BLOODLANDS - EUROPE BETWEEN HITLER AND STALIN by Timothy Snyder

Other than Finnish civilians deliberately starved in hospitals and prisons I meant.
What was the number of Finnish soldiers who died of food shortages?
How many Finnish civilians died of starvation?

Was it 23,000 like the Soviet dead?


The following table is taken from this online paper

http://www.arkisto.fi/uploads/Palvelut/Julkaisut/SOTAVANGIT JA INTERNOIDUT_WEB.pdf

 

Karj; Well even if Stalin WAS more evil than Hitler (I think Hitler worse by far!), from the US point of view Hitler had to be taken on first because he was more of a direct threat to the US. The fact is that NAZI Germany was a more technologically/militarily advanced society than the USSR. The fact is that in many fields NAZI was a more technologically/militarily advanced society than the USA-and the situation stayed that way until the death of Der Fuhrer.
The Jewish Partisans represented only about 20 to 30 thousand fighters in the all of Eastern Europe-the reason that these are the most readily available English translations of Partisan Warfare in Eastern Europe is that a great many Jewish surivivors of the Partisan Wars emigrated West and then told their stories (which are in the main INCREDIBLE!). The Belorussian, Polish, Slovak, Macedonian, Ukrainian, Russian, Lativan, Estonian, Serbian, Croat, Bosnian, Lithuanian and etc survivors of the Partisan Wars remained silent for the reason that they suffered decades of Communist censorship after the war.
Yes there is a large Finnish presence in Minnesota-but with intermarriage the ethnic distinctions started dissapearing a few generations back. Now my grandfather had nothing good to say about Russki-something to do with his correspondance to the relatives back in the old country, the fact that the relatives back home mostly were forced out of Karelia in 1917 (and nobody who stayed behind was ever heard from again!), and then that some of them fell when Russki hit Suomosallmi in 1939. There were some Red Finn families-mostly in Northern Minnesota-some of whom went to Russia in the '30s to experience the workers' paradise. They mostly were back in Minnesota in short order; kissing the earth and telling horrific stories of starving "Kulaks" begging for food at the railway stations, arrests, disspearances-all the usual Stalinist era horrors. There are a few Red Finns left despite it all though-and I did stumble into a "Tyomies" store in Superior in 1978- and quickly left when I realized that those people were who they were (NUTS is who they are! Wild eyed fanatics so thoroughly cocooned in their whacked out ideology that no ray of light could possibly get through! Kind of like these TEA PARTY people we are dealing with over here in the USA just now! Same Billy Goat eyes!).
JeffinMNUSA

 

See my continued post #36.

 

If you consider that most Finnish men were at the front after July 1941 it was women,some farmers and POW´s who did the farming. We were able to get wheat shipments from Germany for the remainder of the war. it is obvious without these shipments Finland and Finnish citizens would have been facing hunger and death due to food shortages. The Germans also stopped in spring 1944 wheat shipments as Finns were negotating peace with Stalin, but as in June 1944 the Red Army offensive started, Hitler started wheat shipments again.

The 1941-42 problems especially were due to poor preparations for the POW´s and other prisoners ( Just like the Germans had 3,5 million dead Red Army POW´s during the winter). Many Finnish soldiers expected to be back home by harvest time as "promised" when the war started. This did not happen.

 

They indeed did! I haven't seen any official figures but it is general knowledge that the death rate among civilians - and especially in institutions like hospitals - was clearly higher than normal during that hunger year, before the new harvest late summer 1942.

Actually the food rations of the soviet POWs were higher than those of the ordinary Finnish civilians. The problem was, that although nobody could live on rations alone, ordinary civilians got extra food by gardening, fishing, growing own pigs, picking berries etc., but the people in institutions or prison camps were unable to do that.

No, it was not bad luck. It was the bad eastern neighbor Finland has.

 

None were "deliberately starved". There was not enough food in Finland in winter 1941-42.

