WW2 From Finland's Perspective | Animated History
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Sources:
Alapuro, Risto. “Finland, Thrown out into the World Alone.” Scandinavian Studies 64, no. 4 (1992): 699-708. www.jstor.org/stable/40919479.
Birks, Chris., Wirtanen, Toni., Nenye, Vesa., Munter, Peter. Finland at War: The Winter War 1939-40 (United Kingdom: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2015).
Birks, Chris., Wirtanen, Toni., Nenye, Vesa., Munter, Peter. Finland at War: The Continuation and Lapland Wars 1941-45 (United Kingdom: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2016).
Johansen, Claes. Hitler’s Nordic Ally? Finland and the Total War, 1939-45. (United Kingdom: Pen and Sword Books, Ltd., 2016).
Lukacs, John. “Finland Vindicated.” Foreign Affairs 71, no. 4 (1992): 50-63. doi.org/10.2307/20045309.
Lunde, Henrik O. Finland's War of Choice: The Troubled German-Finnish Coalition in World War II (United Kingdom: Casemate Publishers (Ignition), 2011).
Mannerheim, Carl Gustaf Emil. Memoirs. (United States: Dutton, 1954).
Saarelainen, Tapio A.M., The White Sniper: Simo Häyhä. (United States: Casemate Publishers, 2016).
Vehviläinen, Olli, Finland in the Second World War: Between Germany and Russia (United Kingdom: Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2002).
Wuorinen, John H. Finland And World War II, 1939-1944 (United States: Verdun Press, 2015).
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Make a trilogy of video just like nNorth Africa campaign :
The Soviet Afghan War
1979 to 1989
Make a video :
Sino Vietnam War 1979 -?
Make a video :
What happened Vietnam after Vietnam War
It would eventually happen ever since that Finish VS Soviet Squads review
The Soviet Afghan War :
The Soviet Union superpower nation is lost in Afghanistan
My grandfather fought against the soviets. Injured, he stayed behind in a bunker while others retreated. A grenade flew in and exploded, gravely injuring him; shrapnel was 1cm away from striking his heart, and he survived. He died in 2004, and while I was only 3 then, I do still remember him.
What do you as a Finn think about a possible Nato membership for your country? And🇸🇪
I know a legendary sniper that died 2 years before your grandfather, he killed lots of soviets, Nickname: The white death, probably you as a Finn know this
@@Victor-07-04 He watched the Video bruh
He was a hero for his country.
@@Victor-07-04 Yes. Joining NATO with the Swedes would be extra nice.
As a Finn, I can tell my grandmas story during the ww2, she's nowadays 90 years old.
She was born in Southern Karelia, quite close to Laatokka lake, and what she told me about the evacuation, was that her dad burned their house there, as they wouldn't want to give it into the soviets hands, they moved to Mikkeli. And during the continuationwar she had to live in sweden with her littlesister for 3 years, as it was too dangerous to live in Finland where there were occasional russian bombingraids. After the war she went to the school in Mikkeli which used to be the headquarters of Mannerheim.
Nowadays she keeps saying that if she met Putin, she would personally shoot him on sight xd... but yea, hard early life for her.
wow
i love minttu
I love minttu
Damn that deep I mean she did go through one of the most devastating wars in human history so I get why she would shoot Putin on site because she see it as preventing another war from occurring. Amazing Woman
Varsinkin nyt moni varmaan tekis noin Putinille
Finnish general Ehrnrooth was visiting England in the 1970s. A British admiral was wondering how many Soviet troops had been deployed to Finland.
- A few hundred thousand, said Ehrnrooth.
- Where have they been deployed?
- About 6 feet under, along the border, said Ehrnrooth.
@@KyPc0p to get their stolen land back
@@KyPc0p If you watched the video it should be kinda obvious.
Ehrnrooth forgot to mention that the Karjala was lost, economy totally got fucked, 9% of finnish territory went on the other side of the border, Finland accepted all the demands made by USSR and war was Lost. :D
@@I_Love_Lord they remained independent and from everything I’ve heard are a pretty happy and economically stable country now. Can the same be said for the USSR?
@@keaganscott9808 thats a total different area or topic. If say the result of war, they lost. Economically and from every other point of view they are better! Ofcourse they are. I live in Finland
A large group of Russian soldiers in the border area in 1939 are moving down a road when they hear a voice call from behind a small hill:
"One Finnish soldier is better than ten
Russian".
The Russian commander quickly orders 10 of his best men over the hill where Upon a gun-battle breaks out and continues for a few minutes, then silence.
The voice once again calls out: "One Finn is better than one hundred Russian." Furious, the Russian commander sends his next best 100 troops over the hill and instantly a huge gun fight commences. After 10 minutes of battle, again Silence.
The calm Finnish voice calls out again: "One Finn is better than one thousand Russians from:
The enraged Russian commander musters 1000 fighters and sends them to the other side of the hill.
Rifle fire, machine guns, grenades, rockets and cannon fire ring out as a terrible battle
is fought...
Then silence.
Eventually one badly wounded Russian fighter crawls back over the hill and with his dying words tells his commander, "Don't send any more men!!! It's a TRAP! There are TWO of them!"
I was looking for this comment
It's an old joke, but it checks out.
This is my favorite Winter War joke
This made me spit out my water 😂😂
that is cz the real men were dealing with Finland's nazi friends lol
Amazing video! Finland is often overlooked. I can recommend everyone the Finnish war movie: Tuntematon Sotilas.
hi
@@swedish_steel7861 the unknown soldier movies are kinda owned by Finnish YLE and i think they gave netflix rights to stream it there.
Thanks for the reccomendation
From Finland Its a huge hit here and well we Fins love it
@@swedish_steel7861 That Netflix mini series was originally a 2017 movie. It just got cut up into parts for TV. It also includes extra scenes that were cut from the movie.
It's easy to criticize the actions of Finland in WW2 when you aren't sandwiched between two aggressive superpowers led by two murderous dictators who see your country as a means to an end. Finland's actions during WW2 were about one thing: national survival. Thank you for this fascinating video.
Thank you for putting it right.
The only people who criticise Finland for working with the Nazis are stupid people who have no awareness of reality. If you were about to die and the only person offering you help was Hitler you'd fucking well take it. I think it's more shame on Britain and France for not offering alternatives, tbh.
Finland was the sigma male of the Second World War.
N@zi finland
@@terrorgaming459 Mass rapist, racist, mass murderer, genocide supporting communist.
Considering Finland got its independence from Lenin, and never lost it after losing two wars to USSR. Finland's national survival was never threatened.
The only time it was threatened was when it joined with N-Germany. As if N-Germany had won, Finland would not exists.
And if you also consider the civil war of Finland, where the elites executed 10k finns, and 12k died on their concentration camps.. you kinda get what the real problem was. And why there is so much propaganda in Finland to try to make winter war look like some heroic battle. When it was a huge mistake fueled by the outcome of Finland's civil war, and the far right elements that were empowered by it.
My great-grandfather was one of the last Finns to leave Viipuri (Vyborg). He was injured in the winter war, so during the continuation war he was assigned to drive trucks. He was assigned to help with the evacuation in 1944. He saw the Russians on the other side of the market square as he left, never to see the city again.
He died a few years back. Three weeks before his 100th birthday.
My mother, now deceased, was a child when they evacuated, became evakkoja. For hewr as a child, the most traumatizing event was to see how the animals suffered during the evacuation. She often told stories how cows had no place to run to. Her father, my grandfather, became blind, Imagine how it must have felt. Then again, there must be millions of even more heart-wrecking stories out there. Some of them happening right now in Ukraine.
There is no Byborg. Only occupied Viipuri.
Finland is by far my favorite contry in the world. Your way of doing things, your people. In not such a friendly envrionment, but beautiful nonetheless. Greets from Romania and be proud of your history.
thank you! :)
its the same in minnesota
@@georgesmith9545 Thats why in the 1800s quite a few finns moved to the Northern US-states and to Canada, very similar enviroment.
