Romanian government had turned to us only recently - and what we did have there was laughable. They only had to occupy the petroleum wells. Of course, with our weapons I could not start a, war in September or October. That was out of the question. Naturally, the transfer to the east wasn't that far advanced yet. Of course, the units first had to reconsolidate in the west. First the armaments had to be taken care of because we too had - yes, we also had losses in our campaign in the west. It would have been impossible to attack - before the spring of 19, 41. And if the Russians at that time - in the fall of 1940 - had occupied Romania - taken the petroleum wells, then we would have been, helpless in 1941.

Another Voice In Background: Without petroleum...

Hitler: (Interrupting) We had huge German production: however, the demands of the air force, our Panzer divisions - they are really huge. It is level of consumption that surpasses the imagination. And without the addition of four to five million tons of Romanian petroleum, we could not have fought the war - and would have had to let it be - and that was my big worry. Therefore I aspired to, bridge the period of negotiations 'till we would be strong enough to, counter those extortive demands [from Moscow] because - those demands were simply naked extortion's. They were extortion's. The Russians knew we were tied up in the west. They could really extort everything from us. Only when Molotov visited - then - I told him frankly that the demands, their numerous demands, weren't acceptable to us. With that the negotiations came to an abrupt end that same morning.

There were four topics. The one topic that, involved Finland was, the, freedom to protect themselves from the Finnish threat, he said. [I said] You do not want to tell me Finland threatens you! But he said: "In Finland it is - they who take action against the, friends, of the Soviet Union. They would [take action] against [our] society, against us - they would continuously, persecute us and, a great power cannot be threatened by a minor country."

I said: "Your, existence isn't threatened by Finland! That is, you don't mean to tell me..."

Mannerheim: (Interrupting) Laughable!

Hitler: "...that your existence is threatened by Finland?" Well [he said] there was a moral - threat being made against a great power, and what Finland was doing, that was a moral - a threat to their moral existence. Then I told him we would not accept a further war in the Baltic area as passive spectators. In reply he asked me how we viewed our position in, Romania. You know, we had given them a guarantee. [He wanted to know] if that guarantee was directed against Russia as well? And that time I told him: "I don't think it is directed at you, because I don't think you have the intention of attacking Romania. You have always stated that Bessarabia is yours, but that you have - never stated that you want to attack Romania!"

"Yes," he told me, but he wanted to know more precisely if this guarantee...(A door opens and the recording ends.)

http://www.wargamer.com/articles/bdvisit2.asp

http://www.mikkeli.fi/museot/englanti/pm_mannerheim.html

Mannerheim´s saloon car:
http://www.mikkeli.fi/museot/englanti/pm_salonkivaunu.html

http://www.helsinki-hs.net/picpage.asp?IsoID=4C721OnXS



Watch it, Corporal Hitler...!

 

A joke...

Stalin, Hitler, Churchill and Mannerheim were in a Swiss hotel resting and spending time before the world war 2. One mornig Stalin started a discussion:

I saw a weird dream.I was baking a bread on my Datza , and as I took it from the oven, it grew huge and covered the whole Earth.

Hitler continued:

I saw a dream that was almost identical except that I took a German helmet from the closet, and it started to grow and in the end it covered the Earth..

Churchill´s turn:

I saw a dream where I was raising the Union Jack in Buckingham Palace, as it started to grow and it covered the Earth in the end as well!

Everyone turned to Mannerheim who was peacefully sipping his coffee. After a while he said:

I saw a dream as well. I saw the Finnish Lion and how it started to grow. In the end it grew so big it ate the Russian bread. Then it took the German helmet, turned it upside down and had a c*** on it. After that it took the Union Jack and wiped its b***** on that...

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There´s also a story on Stalin suggesting Mannerheim they should unite Russia and Finland. Mannerheim answered that he was not in such good condition to lead a country that big...

 

Hehee, I like that last one Kai, but you'd better watch out. If you keep up all this Mannerheim/Finland talk, people might think you are biased toward the Finns, or even a Finn yourself!

 

Kai do you have anything on what Mannerheim thought of waffen ss troops???

 

And another Q: What do the buffs think of the book 'Mannerheim, The Finnish Years'? Can't remember the author...but can buy the book...

 

RedBaron,

that is a good question. And the problem is that Mannerheim is quite neutral on this subject. Finland did not have much contact except for SS Nord ( which did not do well of all the Waffen-SS troops ) and the Finnish volunteers. On the latter subject Mannerheim seems to have been willing to send the boys, but to Wehrmacht not Waffen-SS ( as the original idea was ). After he heard of them going to Waffen-SS he wanted to get them back to Finland but by the time it was not in his hands to decide anymore.I think he was not too happy with the political link that Finns might get.That´s how I see it.(I looked into Mannerheim´s memoirs and as well the book on Finnish volunteers in Waffen-SS before I wrote this).I´ll see if there´s more but I think there might not be any direct replies to this by Mannerheim. Or maybe Sami has, maybe?