The army was of course the top priority, since they were fighting for the country.

Haven't seen any official figures about the starvation of the Finnish civilians, since it is difficult to say officially who died for starvation. That word was not normally used, since the officias did not want to cause panic - nor help the enemy. Everybody, who has knowledge of the situation then however say, that people did die for lack of food.

The soviets were the enemy, who wanted to destroy Finland and had attacked our country three times in 23 years. Hardly comparable...

The figures of the deceased German POWs is not correct, since they had to be handed over to the USSR, where almost all perished...

The same reasons for the excessive deaths of the civil internees in the East Karelia during the first war year apply as for the POW.
The red army had left the civilians behind without food by taking it away or destroying it. Finnish army did not take food from the civilians
BUT INSTEAD gave them some. No food was exported from the area during the war, nor was food from the civilians used for the army.
During the Finnish occupation time the health situation improved to a level, which EXCEEDED the peace time level of the USSR!

For comparison:

The death rate of the Finnish POW in the USSR was about 40 %, although their time of imprisonment was generally only abt half a year from summer 1944.
The time of imprisonment of the soviet POWs in Finland was generally abt three years from 1941 and the conditions got better all the time during the captivity.

 

You should have read the linked thread.
One problem was the often mention 'deaths' of Finnish civilans but no one could produce any data to back it.
It is no good introducing the deaths in institutions (prisons, Hospitals etc) because it is claimed that this was also a deliberate policy by the Finnish Government.
It appears decisions were made that certain sections of the population would suffer more than others. Soviet POW's were considered the most expendable and it does no good to try and claim 'you' were just doing what the Germans and Soviets did.

Yes covered quite extensively in the AHF thread. Fact is the Soviet POW's were allowed to die of starvation.
You can use as many excuses as you want but the treatment of the POW's was inhuman.
This of course ignores the Soviet prisoners in German custody in Finland. The Finns did nothing to prevent their murder either.
You were are all as bad as each other.

Cue violins.............

 

Of course they were. They were all shot trying to escape. Shot between the eyes from 1000 mtrs every one!

 

And the Red Army shot the rest in the neck in September 1944... so the dead Red Army POW´s was 100% by the end of the war.

Order No. 270 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Stalin declared: "There are no Soviet prisoners of war, only traitors."[

 

Ah the old myth that all returning Soviet POW's were treated as traitors...........

 

What kind of Nazi apologist crap is that?!

The Soviet Govt. is to blame for the deaths of 1 million civilians (most due to starvation) because Leningrad was not ordered to evacuate and not because of Hitlers policies?!?!
Are you aware of the complications involved with evacuating an entire city with a population of 4 million and the resources which that would require during peace time let alone Barbarossa???

How many cities were ordered to be evacuated by their Govts in WW2? Antwerp? Oslo? Paris maybe? How about Manilla when the Japanese invaded the Phillipines or Nanking in China? Was the Chinese Govt. responsible for the rape of Nanking?
Was the Soviet Govt. to predict what Hitler had in store for his civilian captives?

Using your logic, if the Russians captured Helsinki and exterminated everyone they found, the Finnish Govt. would be to blame for not evacuating right? And all those women raped in Berlin, well... they shouldnt have been there.....?
Have you lost your mind?

Evacuations were always voluntary.

All countries have some sort of prisons, prison camps or work camps and mental hospitals. What smaller scale? Do you have any numbers to back this?

[Hypothetically speaking)
You are a farm boy when the Russians invade Finland. After witnessing numerous atrocites of all sorts you decide to stand up for you country and in a last and desperate show of defiance, you run to the woods with all you can grab in hopes of killing as many of the invaders as you can before your time comes. After a while your rations dry up and you decide to go back to your village in hopes of finding rations. Your mother gives you food and water (willingly of course). The next day she is shot along with all who were in the house at the time and a few other "suspects'. All is forgiven right? She actively and willingly supported you (her son) and there for was a partisan. Her execution along with other family members and random folks in the village is then "justified in accordance with international law", right? OF COURSE NOT!