I feel the snowy area are always the most friendly and united.
Thank you !
Romania has also been suffering from russian imperialism
Beautiful work and a fascinating topic that doesn't nearly receive enough attention. Thank you for covering it.
me seeing a history channel comment on a history video ☠
Ur videos look good 👍
I love hearing people not from Finland try and pronounce the names i always laugh
Well said. Although History Matters also covered Finland 🇫🇮 as well.
@@pohmot9933 For english speakers, it must be hell. But for romance language speakers, who don't twisted how the vowels must be interpreted, it's not so bad. We only need to learn about how to pronounce the ä, ö, and do some training about talk extremelly long words. This is only about pronunciation, to really learn a language that doesn't even is a indo-european language must be very hard
Wish you would’ve made mention’s of Finland’s staunch refusal to submit to German demands to suppress Jews in the country, and at several moments german troops fought with openly practicing Finnish Jews in areas such as Petrozavodsk.
They also gave few of them iron cross lol
@@feydrautha012 The point being? Mannerheim would’ve fought to the death to defend the Jews of Finland. Even Germany realized that, ESPECIALLY after 1943
@@feydrautha012 The soviets carried out their own genocidal actions, too. Like the NKVD national operations which were meant to murder and deport members of "foreign" ethnicities like the Poles, Latvians, Lithuanians, Germans etc.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_operations_of_the_NKVD
The Finns were in a situation where they had to choose between a rock and a hard place, and they chose to cooperate with the country that wasn't the immediate threat for them, and that's understandable.
@@alex-sv8ru Let’s not forget that the Germans completely PUSSIED OUT of enforcing anti-Semitic laws upon a democratic counth such as Finland, because they KNEW that they couldn’t possibly defeat Finland in a conventional or even unconventional war if the country had still refused. Especially after the events in Helsinki, where 5 Jews were brutally executed at the port. That had cemented anti-German compliance in terms of anti-Jewish laws. “After protests by Lutheran ministers, the Archbishop, and the Social Democratic Party, no more foreign Jewish refugees were deported from Finland.”
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Finland
@@feydrautha012 Finland was not fighting FOR Germany. Finland was fighting WITH Germany because they had no other choise. All the allied countries refused to help Finland under Soviet threath. Also when Finland allied with Germany there was no idea of the horrible things they did.
My grandmother lost her own father to the war when she was only 3 years old. She only had a few memories of him, but losing him was something that stayed with her through her whole life. She passed away this year in February, before the war in Ukraine began. While her passing was sad, I'm also happy that she didn't have to be here to see and hear about the war, or go through the memories and feelings that it would've brought up once again.
We have discussed with my family that if there would be such a situation where our safety was in danger here in Finland, we would move to my grandmother's old house to the countryside for a while. I like to think that she left us with a safe haven of our own. It's a very dear place to me after all the childhood summers spent there, and I know it's the safest place we could go to if something bad was to happen in our country.
Really?
As a Finn, especially the Winter War is highly regarded as the peak of Finnish fortitude. The war is still talked about at dinner tables, schools and with family, and is an important historical piece in almost every Finnish person’s mind. However, only with this video I really understood how desperate and alone we were during the darkest hours in the international scene, with other countries not picking up the phone. I’m so glad that now the international community is lining itself up behind Ukraine to help.
Thank you for the video! It is a masterpiece.
Why are you calling this "a masterpiece"? This video contains some atrocious errors like saying finland was part of the warsov pact and also the part where finns participated in the siege of leningrad. Incredible BS
@@samikuuppaassa55 Wrong, you didn't listen closely, at 16:29 the narrator actually says, "but this was not the end of Finnish ambitions, they meant to make for Leningrad just as they promised... Finnish forces reached the river Svir... (being halted there) marked the end of Finnish offensive operations"
@@samikuuppaassa55 Well, I just watched the end again and caught him calling Finland, ""an island of Republican democracy in the Warsaw pact", so you got that critique correct.
I didn't catch this in my 1st viewing as the "island" description caused me to think he was saying "surrounded by" not "in", but he does say "in" so you're right, he's wrong.
I assume he just misspoke, not that he really thinks Finland was in the Warsaw pact (either way the video is wrong here)
And yet Finland lost this war.
@@azzag123456 t r o l l
“They are so many, and our country is so small. Where will we find room, to bury them all?”
-Saying from the winter war
Here's another one, there are already hundreds of of Russian soldiers stationed on the Finnish side of the border.
...about six feet under.
@@Takeshi357 That's from the cold war. I think it was a British officer who asked from a Finnish officer that how many Soviet soldiers we had stationed in Finland. He replyed 200k. The Brit looked shoked and demanded more info on their location. The Finn just replyed "they're all located along the Finnish border in the depth of 6 feet".
Watch for Blitzkrieg
@@Takeshi357 Finnish joke: a Soviet battalion is attacking a forest, a Finnish soldier says 1 Finn is worth 2 soviets the Soviet commander sends 2 soldier they don’t come back, then the Finn says 1 Finn is worth 10 soviets so the angry commander sends 20 instead they don’t come back, then again the Finn says 1 Finn is worth 100 soviets so he sends 100 soviets and 1 tank, 1 Soviet soldier survives and comes back the commander asked him what happened the Soviet soldier goes it’s a trap there are 2 of them
All that jocking yet the USSR won both the winter and continuation wars with Finland losing 10% of teritory and about 40% of it's industry.. may every fallen soldier rest in peace
The house where I live in Helsinki (built in 1917) still carries the mark of the bombs, a sobering reminder. Three out of four of my grandparents served in the war, and somehow all survived - at least physically. And as others have mentioned, the role of Norwegian and Swedish volunteers shouldn't be forgotten - "Finlands sak är vår", as the saying went.
And a russian is still a russian even if you fry them in butter
finally someone recognizing Norwegian and Swedish contribution in the winter war, much appreciated
@@jerekalevijarvinen1389 Ton oon iteki kuullu🤣
What does the saying mean?
@@richardsilva5110 literal translation: finlands thing is ours. what it means: finlands cause is our cause
I feel proud to Han Finnish ancestry, love to Finland 🇫🇮 from Canada 🇨🇦
Back atcha! Greetings from Pohjanmaa! :) See ya in the next Hockey World Cup finals...
🇫🇮🤝🇨🇦
🇫🇮🤝🇷🇺❌
Do you speak the language
@@robinhollanti1561loser
Finland as a whole inspires me. By all means, they should have struggled going into the 20th and 21st centuries. And boy, did they struggle. But now look at them. The happiest country in the world, with the best education, some of the best welfare, incredibly fair elections, low amounts of poverty and homelessness, and less then a century ago they were fighting for survival against the soviets. I hope I can visit the beautiful country of Finland one day 🇨🇦♥️🇫🇮
Finland is the happiest country, because all sad people kill themselves
The rumours of finnish happiness are greatly exaggerated. Additionally Finland is rapidly loaning itself bancrupt in addition to idiotic emission restrictions that basically make living in the country side unsustainable due to fuel prices, electric prices and lack of public transport in said regions.
Scandinavia is a bit of a dosshole now. Don't swallow the narrative.
As you can see, Finns may be a happy people, but they also like to complain a lot.
Finland is one of the most depressed countries in the world I can tell you that
As important as the Winter Wars were historically, their impact on current events is HUGE in Finland. A lot of Putin's threats in 2022 carry the same undertones and demands as Stalin's threats in 1940. And combined with the recent, indiscriminate damage Russia is causing to Ukraine, joining NATO is looking less like an option and more like a necessity.
I hope it doesn't come to it, but if Sovie... Erm, _Russian_ forces do roll across the Finnish border with hostile intentions I think NATO would respond irrespective of Finland's status with the alliance at the time.
If he is allowed to do it again when and where will his war machine stop? We tried appeasement in the face of true evil during the 1930s, and look what happened as a result...
yes but it is a bad idea, the reason Putin is attacking Ukraine isn't that it just want to liberate oir denazify but it is simply and solely beccause Ukraine and USA try to body block Russia and threaten moscow, to oversimplify Russia is feeling like the USA when USSR place missile in Cuba, very pissed.
