The Pittsburgh Press (September 4, 1944)
FINNS GIVE UP TO REDS
Frantic Nazis seek escape via Norway
Chutists reported harassing flight
Stockholm, Sweden (UP) –
Finland abandoned the war and her German alliance today, surrendering to the Soviet Union for the second time in four and a half years.
The cease-firing order was sounded at 8:00 a.m. CET (2:00 a.m. ET) along the 450-mile front held by Finnish troops from Salla to the Gulf of Finland, and a Finnish peace mission was already believed en route to Moscow.
Nazis flee Finland
Thousands of German troops part of an army of 160,000 Nazis estimated to be in Finland, were reported fleeing into northern Norway. A Finnish ultimatum told the Germans to quit the country by Sept. 15 or be disarmed and interned.
Reliable reports reaching Norwegian sources in London said Soviet paratroops had been dropped in northern Norway and were being aided by Norwegian Patriots in harassing German troops fleeing from Finland.
A Swedish Home Service broadcast said a steady stream of German military cars loaded with troops had been seen moving from northern Finland to northern Norway. A Narvik report said Norwegian Patriots, who had been supplied by air with arms and ammunition, attacked and destroyed several German coastal defense posts and that fighting was going on along the railroad through the Narvik area.
The armistice came three years and two months after Finland, smarting from her defeat in the “Winter War” of 1939-40, threw in with Germany and declared war on Russia on June 26, 1941.
Climax of feverish activity
It culminated 10 days of feverish activity by Finnish peace emissaries in Stockholm.
Finland’s withdrawal from the war – the third Axis satellite to abandon Germany in 10 days – was foreshadowed last Saturday when Premier Antti Hackzell emerged from a secret meeting of Parliament to announce that his government was breaking relations with the Reich and would make every effort to obtain peace.
Preliminary Russian armistice conditions, including the requirement that German troops were to be ousted from Finland, were submitted to the government on Aug. 29, just four days after a Finnish delegation contacted Mme. Alexandra Kollontai, Soviet Ambassador to Sweden, to appeal for peace.
The Russians terms were not immediately disclosed, but the Finns were understood withdrawing their forces to the 1940 frontier and to have signified their readiness to disarm any Germans who might attempt a stand in northern Finland.
Germans are silent
Unofficial reports reaching Stockholm said truckloads of Nazi troops were already pouring into northern Norway, but there was a strong possibility that the Nazi High Command might order a stand around the important Finnish nickel deposits in the north.
Berlin maintained grim silence on the defection of its northern ally, which Hackzell said had become necessary because the German Army was unable and unwilling to provide further help and was withdrawing behind its own borders for a defense of the fatherland.
Hackzell, using the bluntest possible language, told the Finnish public in a broadcast that Finland’s military situation had been worsening since the big Soviet offensive of mid-June that cracked through the Mannerheim Line and captured Viipuri.
He said:
The military situation has also become worse for Germany. Germany has to use all her available forces for the defense of her homeland.
Then he added that “many in the German forces no longer believe in victory.”
Big blow to Nazis
Hackzell revealed that the Russians had not demanded his country’s unconditional surrender. The Soviet terms, he disclosed, were made known in advance to the United States.
The loss of Finland, coming on the heels of Romania’s declaration of war on Germany and the break in relations with Bulgaria, was expected to be a serious blow to the Nazi war economy.
The Finnish mines in the north were the last source of nickel open to the Nazis, who also relied heavily on Finland for copper and other minerals and wood.
Finland went to war with Russia on Nov. 30, 1939, when the Red Army invaded her southern borders, and was forced to sue for peace on March 12, 1940. The Finns themselves attacked Russia in 1941, four days after Adolf Hitler’s Nazi legions invaded the Soviet Union.