Unfortunately, such became the methods and policies of the German army on the Eastern front. Under the guise of combatting partisans, the German Army gave official support to SSunits (Einsatzgruppen ) whose task it was to kill the Jewish population and suspect indi-viduals behind the lines on the eastern front

All was made possible by Field Marshal Walter von Reichenau and his infamous order to his troops.

5.17Field Marshal Walter von Reichenau


Stalin did not have such policies for the German civilians or POW's

 

This has been discussed here in the past. A Myth indeed.

 

Slonik...do you really blame Karjarla for Russian bashing?

As a Finn, he has more to complain about than most. And don't you think the current trend in Russia of apologism for Stalinist crimes is just as unwholesome as anything Karjarla can come up with.

It's high time you faced facts. Russian Imperialism cost Europe a LOT of people. The Finns fought the bastards for the independance of their nation. They did not want to be involved in creating a "Paradise of Workers and Peasants" any more than we did. Now, I fully acknowledge Russian participation in WW2 on our side, but really, the Soviet governemnt started the conflict playing both sides against the middle, hoping that the Western Alliance could be weakened enough to be ripe for the plucking when it came to exporting Russian revolutionary ideals. The Comintern was set up specifically to do just that-export revolution to the rest of Europe. In 1919, the Germans voted with their rifles against that nonsence, driving the rest of the community into the arms of right wing dictatorship.

Only after Hitler revealed that what he had been preaching in his speaches for years was actually contemplated as reality, (Operation Barbarossa) did the Soviet Union wake up to the fact that it had to become part of the Western Allies whether it was doctrinally plausible or not. The Nazis themselves were arrogant in their racial assumptions, spoiling the opportunity of the century to get rid of Russian hegemony once and for all. All those ethnic minorities and border nations that Stalin had so conveniently and brutally subjugated since the revolution were glossed over and classified all as UNTERMENCHEN. So, all the enemies that Stalinism had so wonderfully made found themselves marginalized by the likes of Himmler and people like Koch. Without their arrogance, there is a very good chance that these enemies would have come back to bite their Russian oppressors firmly on the backside.

So, thank God for Nazi arrogance. Think too of the possibilities of the Stalin regime being squashed by a German nation NOT at war with England and France. If Neville Chamberlain had his way, this is exactly what would have occurred. And without outside help, and with Germany only fighting the Russians, I'm afraid Russia proper would have disappeared into Lebensraum a long time ago.

So, be kind to Karjarla, and all the other Finns and other ethnics that your nation's policies pissed off between 1919 and 1980. You Russians have only your stupid revolution to blame for it. Lenin might have been a great intellectual, but he was just as big a bloody tyrant as any that had gone before hime, perfectly willing to write history in blood.

You are getting the backlash from all this confirmed history. If you want to be a good Russian patriot, and an honest man to boot, accept that the past history of Russia is fully to blame for this.

And leave the poor bloody Finns alone.

 

And by Christ mate, if I see the word ONLY used in conjunction with a death figure of over a million people, I'll be complaining to the site owners.

You have no right to push that kind of Stalinist crap down our throats. I.V. Stalin said it himself..."One death is a tragedy. A million deaths is a statistic."

What barbaric CRAP.

 

Icebreaker claptrap................

 

Stalin caused more deaths than Hitler - and Mao even more! Stalin as well as Hitler killed people (also) only because of their nationality/race/family relations - not (only) because of their doings. Stalin enslaved huge area and many countries and nationalities for decades.

Hitler was not really "a direct threat" to USA, which was on the other side of the ocean. Germany's ability to wage war overseas was very limited. Who knows - if Hitler hadn't declared war on USA maybe USA would have stayed officially out...