@@residentelect That’s terrifying to think that the appeasement strategy is repeating.
“History doesn’t repeat itself but damn does it rhyme.”
@@afailureofaanimator6744
You may well consider yourself a failure in the animation world, but you are most certainly a man of culture, my friend.
Twain at his finest...
Yeah there's definitely a different feeling when you talk about the smaller countries just trying to EXIST VS literally any and every major power.
Obviously they aren't guilt free, but the Finnish wanted independence- Russia, Italy, Japan, & Germany wanted to expand territory and took advantage of neighboring countries.
Britain and France wanted to maintain colonial power.
America wanted to stay out of it.
So many wrongs, but we must not forget that history is never good vs bad.
It's people vs people.
It is actually sometimes good vs bad. Like we finns havn't done anything bad to russian and they still wanted attack to us. But yeah you are right mostly wars are pretty complicated and there aren't good snd bad
It's quite funny to think that Finland was at war with the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany and the British Empire in the same decade.
@yes wow its here unlike your father
@@CaptainPanaka "wanted to attack"
it didn't ever work like that. every aggression has large energy losses, or resourses-transferring this into global scale. main objective that Stalin aimed at in negotiations was to move board from Leningrad-war with Germany was obvious in early 30s. was it succesful or not but finally germans sucked. and i'd not say finns were such innocent as well as much other european countries.
@@raketny_hvost The Soviet actions in the Baltic States right before kinda defeat the idea that there was any good will for the Soviets to draw upon. They started the whole mess with Finland.
They didn't need to do that.
My grandfathers dad was in the winter war. He survived the war but got a shot in his arm. I think he was a legend how he fighted for my country finland🙂🇫🇮
...
Yo weirdo just say great grandfather
He helped prevent genocide of Finnish 🇫🇮 people
@Артавод Russia is the successor state of the Golden Horde and continues to bully their European neighbors.
bullshit
I'm so tired of people bashing Finland for siding with germany in ww2. They had to play the cards they were dealt. If the Finnish should be considered nazis for siding with germany then what about America, Britain, and all the western countries? They allied with Russia. Shouldn't they be considered communists? What's the difference?
Finally someone with a fucking brain
Don't get tired, they won't stop accusing when it suits them.
@@marsneedstowelsthey will cheat by using every fallacy there is (guilt by association, ad hominem, strawman, slippery slope, etc.)
@@OperatorMax1993 Eh, this is an internet comment section, not a debate. You CAN be guilty by association, there ARE slippery slopes, but there are (The word everyone loves using these days) nuances. I personally think Finland is a unique circumstance in that vein.
it's because people see war as black and white and not shades of gray. All countries had their reasons for the allies they chosen. For some, it was about conquering and oppressing others (Italy, Germany, Soviet Union). For some it was about fighting an oppressor (Ukraine). For some it was about revenge (Finland). And for some it was out of defense of one's borders and land (Poland, France, etc.).
Too many people want to paint the two sides as either pro-Naziism and anti-Naziism, but that is far from reality and a bastardization of events.
You kinda got the period between the Finnish offensive of 1941, and the karelia offensive of 1944 wrong. It wasn’t 3 years of desperate defense, it was actually around 2,5 years of ”asemasota” (stationary war). No ”waves of soviet conscripts” fell on the Finnish defences during this period, instead this period of the war constied of the odd artillery barrage, Soviet attempts at bombing Finnish cities, trench raiding, and scouting. Also, the Soviet Karelia offensive of 1944 didn’t consist of ”waves of conscripts” hitting Finnish lines, but was a combined arms operation similar to Bagration.
And to top the whole 'asemasota' off, Finland didn't try to encircle Leningrad. Finnish troops stopped 20km outside of Leningrad, dug in and staid put for 2.5 years. Hitler demanded continuing many times but Mannerheim refused every time. This in large part because Churchill had told Mannerheim that if they would close the encirclement, it would have "dire consequenses" from the allied side. Mannerheim took this advice to heart and refused to cause any more bad blood between Finland and the Allied. This included not permanently damaging the Kirov Railway that brought Lend-Lease from the west, only ports capable of doing that. There were few small attacks that resulted in damage but they were repaired in days.
The 'asemasota' phase was so peacefull that Finnish troops held sporting events, decorated their log bunkers (korsu) and held competitions on who had the best and so on. There were small skirmishes and capturing prisoners for interrigation but major offensives were off from the Finnish side. Russians were content on things being calm as it allowed them to concentrate on the southern side of Leningrad against the Germans but artillery strikes against the Finnish positions were still an every day thing.
22:05 It is absolutely and completely wrong in every level to describe Finland as part of the Warsaw Pact. One of the most egregious mistakes he has done. While Finland signed YYA-treaty, it did not made Finland as part of the Soviet Union or part of their defense alliance. The Treaty in fact made sure that Finland would be part of *NO* defense alliance, neither NATO or Warsaw Pact.
@@alaric_ This should have already been fixed to the description. No chance.
they were all conscripts by that point lol
@@alaric_ Yeah, Britain pulled support from Finland but although at war with each other, probably the only time 2 democracies have been at war with each other, Churchill didn't want to fight a country it was recognized as fighting for their survival, and Mannerheim didn't want to make it a war of aggresion on their part so no further offensive actions were taken on Soviet territory.
That "We're allies right?" meme was amazing :D
An additional note on the peace process between the Soviets and Finns during the continuation war. President Risto Ryti not long before the seperate peace with the Soviets signed an agreement with the Germans that Finland would not sign a seperate peace. Ryti then resigned with Mannerheim taking over as president, and he signed the armistice while basicaly justifying the breach of the agreement with Germany by stating that it was the last president who signed it, not him. This can be considered one of the biggest anime betrayals in world history according to my high school history teacher, who really put an emphasis on this betrayal during one of my history courses in hs.
There was also the interesting situation during the war of German soldiers fighting along side Finnish jews, making the front even more of a mess than it already was.
yeah in some cases ss troops in the same camp as rabbi set up in a temporary synagogue tent for there Jewish soldiers
there were multiple diplomatic attempts by Germany to get Finland to hand over there Jewish but they wouldn't betray there own people for Nazi support
@@kellynolen498 there was a Jewish SS unit too. Not there in Finland but it existed.
Yeah, Rytis promise of not surrendering was a "personal promise" made on behalf of himself, but not the state. It was something along those lines. And when he was no longer in power, the next administration wasn't bound by his personal promise, was the justification.
@@clownphabetstrongwoman7305 I don't know how to process that fact
@@kellynolen498 process it in the sense that the victors write history.
What surprised me, was Twitter discussion about how Ukraine forces destroy the bridges. Tons of mines etc., someone from Finland appeared and claimed, that all the bridges in Finland needs to have holes in them, to quickly install comparatively small amount of explosives, to effectively destroy the bridge. Seems the wisdom goes through generations....
Yes this is true. All bridges in Finland have been prepared for easy destruktion.. 👍👍👌
My grandfather and his family had to leave Karelia twice, and I have heard a lot of stories from him, such as a ryebread stopping a bullet from a soviet fighter plane that might've otherwise hit him. True or not, you can hear by his stories how traumatized he is. It's sad that even in his old age he still has to see Russia starting a new war in Europe, again.
yeah, the same thing witch my great-grandfather, when my dad was a child he asked all the time from him that what happened at the war and how was it? but he never answered. Some times he actually got really mad and yelled, after many times of asking he told that he lost he´s brother on the war, so after that my dad never asked again.
A correction: a few times in the video, you seem to refer to Finland as a Scandinavian country. This is a common mistake I see people make. Finland is a part of the Nordics, which also includes the Scandinavian region, but also includes countries like Iceland, Greenland and the Faroes. Scandinavia is exclusively Norway, Denmark and Sweden
in modern English usage, the two terms are rather interchangeable
@@achyuthansanal A Scandinavian country is always Nordic, but a Nordic country isn't always Scandinavian
Often seen the term Fennoscandia, at least in Finnish geography books.
