What if the Germans had taken Leningrad, do you think the Finns would have stayed the

What do you think would have happened? Personally, I think the Finns would have launched an attack for the purpose of creating a nice sized buffer zone between their country, and where the fighting was taking place.

Had that happened, I believe that many Russians might have decided to join the Finns and there could have been another Vlaslov type army created. There probably would be in the neighborhood of another 1 million Russian volunteers to be put into the fight against Stalin.

 

I don't agree. The Finns from the very beginning have fought only to regain their territory. After the problems the Germans faced at Leningrad, the Finns fought outside their boundaries only to help the Germans hold back the Russians. I don't think the Finns would have gone further. They were never in for the expansion of borders. I think that is what saved them after signing the armistace.

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"They wrote in the old days that it is sweet and fitting to die for one's country. But in modern war there is nothing sweet or fitting in your dying. You will die like a dog for no good reason."

 

I don't see Finland fighting an aggressive war against Russia. They only fought in thr first place because of the Russian invasion.
The regaining of lost territory as an ally of Germany makes political & tactical sense because Germany's star was rising in the opening stages of the war & an alliance with the apparent stronger power achieved their ends while avoiding the Russians focusing on Finland as an opponent.
Perhaps if, in spite of the fall of Leningrad proposed herein, the war took a similar turn for the worse for Germany, the Finns might have contributed more to the effort of halting the Soviet advance, but there appears to be no reason to assume so...

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Novus Ordo Seclorum

 

Nice arguments gentlemen, thanks. I agree with you both on a point but, I still think the Finns might have gained some terratory because they were weary of the Russians. They most likely would have gained some groung and some Russian allies. I can then see that they would let the Russian volunteers loose to fight the communists.

You are correct in saying the Finns would not venture or at least very far from their stomping grounds. Since at least WW1, they had not trusted the Russians. Since they were invaded, it would be likly had they succeeded kicking the Russians out, that they would have had reinforcements in the name of Russian volunteers.

The reason I argue this is because since the Russians were beat in the field many times by much smaller and not-so-well equipped units. I think the Russians lost somewhere in the vicinity of one million plus troops.

As you wrote, that what saved the Finns was that they did sign an armistace with the Russians. The Russians had finally got their act together, and had also made many threats.

The Finns simply did not want their country ruined by Russian hordes, and their cities blown off the map, so they were forced to capitulate.

The Finns then (in reality) were forced within a time frane to turn against their German friends, and apply pressure for them to leave their country.

The Russians wanted the Finns to disarm and imprison all German forces in the country. There are a few factors why the Germans (or most of them) escaped to fight another day.

A reason was that the Finns still considered the germans their comrades for a time, with the displeasure of the Russians. Then the Russians made demands that the Finns do something to get the Germans out, or to capture them. If I am not mistaken, I think the Russians did bome a large Finnish city as a lesson teacher on whats to come if you did'nt do as uncle Joe wanted.

The Finns being under much pressure like one of that the Russians would occupy their country-which they definately did not want.

The Finns attempted to imprison some German units which the Germans resisted, and the fighting began.

The German forces then acted like a giant amoeba, and fought their way out to friendly terratory. I do not remember how long it took, possibly a month?

Needless to say, I liked your opinions.

 

Not after the Einsatzgruppen showed up...
Before that I believe especially the Ukranians and Georgians welcomed the end of Bolshevik rule, since they had suffered among the worst excesses perpetrated by the Stalinists...



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Novus Ordo Seclorum

 

Too bad that the higher-ups did not listen to even Korps commanders on their feelings about the russian volunteers. The Waffen SS knew they would have been a hugh help and tried to emply them but were constantly blocked by the German High Command and its ignorance.

 

Indeed!
Especially ironic is that volunteers from these very same areas were later welcomed into the Waffen-SS when the tide had turned against Germany...

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Novus Ordo Seclorum

 

What could have been, if it were not for Himmlers stupid racist policies!

What I mean by what could have been, isnt emplying that I would want Hitler to have won the war, im glad we did by all means.

It would have been rather interesting to know what might nave changed though. Would we have had the cold war? Would Castro have survived as a dictator? Would we have had the 6 days that shook the world? See what I mean by What could have been?

 

What could have been, if it were not for Himmlers stupid racist policies!

What I mean by what could have been, isnt emplying that I would want Hitler to have won the war, im glad we did by all means.

It would have been rather interesting to know what might nave changed though. Would we have had the cold war? Would Castro have survived as a dictator? Would we have had the 6 days that shook the world? See what I mean by What could have been?

 

Thats some heavy stuff man! I will get back to you on this later because the library is now closing-later....

 

Ineresting!
I've always believed that relations between the "West" and a latter-day nazi Germany would have been not unlike those we had with the USSR... ...an uneasy standoff with no decisive conflict occuring.
One wonders what the balance of power would have been like, however... ...nazi aims were allegedly no less than world conquest.
Would the USA have remained on Hitler's hit list?
England would presumably have fought on even after the hypothetical fall of the USSR. Would the Anglo-American alliance have taken on nazi Germany without Crazy Ivan?
Would the '6 days that shook the world' have been the US-German face off over nuke deployments?
Would WW3 have been round 2 of the German-Soviet war?(with Ukranian SS units manning the walls of the redoubts intended to keep the "seething asian masses" on the far side of the Urals?)
Regardless, the blame for ignoring the potential of the slavic volunteers falls squarely on the Bohemian Corporal. It was he who stated that arming the Ukranians, Georgians, Byelorussians, etc. would be "like playing with dynamite", presumably because he did not expect them to react pleasantly to nazi race policies...


