Questions tagged [finland]

For questions about the history of Finland, a Scandinavian country in the northeast of Europe.

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32 votes
3 answers
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Did the Finns have aluminum screw caps in 1939?

I was looking at images from the 1939 Winter War https://www.rferl.org/a/finlands-winter-war-with-the-soviet-union/30280490.html and found this interesting one. source The Molotov cocktail has an ...
Willk's user avatar
  • 613
25 votes
3 answers
2k views

Why did the USSR stop in the Winter War against Finland in 1940?

To me, this is one of the biggest history mysteries. By the end of February 1940, the USSR breached the Mannerheim line, and the Finnish troops were exhausted and short of ammunition. I have little ...
Sandra's user avatar
  • 481
24 votes
3 answers
12k views

Did Stalin kill all Soviet officers involved in the Winter War?

Did Stalin kill all of the Soviet officers involved in the Winter War, when it ended? A documentary called "Warlords: Hitler vs Stalin" made this claim, but Wikipedia doesn't seem to mention this. ...
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24 votes
2 answers
6k views

Why was the Red Army successful against the Japanese in 1939 but perform poorly against Finland 1939-40 and early part of WW2?

The Soviet Union's Red Army had great difficulty overcoming the vastly outnumbered Finns in the 1939-40 Winter War, and suffered disastrous defeats in the early stages of the German invasion in World ...
Timothy's user avatar
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21 votes
4 answers
3k views

Did the poor performance of the Red Army in the Winter War significantly contribute to German underestimation of the USSR's military capacity?

Wikipedia says in the article on the Winter War: Perhaps more importantly, the very poor performance of the Red Army encouraged Hitler to think that an attack on the Soviet Union would be ...
Felix Goldberg's user avatar
21 votes
1 answer
743 views

What happened to Soviet citizens on Finnish territory before and during winter war?

How many Soviet citizens were on Finnish territory immediately before the Winter War? Other than diplomats. I suppose there would have been trading officials, some engineering personnel etc. What ...
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20 votes
3 answers
4k views

How did the Soviets decide what to annex in WW2?

During and after World War II Soviet Union annexed some countries while others eventually became member states of the Warsaw Pact. What is known about how the Soviets made the decisions about which ...
Sami Liedes's user avatar
16 votes
2 answers
2k views

Why was Poland subject to much harsher Russification than Finland was?

A Wikipedia page describes Russification of Poland: Russification in Congress Poland intensified after the November Uprising of 1831, and in particular after the January Uprising of 1863. In 1864 the ...
Mitsuko's user avatar
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14 votes
4 answers
7k views

Why is Finland represented as a Soviet satellite in this 1947 cartoon?

The cartoon is a British one. I found it at http://lenta.ru/articles/2013/05/28/secretwar/ but without any specific attribution.
Felix Goldberg's user avatar
11 votes
5 answers
52k views

What was Finland's position in World War Two? [closed]

What was Finland's position in World War Two? Apparently, they were fighting against the Soviet Union, but not as Nazi Germany's ally. Are there reasons for this, and were they actually on Germany's ...
please delete me's user avatar
6 votes
0 answers
129 views

What was the first overland road from Sweden to Finland?

The Swedish post road from Norway, through Sweden, used the Åland archipelago to pass into Sweden, and this is easily found (evidence of) in the south of Finland to the present day. When (and where) ...
gktscrk's user avatar
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5 votes
1 answer
233 views

Where to get historical Finland railways map for 1939 year?

Where to get Finland railways map for 1939 year ? Just want to compare logistics possibilities during Winter War. It is map of USSR: http://soldat.ru/files/f/00000583.jpg
Roman Pokrovskij's user avatar
5 votes
1 answer
564 views

Would Lauri Törni have recieved the Waffen-SS blood type tattoo?

Lauri Allen Törni served with Finland during the Winter war, and due to being an officer, visited Vienna to obtain Waffen-SS training. Does this mean he would have had the SS blood type tattoo applied?...
codeboi1337's user avatar
5 votes
1 answer
820 views

Age of Finnish soldiers in Winter War and Continuation War

During World War 2, A. By what ages where men/women allowed to voluntarily join the Finnish army (upper and lower bounds if there was any, differences between men and women)? B. By what ages was ...
Aksel Willgert's user avatar
4 votes
0 answers
528 views

After WW2, why did Stalin let Finland off with some loss of territory rather than occupation and crushing reparations? [closed]

Finland did lose 10% of its territory and 20% of its industry according to Wikipedia, but given Stalin's paranoia, why was it not occupied by Soviet troops?
Amorphous Blob's user avatar
3 votes
3 answers
314 views

What was the constitutional status of Finland within Russian Empire?

I am currently reading and translating a book into my own language. There are several sentences that must be interpreted historically for me to be possible to translate. All of these sentences have to ...
1amroff's user avatar
  • 133
2 votes
1 answer
305 views

What was the Western involvement in Finland's deal with the Soviets to be neutral?

There was being some comment about this from Yanis Varoufakis (see below). But some people are challenging if Varoufakis is making any sense...so I don't know the facts. How much was the West involved ...
NeedGrammarHelp's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
5k views

Why is former Portuguese flag similar to Finnish one?

What is the reason/story behind the look of one of the former Portuguese flags, which is extremely similar to Finnish current one? Wikipedia dates the flag within 1095–1143 AD. Nowadays, we can find ...
ludgo's user avatar
  • 131
2 votes
1 answer
427 views

Did Helsinki have higher standards of living than Saint Petersburg when it was a part of the Russian Empire?

For over a century Finland was a part of the Russian Empire. It seems that overall Finland was significantly richer than Russia proper in the early XX century (look at these estimates). Was Helsinki ...
Häyhä's user avatar
  • 39
2 votes
1 answer
404 views

Why Finland received so little foreign support during the winter war?

Considering the following four facts: Many western countries helped the anti-communist government during the Russian civil war, League of Nation supports Finland, The war lasts really long comparing ...
dodo's user avatar
  • 258
0 votes
1 answer
309 views

WWII - documents on turn around point in German Foreign strategy - "stop we are not going to pass Finland to USSR"

I want to find the turn around point in German Foreign strategy: ok we leave Finland to USSR - stop we would not do it. In documents. Some of them are there: https://archive.org/search.php?query=...
Roman Pokrovskij's user avatar
-3 votes
1 answer
2k views

When became turks finns? [closed]

As you know turkish language is similar to turkish language, because finnish language derived from turkish, but changed a little so turks can nowadays only understand about 20 percent of finnish. What ...
TurkishHipHoper's user avatar