@@Kumimono Fennoscandia. Yes, that's the correct term when talking about Scandinavia and Finland.
Another oddity is referring to social democrats as far left, when they aren't even socialists, at least not in the modern sense
For Armchair Historian, you might be interested in the Lotta Svärd organization. That was a 100k women, who were field nurses, ammo manufacturers, and general infrastructure overseers. This is not modern politics, this is history.
women often serves in war just not in the combat roles. Historical content such as this usually doesn't go very much into depth of the logistics of war because its rather mundane
My grandmother was a frontline Lotta. Once she went to meet her friends in a nearby unit, and stayed overnight. In the morning she left for her duties in her own unit by the same road. But as she returned, people were horrified. The Enemy had infiltrated the position and were in control of the road she had used. Apparently she survived by sheer luck.
@@SPQSpartacus That is a very lucky woman. Brave woman, too.
Äla alota... Anna Napuriin alottaa..Kiitos.
Good video, though small correction. Finland was never part of the Warsaw pack, they had the friendship and cooperation treaty with the soviet union but it was completely different than the treaty what Warsaw pack nations had with the soviets.
It itself included that Finland would/could *_not_* join Warsaw pact, among other military alliances.
And as a nordic and western country Finland would have never joined it.
@@blackcoffeebeans6100 what about it being Nordic makes it unlikely?
They may have lost two wars, but look at the difference of quality of life and rights for their citizens. Although they were born at the same time (USSR, Independent Finland) one survived past the 90's and the other didn't, Finland still remains.
A proud nation against all odds.
I'm sure every totalitarian regime starts with the promise "this time it'll work, I swear"
i just love how the fins did really well against a more advanced and more massive russian army air superiority. just amazing
It’s hard to fight anyone if your leader killed 1/3 of the generals, and 2/3 of the co. Then put heavy emphasis on cavalry brigade and tell you to penetrate the enemy line and hold position for three days until supplies arrives.
They didn't in 1944
Afghanistan and Vietnam are good examples too. Technologically inferior minor power going against a major one, and coming out on top. Well, Finns didn't exactly "win", but that's still what I would call it since the country wasn't annexed like so many others in WW2.
History repeats, except now its Ukraine, here's to hoping they don't fall
@@wtfronsson not every war ends with one side meeting all its war aims. probably most don’t. Finland trying to stay independent is an important war aim that they achieved. I’d say it’s as close to a full win as they were gonna get
After the armistice in 1944 a coalition government was formed under the leadership of Juho Kusti Paasikivi. When conditions had been stabilized, Mannerheim resigned, and Paasikivi was elected president in his place in 1946. In 1956 the leader of the Agrarian Party, Urho Kekkonen, who acted as prime minister a number of times during the period from 1950 to 1956, was elected president. He was reelected three times to the office.
Kekkonen became a little dictator.
Saying stuff like: "If i'm not the President, then the Russians might attack us again! And you don't want that to happen, now do you?"
“Elected” without elections lol
There are many
@@Mestari1Gaming True, the Kekkonen time wasn't a high point of Finnish democracy. Indeed he was "elected" once by the parliament with a special law which is a straight up dictator move. But he honestly believed (though what dictator doesn't believe he is working for the good of his country?) that he was the best, probably the only, man that could deal with the Soviets and make sure that the fate of Hungary and Czechoslovakia didn't befall on Finland while in the same time keeping Finland as free and democratic as possible. And he might have been right on that.
@@potatofuryy He was elected, though back then Finland used a kind of an electoral college. However, his third term was also extended by a special law which is a bit undemocratic.
Kiitos ukki(Tauno)että sinä ot ollut siellä ,sinun medallit roikku nyt minun seinäste ,vieräne sinun taskuveitsi ja Pukko ja kittos paljon että sinä tulli takaisin sodasta 🇫🇮❤️
I am a simple Pole: I see video about Finland and I click thumb up.
Terve to all the Finnish buddies up there pohjala :)
Coming from a Canadian living in Finland, there is one very important word you failed to mention that described that "grit" and "determination" of the Finns during those times, that word can sum up all those other words, it is sisu.
16:29-17:10 We have to remember that even though Finland went past the former border closer to Leningrad, Finland didn't fully participate in the siege of Leningrad. If anyone says that Finland participated in the destruction of the city like the Germans did, they are just repeating (maybe unknowingly) revisionist Russian propaganda.
St. Petersburg was dear to Mannerheim because he spent his youth there when Finland was still a Grand Duchy, so he didn't want Finland to participate in destroying it. If Finland had actually fully participated in the siege, Finns could've easily blocked the Road of Life. Mannerheim also multiple times refused German pleas to advance his troops into Leningrad.
While this is true, it is also true that Finnish forces opposite of the city did take up Soviet forces thus weaken and worsen situation of Leningrad so Finns are at least partially contribute to the atrocity
@@ottohonkasalo9303 Leningrad wasn't an atrocity. It was a pitched battle between Soviet and German forces, with some Finns killing a few soviet soldiers
@@ottohonkasalo9303 Yup, that's what happens if a people are forced to take back land belonging to them. After they've taken it back, they're not just going to let the enemy they stole it from use it for their supply lines. They're going to guard it and kill anyone tresspassing or trying to take it back.
I think there was also the nagging thought in Mannerheims mind that Germany would not win the war, and that there would inevitably be the Russian counter attack. If Finland actively took part in the siege and helped the city fall, that would be a line crossed from where there was no return from. Russia would never agree to a peace treaty after that with Finland and would fight until an unconditional surrender was given.
That, and Finland didn’t really agree to participate in op Barbarossa as far as I’ve understood it. It just so happened that the USSR decided to start the war
My grandmother was 12 years old when the Russians attacked Finland living with her brother whom was 15 in 1939 and her father who was an alcoholic, i have not heard her tell me many stories about the war since she passed away in 2007 but my father have told me her war stories. My grandmothers mother passed away in 1938 in cancer and her father being heartbroken he started to drink, when the war broke out my grandmother and her brother didn’t get any food from home so they had to walk 6km to get food from a kind lady in the town of Vaasa. During the war the Russians where bombing Vaasa and to try and defend the city my grandmothers brother stood on a house roof with his rifle shooting at the Russian aircrafts but it was hopeless the citizens of Vaasa where like targeting practice for the Russian, from the house roof my grandmothers brother could see as a Russian bomb hit his own house, luckily tho my grandmother was in school and my great grandfather was in their basement so no body got injured but their house was in complete ruin and my grandmother was sent to a farm outside of Vaasa where she stayed until the winter war was over. And my grandmothers brother was forced by his father to join the Finnish army but luckily he got injured before being sent to the front, and after his injury he was placed on a Finnish cargo ship avoiding the war. That’s my grandmothers story she passed away in 2007 so she didn’t tell me this story but told my father who has told me this story.
Russia terrorist state
@@dmytroandruhov9119 if you let the Leah Lipps phenotype suck you up you will become aware. Michael Doukas 7
"What Did You Feel When You Shot The Enemy?"
"The Recoil of My Weapon" -Simo Häyhä
12:50, important to note there is the fact Germany was the only place/country which provided aid when Finland needed it most, Finland did not buy into the nazi ideals
19:00 and as it so happens, Finland is still the only country in the world to fully pay their war reparations
Popular saying in Finland is, ''the war was lost but independence won/kept''
I'm not sure of all demanded war reparations, but I think Haiti paid back. Over 122 years, and with France originally demanding money on gunpoint because slaveowners were kicked out. Haiti is also the only country that gained independence through a slave revolt.
@@apinakapina and is the only country who won independence without a war
Well, Finland was pretty adamant on creating a Greater Finland. Finland didn't fully buy into the Nazi ideals, but it's obvious they wanted a chance to fulfill their desire for greater borders and guarantee a foothold in the new German dominated European order. It was an opportunistic move.
