There & Back Again—A Finnish Soldier's War

Private Hannes Edvin Kokkarinen. A farm worker from Nilsiä. Born 20.11.1920 (Muuruvesi), died 14.11.1941 (Gonginichi). He was my great uncle. He fell six days before his twenty-first birthday, fighting in World War II.

 

Hannes’ service card tells me that he first served as a conscripted infantryman before being promoted to private. He was in the 9th Infantry Regiment, 1st Platoon and 2nd Battalion (2/I/JR9) and killed while fighting the Red Army in Gonginichi. On an old map of WWII, I found the village of Gonginichi and its location gave me pause for thought. His military record states that Hannes had been fighting from a defensive position. I’d assumed he’d been defending Finland from Finnish soil, but Gonginichi is deep inside Russian territory. Why was he in combat there?

On 14th November 1941, the day Hannes died, Finland was fighting an offensive war with the USSR (or Soviet Union) called the ‘Continuation War’. But what was this war a continuation of? To answer this, I traced events back to the 1939–1940 conflict when the Soviet Union invaded Finland because the Finnish leadership refused to allow Soviet army bases to be built on mainland Finland. The Soviets responded by blowing up their own village of Maynilo (Finnish Mainila) and accusing the Finns for this false-flag attack. Saying Finland attacked first meant the Soviets could instigate invading Finland by renouncing a non-aggression pact between the countries. The Finns resisted this incited assault, hostilities commenced and the Winter War erupted.

 

The Winter War ended after only 105 days of fighting because Finland ran out of resources. Her pleas for help from Sweden, Germany and other nations were disregarded. Instead, reprieve came in the form of the Moscow Peace Treaty, born in March 1940, with the Soviet leadership in prime position to dictate its terms. It was signed by Finnish President Risto Ryti and by Soviet Prime Minister Vyacheslav Molotov, of ‘Molotov cocktail’ fame. (Molotov said the Soviets were dropping bread baskets and not bombs on Finland; the Finns retorted that they were throwing Molotov cocktails and not incendiary weapons back. These descriptions describe the Winter War as a whole in brief—the Finns resorted to guerrilla tactics; the Russians resorted to a bombing campaign.)

 

The Moscow Peace Treaty contained some major concessions for Finland, the most painful one being: ‘The state frontier between the Republic of Finland and the USSR shall run along a new line in such fashion that there shall be included in the territory of the USSR the entire Karelian Isthmus with the city of Viipuri [Vyborg]…’ Finland ceded valuable territory and infrastructure, but there was a win for the Finnish side: ‘The USSR undertakes to withdraw its troops from the Petsamo area [on the Kola Peninsula]…’ This was significant because Petsamo had a port that gave Finland access to the Arctic Ocean at a point where the waters remained warm and ice-free in winter. It also had a nickel mine—useful for making armaments.

 

An uneasy interim period of peace followed the Winter War, and the Continuation War—the war in which Hannes fought—did not resume until fifteen months later, in June 1941. But President Ryti made an address over Finnish radio back on 8th December 1939 which suggested rumblings of this war: ‘… if we are forced to, we will battle to the very end, even after the end…’ Moreover, the term ‘Continuation War’ implies that the Finnish leadership had not mentally conceded defeat.

 

But why did a nation as small as Finland choose to invade behemoth Russia? Why, then, was Hannes in Gonginichi—south-east of Laatokka (or Lake Ladoga)—when he fell? What motivated Finland’s only ever invasion? I wanted answers, and in a book written by Jalmari Jaakkola in 1941, called The Finnish Eastern Question, I deciphered some reasons for the Continuation War.

 

The goal of the Soviet Union was to destroy European values and culture starting with Nordic ones. Proof to the Finns of this had been the installation of a Soviet Puppet Government in the Soviet-occupied areas of Finland during the period December 1939 to March 1940. This puppet government had been created to rule Finland after an anticipated Soviet military takeover. However, the puppet government was dissolved when the Soviet Union concluded the Moscow Peace Treaty alongside the legitimate Finnish government. Security against the East was given as a reason for starting the Continuation War. But hadn’t the Moscow Peace Treaty already guaranteed that security?