On that jews question and Finland I think this covers that part on Mannerheim enough clearly:

"In at least two instances, however, Finnish officials took a strong stand. When SS-chief Heinrich Himmler traveled to Finland in the summer of 1942, he reportedly asked Finnish Prime Minister J.W. Rangall about Finland's Jews. Rangall replied "We have no Jewish question." When Himmler raised this issue with C.G. Mannerheim, commander-in-chief of Finland's armed forces, the 75-year-old marshal confronted the issue head-on, declaring: "Not even one single Jewish soldier will be taken from my army to be turned over to Germany. That cannot happen except over my dead body."

http://www.house.gov/international_relations/crs/finland.htm

 

Great stuff kai. I am interested because i am painting up my Finnish wargames army to fight those evil russians!!! Makes a change from Germans! Dont suppose you got a list of tanks used by finland?

Sorry its a bit off topic, but i know they used soviet vehicles and stug III, but I was after something more original...

What happened to the finns in the waffen ss?

 

Sorry RedBaron,

but we didn´t have our own made tanks to use. To start with Winter War we had some obsolete WW1 class French tanks. What we got from the Russians was the main element of our tank army, light tanks and some T-34´s. Later on as Germany helped us more we got those Stug III´s.And by the pics some Pz IV´s etc.

Below is a link with pics of tanks of the Finnish army in WW2

http://www.geocities.com/%7Efi1877/

The Finnish Waffen-SS men came back in 1943 after their contract time ( 2 years ) expired and the Finnish government would not let them continue, except for some who stayed without Finland´s official agreement. So most of those guys who survived continued in the Finnish army.

If interested in more, here´s some sites:

http://members.tripod.com/~Sturmvogel/ss-finn.html

http://www.wssob.com/000batfin.html

http://www.wiking.org/topics/finns.htm

[ 25. December 2002, 05:59 PM: Message edited by: Kai-Petri ]

 

Cheers Kai!!!

 

- The actual tank types are rather easy to find, but for e.g. info of the formations, see:
http://www.ankkurinvarsi.net/jaeger/FORMATIONS4.htm

The library section of Jarkko's website is truly a great link to be added to your favorites:
http://www.ankkurinvarsi.net/jaeger/LIBRARY_MAINPAGE.shtml

The mainstay of the Finnish armored forces was the T-26 until the Stugs arrived. The spearhead of the unit was of course the companies with the heavier tanks (3rd and 6th companies, i.e. the first two tank battalions had each a "heavy" company), the Finnish T-26s trying to avoid combat with heavier Soviet tanks (but IIRC some engagements took place).

 

Thanx Sami!

The Finns captured a total of 114 T-26 tanks ( I think meaning the Winter War period ), and they prefered using the T-26 instead of the BT tank.

http://www.skalman.nu/soviet/ww2-equipment-tank-t26.htm



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Those old French tanks were Renault FT 17´s :

http://mailer.fsu.edu/~akirk/tanks/finland/FT17a.jpg

34 Renault FT Model 1917 tanks were available at the beginnig of Winter War. Lack of funds prevented them to be replaced by newer models. At the beginning of Winter War some were dug in and used as "fortifications". After Winter War only 4 remained serviceable. They never saw combat or operational service again, and were retired in 1943.



The BT-5!



The StuG III



15 Panzerkampfwagen IV Ausf.Js were purchased from Germany in mid-1944. A further tank deliveries were halted when the Finland-German war (Lapland war) began. When PzIVs arrived in Finland, the Continuation War was about to end and were modified to meet the needs of Finland. These included changing the German MG34s to Soviet Degtyarevs and removing the additional side armor plating. None of them actually saw operational service against Soviets.
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Ah but the Finns did have something of their
"own", but not very good though on tanks...



The BT-42 was a Finnish built assault gun.Early in the Continuation war, Finland obtained a large stock of captured BT-light tanks. By 1942 the type was becoming obsolete. In order to get some use from the chassis it was decided to rebuild some to assault guns.The main gun chosen for these vehicles was the English QF4.5inch Mark II 114mm field howitzer.A total of 18 were built, the last of them being delivered in late autumn of 1943. In combat BT42's achieved some small successes, but during the fighting in Viipuri (Vyborg) in summer 1944, 8 were lost to enemy armor. One BT42 was reported to have hit an enemy tank over 15 times without any visible damage. The gun proved effective only against soft targets and was unpopular with crews due to poor mechanical reliability. BT42's were intended as infantry support vehicles, not as tank destroyers. When placed in the destroyer mode, Soviet tanks found them an easy target. The remaining 10 vehicles, were used until 1950.

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A picture of encircled and destroyed Russian troops in the Winter War



A great site with info on what Finns received during the Winter War from the West and the vehicles used by the Finns. I am not sure if it is included in the sites given by Sami so I put it here for certainty:

http://mailer.fsu.edu/~akirk/tanks/finland/finland.html


"Nobody respects a country with a poor army, but everybody respects a country with a good army. I raise my toast to the Finnish Army."