@@goldbullet50 Well it was more than obvious Finland would have not allied with Soviets against Nazis as Soviets attacked Finland just few years earlier and, if Germany only one who was willing/able (well sure Brits etc. were sending good will to Finland, but if Germany controlled areas were between them and Finland pretty hard to help) to send help vs Soviets... I think it's just no brainer move (remember year is 1941 and it wasn't as easy to get information as it is now). Soviet would have attacked again anyways just by looking, what they did for Eastern Europe before getting to Berlin... just wanted to make puppet states before war ends.
Rubbish, plenty of nations since last century have fully paid their war reparations too.
Finland between 1939-1944 was the poster child for tough choices. And even during the Cold War they were very constrained. They have grown used to freedom of action since the early 90s and are clearly resolving to never be at the beck and call of the Russians again. Finland had no intention of joining NATO until now. 100 years (and 210 for Sweden) of Russian policy down the drain to keep the Baltic open. Great job, Putin!
Beware of blitzkrieg. Look to dreams and visions of Finland and others . Divine warning comes in dreams years ahead . Survey the dreams for answer to future problems.
Assuming that you're not Finnish, you seem to be one of the few foreigners understanding that the period of the Cold War was not truly a time of sovereignty and freedom for Finland.
@@GameCaliber1 I am not Finnish no, actually of Swedish extraction. But, I am a devotee of Nordic history. But yes, there was a derisive term in the West called Finlandization, referring to Urho Kekkonen's policies of remaining friendly with the Soviets. Many Americans called it being servile, but it is easy to say when one is an ocean away and with nuclear weapons. But ultimately it was not for no reason. Finland knew no one would come to their aid, so they were non-confrontational with the Soviets while still trading and working with the West. And it worked. It kept Finland free, unlike other nations in immediate proximity to the USSR, and waiting for the inevitable day when Finland could be truly free to determine its own destiny again.
Which is why I caution Americans on saying "Ukraine should just be neutral." There are no truly neutral nations like Sweden or Switzerland bordering Russia under their auspices. Russia would see Ukraine emasculated and under their thumb much worse than Finland in the Cold War. Ukraine must fight and win complete freedom of action.
@@crownprincesebastianjohano7069 Finlandization could also be called Canadianization... But the United States isn't an aggressive, imperialist country. America respects the sovereignty of other countries...like Grenada, for example.
In the cold war. We had Kekkonen. After him. All our presidents and ministers have been nothing more than lap dogs for the U.S. and the EU or being an member of the WEF. Whole 90s economic depression was nothing more than a big ruse to join EU. All that pretty talk how EU is going to bring economic stability. How prices will stay low. Centralized Euro money is the next smart thing since peeled potato. Nothing but lies. Our government basically gives our national resources to global mining corporations for pennies. Most of our industries are foreign owned. Like nokia phone business is owned by microsoft. Finland is nothing more than a playground for the big and powerful countries. While the common people suffer. So much fun to pay 2.3€/L of gasoline. Just get to work. because muh global warming, china flu and ebil Putin invading oh so innocent Ukraine. All these are nothing but excuses to raise taxes. Our government's only function is to waste taxpayer money and raise taxes. Sometimes I wish that soviet union had swallowed Finland back in 1945. So, after the soviet union had collapsed. It would have made some true and powerful patriots as leaders. who's only interest is Finland's and its peoples interest. Like in many former Warsaw pact countries.
Here are some Finnish war movies if you are interested. They show you what it was like to fight throughout the Winter War, Continuation War and Lapland War.
It's a tradition for Finns to watch most of these:
- Tuntematon Sotilas (Unknown Soldier, our most famous movie)
- Rukajärven Tie (The Road of Rukajärvi)
- Etulinjan Edessä (Infront of the frontline)
- Talvisota (Winter War)
- Talvi-Ihantala 1944
- Raja 1918 (Border 1918)
- Verimalja (~ The Bloody Grail/ The Grail of Blood)
- Ikitie
- Kainuu 39
- Tyttö Astuu Elämään (A girl steps into a life (generally speaking))
Dope, I'm def going to check these out, thanks guy :D
What about "okänd soldat" (1955)?
That opening quote is just amazing. Nothing but respect for the Fins that defended their homeland.
@@Agustin-jd9iq Always respect, my friend. Always. May they rest well knowing that they fought against tyranny.
You're animations get better with every video, and I'm glad you decided to touch on a generally unknown subject of World War 2. Thanks, Griffin
Of course, it is I wish he will do WW2 from Thailand/Siamese Perspective Nation who have Nick name Oriental Italy
your* sorry bro i just had to
@@user-oi3jk4qo9j omg I’ve been wanting the same
@@user-oi3jk4qo9j y?
Im glad my favorite planet likes my nations history. As for truely epic conflicts. When you started to go cold after the early period with the loss of the magnetic field, and every winter got colder, and every summer got weaker, i imagine the last remnants of the biological life on the surface clung to the sides of the olympos mons and its last geothermal heat. Now THAT, is a winter war.
Please do a video on the Portuguese Colonial War. It is a very important and very underappreciated event that changed Africa forever.
@LeoTheBritish-Eurasian what a cool guy
Yeah that would be an interesting video
Yes please
And spanish empire
So much of Finland's experience during WW2 has impacted their society, people and infrastructure since. Absolutely amazing to see how they would be able to defend themselves in future.
Should go pretty well. The Finnish military is huge by European standards and fairly modern. We have well prepared fortification along our russian border and our entire army is explicitly trained to defend the county taking full advantage of our landscape.
Also, we're NATO now.
My grandfather guarded Mannerheim one night while he slept. In the morning Mannerheim insisted that my grandfather take a rest in that same cabin. I believe the place is called Marskin maja. He also got granade shrapnel to his back. Luckily he survived the war and I was over 20 years old when he passed away. Super proud and thankful of him and his generation.
The leader of Finnish army had a very small number of guards. Especially in comparison with Stalin and Hitler.
Really surprising to hear how close Finland was to Germany, I had no idea
Pretty sure they got those helmets from them as part of military aid
edit: im wrong read below
@@sterhax No the helmets are WW1 era helmets bought before Winter war from Germany,Austria and Hungary.
Finnish independence was thanks to Germany knocking Russia out of WW1, its republican government was thanks to German troops fighting with them against the Reds in the ensuing civil war
@@OGRajamaki They also got ww2 era helmets, and from the Hungarians as well
Finland also bought about a dozen or so German Stug III's and used them quite effectively.
I remember my grandmother telling me a true story of how my great-grandmother killed a russian. During the early continuation war, she was in the barn feeding her cows, when she heard a yell. She went outside and saw a malnourished soviet, who had gotten lost. The soviet ponted her with his rifle, demanding food. She escorted him to the small house, where my grandmother and her 5 siblings were. She sat him down at the table, went to the kids and told them to lock themselves in the basement. She then went back to the kitchen, grabbed the biggest pot she had and beat the malnourished soviet until he didn't make a sound. She then ran to the other side of the fields where my great-great-grandfather lived (back then it was usual to live really close to your relatives) and asked him and my great-grand-uncle to get rid of the soviet. They nabbed the body and put it into a wheelbarrow, rolled him half-a-dozen miles into the forest and buried him there.
She told this story to my grandma in full on her deathbed, because she hadn't told what happened to the soviet back then, as my grandma was only a child. My mother always remembers my great-grandma telling her not to go to the forest. Now she knows why.
God bless her. She closed with and destroyed the enemy despite the fact she wasn't in uniform, or even a government-trained killer. Ansaitsee VÄHINTÄÄN Sotaveteraaninmitalin. It's so EASY for women to kill men... Or...men make it so easy for women to kill them... I remember a story in the Bible about a woman who put a tent peg through a guy's head when he showed up just wanting a drink of water... It's the female "non-combatants" that a guy really has to watch out for... Nothing against women; it's more on the men for setting themselves up for it or being willfully blind to what they should have known they had coming...
Where are you from?
