Finland and terror bombing

During Winter war and the Continuation war Russia bombed Finnish cities as so called "terror bombing" and civilians died and houses were destroyed.

Finland, however, did not bomb or shoot artillery barrages at Leningrad for revenge. This was the will of the Finnish High Command.

One of the reasons surely being shortage of bombers but doing so might have " boosted the morale" which was used as one of the reasons to bomb by the Germans and western allied.

Was Finland wrong to not answer the terror bombings?
What´s your opinion?

 

50-50. Interesting. Comments on Finnish action? During the peace negotiations 1944 this was seen as a good thing but then again politics or sensible action or cowardice in 1941??

Anyway, feel free to vote. I´m just curious to see the opinion among our forums members about things like should terror bombings be answered and on what scale...nothing to do specifically on Bomber Command and Harris here.

Personally I feel some kinda answer should have been given but then again the retaliation might have been ugly. Quite complex again...

 

Well, Finland wanted Leningrad to "disappear", but they didn't want to have bloody hands.

A picture tells more about the level of suffering of the Leningrad population than many words: Look at the three passport photos of Sophie Petrova taken May 1941, May 1942 and October 1942:

www.verbrechen-der-wehrmacht.de/docs/e_ausstellung/ernaehr.htm

Cheers,

 

I voted that Finland was right in not terror bombing the USSR. Terror bombing is wrong, but there are alot of things in war that are wrong. Sometimes it is necessary to do something wrong, such as dropping the A-Bomb.

 

Kai, interesting question.

I really do not believe you can consider a Finnish bombardment of Leningrad to be 'terror' bombing.

Leningrad was a fortress that refused to surrender to the Axis, justifying nearly any means necessary to defeat that fortress, so long as civilians are not the direct target of the bombs 100% of the time.

And I believe in Werth's book he writes that they found an site on the northern side of Leningrad in which they believe the Finns fired an artillery shell at them. Just 1.

 

Two wrongs does not make a right so--I voted that they should not havd participated in anykind of terror bombing. But--I do feel that they had a right to defend themselves from attack.

Also--by the Finns NOT doing any terror bombing--just makes them the more better nation with the better leaders. I for one--have nothing but 100% respect for the Finns and what they had to endure.

 

I didn't agree with the poll at all. I just couldn't choose the sentence: "Yes, Finns were cowards" since they were not. They were by far the best soldiers of WWII. However, I do find necessary that Finland not only should have bombarded Leningrad but try to take it. They were the ones who were closer and in better shape to do that. See all my posts in the Leningrad thread and there are many reasons why leningrad should have been taken, and it couldn't be done without the Finns.

 

Also it might be worthwile to point out that, terror bombing or not, the Finns created the northern barrier of the encirclement that helped starve hundreds of thousands of civilians to death. A few bombs or shells were hardly going to make a difference there.

 

Some thoughts here:

The Finns could have stopped " the road of life" if wanted in 1941-42. They could have conquered the piece of land that made the other end at the Leningrad sector.

The population in Leningrad could have been moved in time but Zhdanov , to my knowledge, forbid this. It would have been politically a bad move as people would have thought Leningrad was lost. So instead several trains were used for moving politically suspicious persons to Siberia....and this happened both in Germany and Russia!! Even if those trains were needed for more important things!

On the fact that Finns were holding the other end of the siege line I can only admit it is true but the idea of killing the Russians by hunger was Hitler´s.