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Novus Ordo Seclorum

 

Good point made. Our relations with a successful Nazi Germany might not take place. Before we entered the war with Germany, there were many thousands if not hundreds of thousands of Americans having sympathies with Germany.

In the 30's, there was an American Nazi Party, an American Hitler Youth and an American SA/SS type group (the enforcers of the party, just like in Germany)

Had Hitler not declared war on the USA, I could see it then that there would be a future time that we would have at least acknowledged or had to acknowledge Hitlers empire.

True Nazi aims were to control vast territories but, they knew that they could never control the entire world but at least Western Europe-which is mostly what they wanted except for Russia.

Now had the Germans succeeded in defeating the Russians I cannot see that there would have been a "cold war" but, I am positive that we would still have had China to contend with in the least. Castro would probably have grabbed power but I do not think he would have been in power as long as he has been.

I believe that the Germans would have developed the "bomb" probably by 1949, and I do not think there would have been as serious of a standoff, as it was with crazy Ivan himself. We would not have had to deal with jerks like Kruschev for instance.

Thats the problem with making command decisions from hundreds of miles away in Berlin. Hitler could not even remotely understand what was really happening on the eastern front--human relation-wise.

There are mant wellknown instances published that talks about what the Germans and especially the Waffen SS had thought about Hiwis.

Personally I know several men who were in the Waffen SS, and I heard what most though tof the Hiwis. The Hiwis were a great help in many areas that saved the Germans manpower for more important frontline duties. For instance, Hiwis were used as a sort of lobor corps, as policemen and some as frontlins combat soldiers. Mostly, the Hiwis were highly thought of, and true sometimes they were disliked and not trusted.

Had Hitler wanted to understand, he would have thought very differently about the Hiwis and would have used them as combat troops. He might have looked at it this way: Why let German soldiers get killed when we could are the Russians, and let them do the job for us.

 

The germans didn't defead Leningrad because the Fins didn't seal of the northern flank of the city. So troops and supplies were brought to the city. The fins had a change to fight themselves safe, but the didn't because it would have cost lots of lives. So presuming the fins would have fought an large offensive war sounds unreal to me.

 

I think that even if Leningrad had fallen, the Finns would not have tried to pursue further territorial conquests. One must remember, that the Finns were deeply democratic (an interesting oddity within the Axis), and they had only fought, because Stalin attacked them in the winter of 1940.

A more interesting What if question would be based around the possibility of France and Britain coming to Finlands aid in the Winter War and declaring war on the Soviet Union in 1940. Remember that then Germany and the USSR were formally allied (Molotov-Ribbentrop-pact) and an Allied intervention in Finland was only thwarted by Germany's attack on Norway.

 

Hello Miro-glad to see you back.

First to Wittmann..

Thats true what you say and that the Russians did get supplies through to the city over a frozen Lake Ladoga I believe. The Finns did hold a position near there which did keep the Russians at bay-for awhile. I don't remember what the name of the line was called but was'nt it the Mannerheim Line, or something similar to that.

I don't have my books out of storage yet to find out and the library has very little to do with Finlands involvement in the war. I know I have to be mistaken in the naming of that particular defenseline because I believe that it was a line used when Russia invaded them in 1940. I just can't recall the proper name of that position though.

The Finns could have done alot of harm to the Russians--not in open flat country buy in wooded moutainous country. The Finns could have done much damage if being in the right place. Now, I doubt they could do much harm to their foe in a traditional open pitched battle where you might have tens of thousands involved. I tell you one thing, I would have hated having to be a Russian soldier who had to fight the Finns at that time.

What you say Miro is true but, that is because they did have a great fear of what the Russians would do to Finland, had they tried to gain any additional territory or continue fighting Russian forces.

Thats why later in the war in what late 1943-or sometime in 1944, that the Finns "switched sides" and were made to chase the Germans out of Finland.

The Russians had made them agree to certain conditions which had to be met in order to keep a victorious Russian Army from "raping" their country. There were many cases of the Finns trying to prove to the Russians that they were trying to expel the Germans from Finnish territory without really doing anything.

One of the Russiand main gripes was that they demended the Finns to arrest and imprison all the Germans they could get. The Finns really wanted to remain friendly to thew Germans as a lesser of two evils and because they still considered themselves as Kamaraden with the Germans and did not want to betray them because of all the help that Germany gave them. The help was in the way of food, guns, tanks, aircraft-etc.

The Germans had increasing pressures put onto them by the Finns because of Stalins "urgings" which were actually threats.

So the Germans did something very amazing and consolidated all of most of their forces into a given area, and then proceeded to try to leave Finland. They did this as like an Amoeba. Their forces were very flexable and kind of shifted its shape to the area and their needs. This formation proved very sucessful and it ticked the Russians off to no end.

So the Russians did more threatening and the Finns were actually forced into engaging Germans in acts of combat. The Finns clearly did not want Germany as an enemy. Not only did they know that, but Hitler and stalin, knew it all too well.

Miro, I do like your what if question--why don't you post it and we can give our opinions about it? Count me in because its a very interesting alternate possibility.