@@Smudgeroon74 It is clear from the text that from Finland
@@rivality100 I didn't ask you.
@@Smudgeroon74 So what? You got the answer
A slight oversight, the Mannerheim line was not constructed right before the invasion, instead construction was started in 1920 and continued until 1924 when it was stopped, and then restarted in 1932 and ended when the Soviet invasion began.
Hey Grif! I've been a subscriber for a while now and I just wanted to say that I'm so proud of all the progress you and the studio/researchers have made in the last year. Keep up the good work!
I really love the movie style vibe to these videos, really shows how interesting history is
En tant que francais,oui! Et bravo Griffin pour cette vidéo. J'adore ta chaine
They also have maps and things in the style of the strategy video game Hearst of Iron 4
That’s for this, I really wanted to learn more about Finnish involvement.
Thanks*
The "waiting for a youtube video on the topic" method of learning.
Undoubtedly, one of the best narration of contemporary history on YT. Thank you Armchair Historian. The team behind your amazing work is without doubt one of the best, if not the best on YT. Amazing!
You forgot the Swedish volunteers, and from many other countries men made their own way to Finland, to help.
I'll always remember my grand mothers story how she learned Swedish in 1939. She was fleeing from Karelia with my grand grand parents, they boarded a train and they could see the blazes in the eastern sky, war. There was a terrified Swedish family on it and they had two little girls. The girls made friends with my grandmother very quickly and started teaching her Swedish and she learned very quickly, according to her. My family never went back in continuation war and settled in Imatra.
RIP
They were probably swedish-speaking finns but cool story nonetheless
Swedish volunteers were a much needed and good help.
Mannerheim actually ordered the soldiers not to go closer to Leningrad.
Germans shelled St Petersburg but Finland did not shell St Petersburg
As having an Karelian grandma, whose dad and brothers fought in both the Winter War and Continuation War, it fills my heart to see a video on Wars of my heritage
@@kittycatwithinternetaccess2356 Pretty sure most people at the time fought for their country and not specifically against communism.
@@kittycatwithinternetaccess2356 Wouldn't it be better to tell him that he fought a good fight for his country instead of making it about an ideology?
@@kittycatwithinternetaccess2356 well people were stupid to defend against communists but to welcome nazis and other scum sacrificing peasants for nothing keke
”We fought to defend our village of Impilahti from Communism”
- Viirle, 2 weeks before dying infront of his brother Määta
@@hilmust6278 Damn. RIp
Finnish people have always been IMO a tough people with dicipline and dignity even in the toughest of conditions and situations.
And as "little brother" of Sweden, they have since long proven to be equal or better.
Glad that you bring this story to the front in a way my grandparents never could’ve.
They told me stories of Russian bombings, hunkering down in shelters (grandma), facing them on the fighting front (grandfather).
What I found frustrating is that they say that Finland lost the Winter War because they lost territories. But the point of the war was for the Soviets to subjugate or annex Finland similar to the Baltics, they failed and Finland retained their independence.
It is like landlord coming for rent in the end he gets paid half and you break his legs arms and nose. But hey he got paid XD
its same situation now russia planed to end ukraines independence it said as much and planed to take kyiv now to save face just wants the donbass even if russia does get the donbass ukraine did not lose russia has
I mean, that is what happened eventually, the Soviets won. But that victory is so hollow not even Stalin said anything about it afterwards...
@@theotherohlourdespadua1131 I know we agree on it was a disaster for the Soviets. But you did read the second half of my comment, right?
@@99batran Did you not read the second sentence?
A good video! Maybe two minor inaccuracies need to be corrected: At 7:10 recruiting did not actually happen, as by law all men had received military training and were simply ordered at arms. At 23:15 war criminals were not supposed to be tried at allied courts because Finland was independent and the allied had no power to interfere; a few politicians were sentenced to short terms in prison by a Finnish court. It should be noted that none of the military were accused of anything and it was not question about war crimes but about who was guilty of starting the war and keeping it going. The convicted became civilian war heroes if they had not been that before.
There's tons of inaccuricies and forgotten details
@@no8592 Totally pro Soviet presentation.
Nevertheless, Finland did not bear responsibility for the creation of concentration camps for the Russian civilian population in which thousands of people died of hunger and disease, which is remembered and will never be forgotten in Russia.In the event of a war with Russia, such a country as Finland will no longer exist, as well as the Finnish ethnic group, Russia will learn the lessons of history from a good attitude towards Finland after losing in World War 2, where Finland was an ally of Nazi Germany and its current entry into Nato
@@user-dl3nc4jx7k Racist much? Also, have you never heard of the gulags? Russia/the soviet union was FAR worse than Finland could probably ever be in terms of imprisoning people, and not just POWs. They imprisoned their own civilians, farmers, etc. Basically anyone who threatened Stalin's power or openly opposed him.
@@user-dl3nc4jx7k You clearly have no idea what you're talking about.
My great grandpa and his brother voulenteered in the Swedish Voulenteer forces. Both went on to survive the war but my greatgrandpas brother sadly took his life a few years after the war because of the sights he had seen.
Amazing video, and I'm glad to see you mentioned the White Death briefly. Unfortunately you forgot one other as important Fin by the name of Larry Thorne, or by his Finnish name Lauri Torni. Born in 1919 in Finland, Torni served in the Finnish Army during the Winter and Continuation Wars conducting guerrilla warfare, espionage, and sabotage even behind enemy lines. He even commanded his own unit called Detachment Torni and only picked those who were fit. After the Continuation War, he joined the German Army serving as an officer and led another unit. Although he had ties to the SS, he wasn't aware of the atrocities committed, and regretted it for the rest of his life. Anyways he surrendered to British Forces in May 1945, sent to a POW camp, escaped to Finland, got arrested, sent to prison, tried escaping several times before being pardoned by the president of Finland. Then he worked on a freighter for a few years until he was off the coast of Alabama USA in 1953 when he swam to shore, did a few odd jobs, then joined the US Army in 1954. He was then stationed in West Germany from 1958 to 1962. In 1962, he led a military operation that was to retrieve Intel from a downed US plane in Iran. In 1963, he was sent as an adviser to the ARVN and even helped fend off a PAVN attack that same year. Then he signed up for a second tour in the US Army and was part of military unit under the US Military and CIA called MAC V SOG. Unfortunately in October, 1965, in South Vietnam near the Cambodian border, the helicopter he was in crashed killing all on board including Torni. His remains went undiscovered until 1999. In 2003 his remain were brought to the US where he was promoted to major, and he rests in Arlington National Cemetery in Alexandria, Virginia outside of Washington D.C. He was awarded the Mannerheim Cross, the Iron Cross, and Distinguished Flying Cross.
😅 wow
Thank you for this knowledge.
czcams.com/video/iTnAqE5tp-U/video.html
Man has a song dedicated to him as well. Respect
The man who changed his name to Larry Thorne deserves at least was much respect as Simo. He is a personal hero of mine and greatly inspires me by his devotion of his entire life to the cause of fighting communists at great cost to himself. He gave all he had and missed out on having a family or any years of the peaceful civilian life so many take for granted.
I find it hard to believe he had no knowledge of SS atrocities but i respect his story
The situation in East Karelia is better understood as having been caused by poor Finnish planning rather than bunch of extremists roaming around systematically genociding people. The internment camps were intended to be a temporary measure until the population could be moved elsewhere but due to the poor food situation that you mentioned, disease at the camps and Finnish prioritization, the camps were terribly neglected. The camps were justified by the military government by the proximity to the front lines and the Russian populations in Äänisniemi and Äänisenranta in the rear areas were not interned. Without going deep into the ethnic cleansing done by the Soviets in the border areas (deportations of Ingrian and Murmansk Finns, Dekulakization etc.), many of the non-Finnic peoples had also only moved into the areas during the last decades (In 1926 Finnic peoples had been 42% of the population in Karelia but in 1939 they were only 27%) so their removal was thought to be a reversal of soviet policies.