I have no wish nor reason to undermine the jewish sufferings - nor any other sufferings either. The Finnish jewish soldiers fought valiantly along the other Finns against the soviets. It is only natural that in the jewish litterature (all) the Germans are evil nazies and everybody fighting against them are close to saints. This is still not the only nor the hole truth.

 

Karjala,

it would be good if you would reread your sources and try to find good ( neutral) ones. This all is singlesided and not a good way to deal with this piece of history!

 

Which one? Two people can have the same facts but end up on different conclusions - "glass half empty or half full".

I wrote earlier: "Haven't seen any official figures about the starvation of the Finnish civilians, since it is difficult to say officially who died for starvation. That word was not normally used, since the officias did not want to cause panic - nor help the enemy. Everybody, who has knowledge of the situation then however say, that people did die for lack of food."

It is difficult/impossible to give official data, since there is no such data available. Instead of "died for starvation" the doctors wrote e.g. "died for weakness/stomach disease" etc. The reasons for that I also gave earlier. Still the ex-nurses/doctors/other officials all say in the inteviews, that the big (main?) reason was lack of food.

Just heard from radio two days ago, that on average the Finns lost 6 kg:s in 1942 - and obesity was not an issue even before that! Don't know how the figure is counted but have no reason to doubt it.

Here's some more:

Esitysmateriaalia - www.sotalapset.fi

"Talvi 1942 ”nälkätalvi”. Jopa armeijan muona-annoksia jouduttiin supistamaan neljänneksellä 15.12.1941. "
Winter 1942 "hunger winter". Even the army rations had to be cut by a fourth at 15.12.1941! (my translation)

Elintarvikkeiden säännöstely Suomessa toisen maailmansodan aikana

"Kokonaisviljasato oli vuonna 1939 (jolloin tuontilannoitteet olivat käytössä ja sadonkorjuu voitiin järjestää käytännössä rauhan ajan oloissa) 1 513 tuhatta tonnia. Kokonaissatomäärä laski siten, että viljaa tuotettiin:[SUP][11][/SUP]

• Vuonna 1941 vain 947 tuhatta tonnia (63% vuoden 1939 sadosta)
• Vuonna 1942 / 1 066 tuhatta tonnia (70%)
• Vuonna 1943 / 1 029 tuhatta tonnia (68%)
• Vuonna 1944 / 827 tuhatta tonnia (55%)"

Grain harvest in 1939: 1513 thousand tonns
1941: 947 thousand tonns (63 % of 1939 harvest)
1942: 1066 thousand tonns (70 %)
1943: 1029 thousand tonns (68 %)
1944: 827 thousand tonns (55 %)

Who "claims"? A "claim" is not a fact. Unfortunately it is only human, that in the situation when there is no food one's own mouth - or the mouths of one's own children - became more important.

I'm not claiming that "we" did what the Germans or the soviets did, since "we" did not. Of course the soviet POW's were more expendable, when there was not enough food to feed the own children. The lack of food was one of the main reasons why 75.000 Finnish children were sent to Sweden and Denmark - and where many thousands stayed for ever. The SU was the only reason for the starvation in the first place.

Yes, they did die of starvation IN THE FIRST YEAR ONLY. After that no more.

Finland is not responsible for Germany's doings.

 

A long winded way of saying there are no recorded deaths from starvation other than the POWs and people in institutions.
Let me help you. There should be a rise in mortality rates for the period. Can you show a significant increase or a 20%+ death rate for any one year?

 

Yes, it was - on the first year of the war. However it was not an accepted general policy nor order
of the state, nor intentional (with some separate exceptions). The hole country was suffering from
lack of food.

When the poor situation was ackwoledged orders were given to improve the conditions - and improve
they did. Many POWs were placed on small farms, where they were "guarded" only by little boys.
Often they ate with the family at the same table. The treatment was so "inhumane" that the POWs
left abt 200 babies behind...! Many POWs cried when they had to leave and return to the USSR
after the war.

Don't understand your meaning. Try again...

A musician, are you...?