 

Democratic freedom. Jaakkola stated: ‘An ancient and numerous Finnish population living under the yoke of the Soviet Union and composed of Karelians [in East Karelia], Ingrians [in today’s Estonia] and Vepses, the latter closely related to the Karelians, has in the course of its history repeatedly manifested in many ways its love of liberty and its desire to escape Russian domination ... As the motherland of the race, [Finland] cannot consent to remain a silent spectator.’ Democratic freedom for these peoples was another reason to invade the Soviet Union.

 

Another justification was a land mass. Jaakkola began by saying that the Finns had been the original people for two thousand years of Fennoscandia (Finland-Scandinavia). Fennoscandia was considered as one because the same type of bedrock lay beneath it while the same kind of landscape rested above it—a landscape of rocks, lakes and forests. This made a whole comprising the Scandinavian Peninsula (Norway and Sweden), Finland, Karelia and the Kola Peninsula—a whole that belonged to Finland.

 

A book was also given as a reason for Karelia to be ‘spiritually as well as materially’ part of Finland. This book—The Kalevala, an epic poem compiled from oral tradition ‘… discovered in old cabins hidden away in East Karelia…’ had become a significant work of Finnish literature. Since antiquity, literature (Homer’s The Iliad for example), has been used to motivate fighters to heroic deeds often leading to death. The Kalevala encouraged the fight for national survival. Never underestimate the power of the written word. Stories—even myths—can create nations more powerfully than borders.

 

Therefore, the reasons for Finland’s invasion of the Soviet Union included security against the East; the liberation of the Karelians, Ingrians and Vepses; geological and geographical arguments; and a book of poetry—The Kalevala—which embodied cultural pride. Jaakkola’s reasoning—extracted from a good dose of propaganda—helped to rouse Finnish nationalism and spurred the Finns to want to annex the Soviet Union. The Finns wanted territory: ‘The line ending Fennoscandia is at the river Syväri [Svir] in the south to a point east of Ääninen [Lake Onega] in the north.’

 

To his credit, at the end of Jaakkola’s work, he lays bare the rewards of going to war. The Finnish leadership wanted the territory it ceded in the Moscow Peace Treaty back, but it also wanted the whole of the Kola Peninsula—where Petsamo is located—in order to link up a rail connection between the Baltic Sea and the Arctic Ocean. It also wanted all of East Karelia (or Russian Karelia) to unite with Finnish Karelia, thereby linking the waterway chain Baltic Sea–Lake Ladoga–Lake Onega–White Sea via the rivers Svir and Neva and a man-made canal north of Lake Onega. All these territories would have opened up trade routes for Finland with even a possible later link to Siberian rivers. Were these good enough reasons to reclaim and expand Finnish territory? To go to war for the economy? There was one other compelling reason though, and that had to do with Nazi Germany.

 

Nazi Germany was planning to invade the Soviet Union anyway, so why not hitch a Finnish wagon to a German horse? Germany’s leadership, Adolf Hitler, did a deal with Finland that meant she could reclaim the territories lost to her (because of the one-sided Moscow Peace Treaty) if she agreed to invade the USSR in concert with Germany. Hitler was planning to raze St. Petersburg, giving the river Neva to the Finns—the only river that flowed from Lake Ladoga to the Baltic Sea. ‘Early next year, we [will] enter the city (if the Finns do it first we do not object), lead those still alive into inner Russia or into captivity, wipe Leningrad from the face of the earth through demolitions, and hand the area north of the Neva to the Finns.’ This was Hitler’s plan, and the Finnish leadership agreed to it—in principle.

 

The Continuation War exploded when Germany invaded the USSR on 22nd June 1941, but Hannes’ regiment had already been deployed on 16th June 1941 in anticipation. I imagine Hannes—much like the infantrymen in Vainö Linna’s Unknown Soldiers—being led by a platoon leader who reminded them to ‘Prepare to die on behalf of your home, your faith and your homeland! Packs on your backs, men! “Once more the Finnish bear lives on, he lifts his claw and strikes.”’

 

Hannes’ paperwork indicates that his regiment, JR 9, was in a defensive position at Tohmajärvi in Finland before Germany invaded the USSR. Defensive quickly switched to offensive when JR 9 crossed the Finnish–Russian border into East Karelia with JR 9 fighting their way south-east around Lake Ladoga and impressively advancing over 500 km in 177 days by fighting ‘frontline stabilisation battles’.