Also, while the Finnish military government employed Nationalists it also controlled their actions. Mannerheim himself issued an order forbidding Finnish Lutheran priests from converting the Orthodox population and the most important roles in the administration were staffed by military men while nationalist activists were sidelined. A prominent Finnish Irredentist Vilho Helanen remarked: "They've taken our ideals and stolen our plan, putting their own stamp on it. To us, as if to little boys, they offer positions as mere clerks on the edges of their shining star."
The factoids were taken from Osmo Hyytilä's book: Helmi Suomen Maakuntien Joukossa
True. Finland barely had food for themselves.
quite a biased source you have there
@@fransliszt pettuleipä
@@DanielSanchez-tc6dccry bout it
And that's why those camps had "talking through the fence is punishable by death" signs in Finnish and Russian.
That photo with kids behind the fence that you were told is Soviet "Goolag", with text in Finnish usually cropped out of picture.
Then again, Mannerheim wasn't new to ethnic purges (see Vyborg massacre).
I think you got one thing wrong in how you said it, Russian soldiers never had access to whole of Finland. They only could stay in that military base of Porkkala what was in the agreement for peace deal. Our foreign minister warned the Soviets if they tried to occupy Finland they would face 50 years of resistance and millions dead Soviets as a bid to make them agree to peace agreement and for independence of Finland for it's own future decisions.
Nice try. Especially when Soviets saved your ass from Nuremberg trials as a nazi ally.
Such a great video. Good job Armchair Historian and to the team behind the scenes!
Just a correction, Mannerheim laid strict orders for the troops to never across the old Finnish border. Their public image was 'retaking the old home' and he was wise to keep it that way despite Hitler's dismay.
Also interesting fact is that Mannerheim loathed Hitler. Mannerheim was an old school general who rose from the ground up with hard work and apparently despised Hitler and whole idea of Fuhrer image. When Hitler tried to make buddy buddies with Mannerheim in his birthday party, Mannerheim just glared at Hitler and flared his cigar - absolute no no as Hitler HATED smokers. Apparently the two never spoke directly again and the whole entourage was absolutelly freaking out that he had nerve to try to flick off Fuhrer.
If you know Mannerheim's manouvers against Nazis before their end, this should give a bit of color. Stalin tried to get Mannerheim on trial but everyone were so against it that he wasn't showtrialed at all. He was way too popular among the soldiers, politicians and civilians alike.
He was also a cavalry general in the Russian Imperial army (and a fluent Russian speaker to wit).
А блокада Ленинграда?
Super powerful having the silent intro, I hope to see more like it in the future as the animation continues to improve and improve. Your videos today are above anything a major production studio could realistically achieve so frequently
A correction: during the civil war, no part wanted Finland to be part of Soviet. It was a pure civil war.
I noticed it too, they essentially repeated the Vapaussota- myth, which was a deliberate rewrite of the events by the victorious Whites. In reality the war was mainly about who would hold power in the new nation.
I've just come across a movie called unknown soldier. It occurred to me almost immediately that, I'm ashamed to say, I knew nothing about the area of Finland during ww2. This has actually made the movie that much better and the timeline now makes sense to me. Great mini doc. Great movie also
My Finnish friend's grandfather died in Estonia while fighting against the Soviets. His grandfather's cousin fought in the Finnish army during both the Winter and the Continuation War. It was really interesting to listen to his stories about his grandfather.
Nazis, like the banderas
Lie
The Finns punched above and beyond against the soviets , historically impressive , what a feat.
@@KyPc0p Freedom againts the invaders
@@KyPc0p we needed help anywhere.
See the map.
No other options available those years.
Other option was rape, torture and genocide made by the russian slaves
They lost
@@MrOrdinaryGoosethey survived
@@MrOrdinaryGoosesurvival is a victory in comparison to genocide
This video was rad…the animation actually enhances the story a lot and it was well narrated. You just got a subscriber
That fistbumb at 13:28 is actually the official way of making agreements in Finland. Failure to do so is considered a great insult, often resulting in puukko fight.
Sure, we also have bears roam our streets and drinking vodka with us in nightclubs, lol.
“This land, although not my native land,
Will be remembered forever.
And the sea's lightly iced,
Unsalty water.
The sand on the bottom is whiter than chalk,
The air is heady, like wine,
And the rosy body of the pines
Is naked in the sunset hour.
And the sunset itself on such waves of ether
That I just can't comprehend
Whether it is the end of the day, the end of the world,
Or the mystery of mysteries in me again.”
― Anna Akhmatova,
The Finnish struggle against Russian aggression is often one of the most intriguing subjects to look at, with many looking back at it as another victim of Russia's expansionist legacy (Ukraine) is invaded. One has to wonder what if Finland managed to expand and control the whole Karelian peninsula. Ignore the Russian counter-statements, Finns and Karelians are basically sisters in culture and language. (also, Petsamo was under Finnish control at the point and not taken by the Soviets until 1944, the animated map doesn't reflect that control except near the end)
L finland
Karelia is like 90 percent Russia but I think Finland should get back the land they lost to the Soviets.
@@gareginnzhdehhimself As a finn i dont think that would make much sense. Soviets/Russians have destroyed everything that was valuable in that region. The people that were finnic have either migrated to Finland like said in the video, or ethnicly/culturally cleansed (murdered or sent to siberia and replaced by ethnic russians) depending which side of the border you were after 1917.
Only Petsamo would be worth taking back. It would allow us easy access to Arctic ocean.
@@furanduron4926 Also Petsamo is rich in natural resources if i remember correctly.
It's nice that you are talking and showing history that wasn't given before that much of time and research to show more to people about it.
The 3:40 map of Finland shows Finland without Petsamo and Salla, but with Karelia.
Man i would die to one day see you animate anything about related to Estonian history. Anyway your production quality is out of this world, keep up the amazing videos.
spoiler: Baltica sucks without soviet resources
Estonian is similar to Finnish as far as I know
@@jimlion608 Estonians and Finns are brothers and sisters by language, culture, history and ancestry.
@@MrYoyo579 I worked in Karelia/Karjala and the biggest lesson was that the land was less Russian or Finnish as it was Karelian, people very similar to Estonians and Finns, very similar language. Their culture is disappearing, but they should not be forgotten.
Estonia has any history worth noting?
J/K 😆
Great topic! Thank you for the video.
As a finn I can see your maps are slightly off:
- At 3:41 you forgot to include region of Petsamo (the "left arm of finnish maiden") to Finland, but it seems to be included in maps from 5:09 onwards. It was lost only after the Continuation war.
- It seems that at 9:37 the whole of arm of Lappi has been lost to Sweden, (aka the "right hand of finnish maiden).
- At 11:45 the lost territory of Karjala and Salla are once again part of Finland, but not Petsamo (see above), but this is remedied at 12:05 where map is accurate.
Also as Finland was forced to sign " Agreement of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance" at 1948 with Soviet Union, Finland was never official part of the Warsaw Pact.
This.
I don't understand how hard it is to find good maps. Basically every book I have read about ww2 have had a map in almost every page
'' Finland was never official part of the Warsaw Pact.'' True that. There were no Warsaw Pact troops in Finland for exercises, let alone garrisoned, nor the other way around. (Observers of exercises, possibly, on the quiet, but definitely no actual participation by troops.) - I am a former Finnish Army officer, not merely a reservist.
I just want to say that the art has gotten so good! Keep it up!
My great uncle was was in the Swedish Volunteer Corps during the Winter War. He rarely mentioned anything about his war experiences but the stuff he did share with me decades ago still haunts me. The Finnish military was as courageous as any army in history.
This video was great. I think the history of Finland during ww2 is fascinating, and it should not be forgotten.
11:17 Sweden also required Soviet Union's approval for Finland to join the Scandinavian Defence Union so that's also part of the reason why the defence alliance idea during the Interim Peace failed.
Oh, so Sweden knew the Scandinavian Defense Union with Finland would be impossible by making that demand?