J. Stalin
1948
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By the way, Sami, do you happen to know what Mannerheim thought of the Waffen-SS ?


[ 26. December 2002, 11:58 AM: Message edited by: Kai-Petri ]

 

Excellent stuff guys!!! Brill pics.

I have just ordered two BT-5 to convert into the BT-42, should surprise the hell out of my Russkie opponent!

I will post a pic of them when they are finished.


or should that be Finnish............?

 

- Well, using Niukkanen as a source isn't that wise, as the "purchased during the war" doesn't correspond with "received during the war".

E.g. of the infantry weapons that arrived during the war see:
http://www.winterwar.com/forces/FinArmy/asetilkehitys.htm

Artillery pieces:
http://www.winterwar.com/forces/FinArmy/ArtDevelopment.htm#acquisitions

Note that a weapon was still a long way from seeing action when it arrived at a Finnish port. The crates had to be debarked, opened, the equipment sorted, the ammunitions identified (a nightmare with lots of different cal ammo arriving) and the weapons had to be transported.

On top of that, someone had to familiarize themselves with the new equipment in order to make a short introductionary pamphlet of the weapon for the troops in Finnish. E.g. French language instructions weren't much use for the end users (Finnish troops).
E.g. with the French 90 K/77 (de Bange) cannons (guns dating back to 1877 without a recoil system), as the first guns arrived at Kollaa, there were no firing charts (needed if you want to fire indirect bombardment) and thus they were of little use. But on paper the addition of 90 mm guns for the defense of that important sector looked great !

- I can't recall exactly what Mannerheim thought about this, but if memory serves, he wasn't happy about Finns serving in the SS (both due to political/ideological reasons as well as military, as it was a whole battalion of young men the Finnish Army could've sorely used).

 

Thanx Sami,

according to those stats it seems like alot arrived in February, though probably they never got to the front before the end of the Winter War, I guess.Actually I think these weapons arrived soon if these were asked for in November (=a couple of months )but probably most was totally useless as everybody´s holdin´ onto their weapons because of the possible war escalation.
Am I right? What do you think of the quality of these arms, Sami?

And how much was kept in the Norway ports by the Germans ( still in co-op with the Russians ), actually. Have not found numbers on that one yet.

I guess our best equipper of arms was Russia like the old joke tells..Molotov claimed as Finnish troops were able to stop Russian troops that we were equipped by a big nation somehow..The Finnish answer; " Yes, Russia!". As we got guns and tanks and ammunition from the destroyed Russian troops...

 

Sami, if your the guy which runs the winterwar website, which i believe you are. Im the bloke that asked for permission to use your website's pics a few weeks back.

CvM

 

- Much of it yes.

- Correct. Only small items, like rifles, mines, hand grenades and stuff like that was reasonably fast to get to the troops. Artillery pieces, for instance were a totally different matter.

- With the exception of our Scandinavian neighbours, Sweden and Norway (and also Denmark), the rest weren't at all giving aid at the early phases of the conflict. Everybody expected a quick Soviet victory and thus weren't eager to send equipment which was likely to fall in the hands of the friend of their enemy in the near future. Only after the Finnish troops managed to stall the initial drive, did the western powers start to think of the possibility of sending equipment.

- It varied a lot. In general, Sweden sent the best quality items. E.g. the French artillery pieces were museum items, as were the British 114 mm howitzers. I don't mean that the respective powers wouldn't have had the same weapons in use, but the weapons that were sent were quite/very worn already.
The help from the U.S., though largest in terms of quantity was way too late (it was asked for already in Nov-Dec, but the decision was delayed until February 1940). The deal consisted of 200 light field guns, model 75 K/17, and 32 heavy howitzers, model 203 H/17. Also 208 898 shells of 75 mm and 9 178 shells of 203 mm were included.
200 light guns is a lot, but they ALL needed extensive maintenance and repair before they could be used. You can estimate the condition of the weapons at the time of arrival by the fact that at the end of October 1940, only 48 guns were by then in a condition that they could be distributed to the troops. None were usable in the condition they were sent.

What comes to rifles, it was pretty much the same. The 60,000 rifles bought from Yugoslavia were lousy. I can't recall the exact amount, but only a part could be used as rifles after maintenance. The rest were cannibalized for spare parts.

- Can't remember, but the numbers were huge. Among them were the 305 mm cannons (12 IIRC), which were bought from Spain (IIRC), the main weaponry from a decomissioned battleship. When Finland finally received them, the Germans handed over only 8, as the Germans used 4 to build a coastal battery as a part of the Atlantic wall.

- The joke has indeed a ironic truth in it. As far as I know, USSR was the single largest source of military hardware during the Winter War.

And what was more important, qualitively the war booty equipment was superior to the equipment received from others (except for e.g. some brand new cannons from Bofors).

 

- I'm quilty, I guess.

- I remember you. Your nick is the type that is easy to remember.