 

On another front, the Finnish advance across the Karelian Isthmus—much to Germany’s alarm—halted 30 km north of St. Petersburg. As I cannot find a concrete reason, and I want to be careful not to rewrite history, I looked to the basics of the invasion rather than the surrounding noise. Finland’s artillery battery guns had a limited range of 26–28 km, which meant their shells could not reach St. Petersburg. Some sources suggest that Ryti agreed with Hitler’s plan, as he is reported to have made a proposal: ‘If Leningrad no longer exists as a large city, then the [river] Neva would be the best border...’ But this never came to pass as the river ran through the centre of St. Petersburg, and Finland was stuck halfway across the Karelian Isthmus at the Soviet defensive line.

 

On Hannes’ front, the Finns had been successfully advancing around and to the south–east of Lake Ladoga. But their offensive moved ever deeper, crossing the river Svir—which was the end of Fennoscandia—and following the riverbank eastwards towards the shores of Lake Onega. This movement explains why Hannes was positioned south of the river Svir, in the village of Gonginichi, when he fell. Hannes faced fierce fighting in his final battle when the Soviets pushed the Finns back north across the river. Soviet counterattacks in the Svir area did not end until January 1942, when the style of fighting changed from rapid advancement to trench warfare as each side dug in.

 

Another quote from Vainö Linna’s Unknown Soldiers is ‘Wishful thinkers, no. But careful calculators, yes. German military leadership has one golden tradition: it does not hope, it calculates. Russia has just one crucial asset: the apathetic endurance of a donkey.’ The Red Army was well-suited to trench warfare—a war of attrition—and Germany had miscalculated.

 

Hannes was killed before trench warfare began, and his regiment did not see open combat again until two and a half years later. On 17th June 1944, the Finnish forces were pushed back towards the Finnish–Russian border, and on 24th September 1944, they regrouped for repatriation and retreated across the border. This was down to another treaty—the Moscow Armistice—concluded on 19th September 1944. The Soviet Union had won. This was very bad news for Ryti, who was subsequently tried as a war criminal, found guilty and imprisoned.

 

By September 1941, Finland had recaptured most of the territory ceded in the Winter War and the Moscow Peace Treaty, but Ryti’s vision of a ‘Greater Finland’ drove the Finnish military forward. But Victoribus Spolia—‘to the victor go the spoils’—proved true. These gains were reversed at the end of the Continuation War by the terms of the Moscow Armistice. This treaty shrunk Finland even further than the Moscow Peace Treaty had because most of Karelia and the Kola Peninsula, where Petsamo was located (which had been returned after the Winter War), was now lost in its entirety—Finland had ceded all access to the Arctic Ocean. The Finnish leadership’s dreams of cargo-laden ships on trains or chains of waterways had been wrecked. War reparations were demanded by the USSR, amounting to billions in today’s money. The Finnish leadership had failed to boost the economy, instead drowning it in debt.

Risto Ryti's 'Greater Finland'

 

Final Territorial Loses and Borders

 

Offensive—in more ways than one—this is where I feel profound disgust towards Finland’s leadership. Had the Finnish Army halted at the 1939 borders, or refrained from attacking the USSR altogether, Hannes might never have fallen at Gonginichi; I could have known my great uncle.

 

The title of this work is misleading as Hannes never made it back again. The JR 9 operational zone—and their entire wartime route—was Tohmajärvi–Kiprushino–Tohmajärvi. After the Moscow Armistice was concluded, Hannes’ regiment retreated to Tohmajärvi—the very place from which they had begun. My title is really referring to the fact that the entire Finnish army retreated in 1944 ending the Continuation War. The war had been a waste of lives.

Hannes Kokkarinen & JR 9's Operational Zone

sotapolku

When I first searched for those killed in action in the National Archives of Finland, 50,793 names came up under the ‘perishing’ category. Hannes’ death classification was: killed in action, body evacuated and buried. He was identified by his corporal. There is a sweet note scribbled on his service card saying that the people supplying the food held a little ceremony for him before he was repatriated. He was buried in grave 130 of Muuruvesi War Heroes Graveyard two months after his death. There is no mention of him in the War Diaries, the National Archives stating the reason being that ‘he died early on in the war and was not a high ranking officer’. He may have been neither of these things, but he will always be honoured by me.