@@TheKentaurion i think it was more trying to confirm the non-allignment policy, we wanted to be clear that we were not allying against anyone
Simo survived the shot to the head. He died April 2002.
It's a good thing he's dead
@@nickolaithewolf3822 After living a long fruitful life that will be remembered unlike yours
it is a very reassuring thing to see the quality of the animation almost rival that of the narration, i feel this channel still is yet to reach it's peak performance 🙂
Nice summary and animation. However there seems to be quite a few historical fails here - like Simo Häyhä was in service at Kollaa, north of Lake Ladoka (or Laatokka). Also the level of illtreatment of civilians of Slavic origin of the Karelian area is quite overstated here. These facts can be checked from many independent sources.
And Häyhä was not killed during Winter war, nor during the Continuation War... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simo_H%C3%A4yh%C3%A4
Not to mention the odd hint at the end that Finland would have fallen to the Soviet camp and joined Warsaw Pact.
Yeah lmao just ask the population of Karelia why so many of them are moving to Finland proper right now lol. The moskals always shove their own russified population into areas and deport the locals so they can claim those areas as ethnically russian and claim they always wanted to be russian
Happening now with the crimean tartars and ukarinian speaking populations of crimea and the donbas fleeing west. Now those areas are entirely moskal
Agreed. The camps were also infinitely better in comparison to soviet camps for Finns and various other foreigners.
My grandmother along with her mother almost died in one of those bombings on civilians. The only reason they didn't is because of a very brave woman shielding them from shrapnel with her body. She's buried among the hero graves in that town.
This is good and all but you forgot one thing about ol' Simo. When The Continuation War began, Simo TRIED TO ENLIST A SECOND TIME, unfortunately the army was like "Sir you have been shot in the face, you can go home" and never got to serve in The Continuation War.
Awesome crash course, but there's a key point I'd like to make a small adjustement and highlight in nutshell: During winter war, Great Britain and France promised military aid, but due to politics and weather, it was too late and never arrived. And after the war, when we asked help to re-arm our nation, every one else said "No", except Germany and thus the continuation war.
Nice video! Finland is an interesting country to learn about regarding its involvement during World War II (1939-1945). The Finns were determined to resist Soviet aggression during the Winter War (1939-1940) and employed unique guerilla warfare tactics against their enemy. Many interesting stories of World War II come from Finland, most notably Simo Hayha and Lauri Torni. Good job!
Damn armchair historians animations production quality has *SKYROCKETED* ! The lighting, perspective and detail is so precise & exquisite
I loved the animation in the beginning, really well done ! 👍🏻
There is a joke among Finnish military that goes something like this; one time some junior officer suggested "what if the training had the "enemy" come from the west instead?", the other officers nods and agrees, "yes Russia might do a flank attack through Sweden..."
I love the topics for your guy’s videos, they are so interesting! Keep up the great work
22:28 East Karelian camps are a black spot in our WW2 history but our government never ran an official ethnic cleansing campaign against Slavic Russians in those camps. Most deaths in those camps were due to starvation but of course random killings by psycho xenophobic soldiers most likely happened. They were a lot like American internment camps against Asian Americans: bad idea and people died but they were never on the same level as German concentration camps.
American camps for Asians were not nearly as bad as the Karelian camps.
@@davidturner4076 Point was to make clear that East Karelian camps were closer to American ones than the German ones because when people hear camps they immediately think of the German ones, especially if the video claims that ethnic cleansing happened, which is not true. Mortality rate was higher due starvation (which itself was the result of overall bad food situation in Finland). That's why I said "they were a lot like" and not "they were on par with". East Karelian camps sit somewhere between American and German camps (but closer to American ones).
@@Fortzon true. Finland did what it could, while America was in a much better situation to take care of the camps.
ethnic cleansings are russian propaganda
its been a "black spot" because the head of the military administration of east Karelia, väinö aleksanteri kotilainen, was never put on public trial, so the public does not know about him or about east Karelia. he was arrested in 1949 but released a day later. that was another mistake, he should have been officially investigated and put on trial.
there was obvious bias in internally handling the case and he should have been investigated by international tribunal, too. they also dropped the ball.
then we would have known, how much the highest officials knew about what was happening in the east Karelia camp and how high the knowledge went. was it just a local zealot commander gone overboard, or something else? the internment camps were ordered to follow the rations of the POW camps. however, the calculated nutritional recommendations could not be followed in practice, as potatoes ran out at the beginning of 1942, and at the same time, there was also an acute shortage of food in mainland Finland.
if the command knew this, the people should have been released because they could not provide food, as they were not meant to be in death camps. so the question would be, did väinö report the shortage of food in his camps to higher officials, and did he get approval from the highest command to still keep the Russians in camps? and if so, then the highest command would also be culpable, not just väinö, and should have been brought into trial.
perhaps most peculiar was that even the soviet command was not interested in investigating the matter. i guess thats just how little they cared about their own people at the time.
My great grandfather fought in the Winter War, Contianution war and the Lapland war. He got injured in Tali-Ihantala but he survived it.
The main thing to approach the Continuation War is that it can be divided to 3 phases: The offensive phase of 1941, the static phase of 1942 to 44 and then the defensive phase of 1944. The offensive phase was the active one, the static phase more laid back in the trenches and the defensive phase basically Winter War II, but in the summer and with better weapons and tactics for both sides.
Fins defend: *Soviets suffer heavy casualties and near constant defeats*
Fins attack: *Soviets suffer heavy casualties and near constant defeats*
Fins retreat: *Soviets suffer heavy casualties and near constant defeats*
Fins surrender: *Soviets ultimately only win about 10% of a nation that is less than 10% the size of the USSR*
We can clearly see who won
Actually they didn,t win 10% but peace treaty forced to give 10% that they could say the war was fruitfull. Pen wins the sword.
@@franciscosoares2440 Considering the soviets really wanted entirety of Finland, it's easy to see Finland won.
But there are many many many brainwashed Russians who think soviets won, many people in the west who don't understand the situation and believe the soviets won.
Soviets "won" in their eyes because Finland surrendered. These people dont understand difference between war and football games.
My grandfather was a tank driver and got to Reichstag in Berlin, where he got injured, but survived. I will be eternally grateful and looking up to him❤And I hope to be as brave as him and to withstand any trials in life. He didn’t try to embellish his war’s path, as nowadays many people do. So he is even more a hero to me. At those, who do, one can only laugh 😅😅😅
Imagine if you posted this on a video about battle of Berlin or focusing on war between Soviet Union and Nazi-Germany
@@speedruiner7213 did you read other comments? What are they about? What is this video about? And by the way, my grandfather contributed to ending of the war, so everybody could start a new life!
@@user-ih7pj6kd5g
"did you read other comments?"
1. What comments?
"What is this video about?"
1. Read the title
2. Why are you posting non-related things in a video's comment section?
"And by the way, my grandfather contributed to ending of the war, so everybody could start a new life!"
1. You already told that.
2. What is the relevance here like I previously asked?
3. Do you want some sort of validation? Honestly this seems like the topic of this video got to you, and instead of facing the reality, you came here boasting your ego or the legacy of the state that was painted in a bad light in this video.
Amazing video! Really wish you brought up the winter war death statistics for russia as well because it is tenfold to the finnish casualties
I was surprised the casualties was not mentioned. As a soviet general once said: "We conqured just enough land to bury our dead"
Soviets celebrating how they got 4 inches of land (they lost 4,000 men for it)
@@commandercorl1544 more like 40 thousand, it's world war one all over again, lose thousands for sweet nothing
As a person who technically live in Finland (Aland Islands, a autonomous part) I am always impressed by the finnish guerilla warfare in the snow against the sovjet. And also Simo Häyhä with over 500 confirmed kills.
You mean sweden
@@oasis1282 No, Aland islands is a part of Finland. though it is autonomous and kept all it's traditions and still talks swedish.
@@mwu1663 exactly its swedish
@@oasis1282 swedish is finlands official language so nah
@@ottopeltola2800 yeah so finland is also sweden