World Battlefronts: BATTLE OF GERMANY (North): Cool-off in Finland

Four weeks after the armistice with Russia, war-drained Finland was still trying to throw out the once-welcome German guest. Russia joined in at the Arctic Ocean to speed the parting. With Petsamo’s nickel mines threatened by the Russian drive and a Lapland winter making up, the German determination to stick around was beginning to cool. Helsinki was still hopeful that it would be able to demobilize its soldiers by Dec. 5—the armistice deadline.

When Finland surrendered, most of the Germans in northern Finland were dug in near the nickel mines and the Norwegian frontier. Colonel General Lothar Rendulic had two divisions in the far north based on the Norwegian port of Kirkenes (35 miles northwest of Petsamo); three divisions were based farther south on the railroad town of Rovaniemi (65 miles north of the Gulf of Bothnia).

Finnish General Hjalmar Siilasvuo, with five divisions, began a drive from the south, slowly pushed the Germans back. With their direct route to Germany cut off, the Nazis could retreat into Norway or into neutral Sweden. But there was no question of peaceful surrender to the Finns, as the armistice framers seemed to expect—few Germans would willingly follow the road to a Russian prison camp.

At the start of the post-armistice campaign, most Finns had too long been friends of the Germans to pursue the battle with gusto. But heavy-footed Germans did their undiplomatic best to change Finnish minds. Outmoded Stukas brutally dive-bombed two Finnish troop trains. Finnish towns were fired with senseless Teutonic fury. The Finnish soldier began to take a more personal interest in his new job.

Through the multicolored spruce and birch forests the fight went on. Soon winter would freeze the hundreds of lakes and rivers, blanket the forests with snow. In the north the Russians landed six miles from Petsamo, at the northern terminus of the Arctic highway, marched in to capture the port three days later. When the Russians neutralized Kirkenes and the Finns reached Rovaniemi, organized German resistance could no longer continue. Then Finland would have peace.