New book disputes claims of secret executions of wartime deserters

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By Markku Jokisipilä
     
      In spite of rumours to the contrary, no bodies of wartime deserters executed in the summer of 1944 were found buried in the Huhtiniemi campground in Lappeenranta. In addition, reports of a secret military court that would have imposed death sentences in the area proved to be fiction dreamed up by one man.
      This did not prevent Professor Emeritus Heikki Ylikangas from continuing to dig into claims of hundreds of executions. In his book Romahtaako rintama (“Will the Front Collapse”), Ylikangas accused the Finnish military of cleaning out archives and altering reality. He also accused wartime historians of promoting heroic myths, and of research which was short on methodology.
      Although the idea of Finns shooting other Finns clashes with the patriotic image of history, a civilised country does not try to hide what it has done, Ylikangas thundered.
     
Claims by Ylikangas that as many as 250 of Finland’s own soldiers were shot attracted considerable attention, and boosted the writer’s reputation as a courageous investigator into difficult matters.
      Media reactions were mainly positive, but not everyone swallowed the claims made by Ylikangas. At a seminar of the Finnish Society of Military Sciences on December 5th, 2007 Ylikangas got a cascade of criticism that is unusual in academic circles. A new book, Teloitettu totuus (“Executed Truth”) offers the same criticism of Ylikangas’s findings in book forms.
      The writers are experts in the field: war history guru, professor Ohto Manninen, Dr. Jukka Lindstedt, who wrote his doctoral thesis on the death penalty in Finland, Dr. Jukka Kulomaa, who wrote his thesis on military desertion, Jarmo Nieminen, head of the Institute of Military History at the National Defence College, Ilta-Sanomat journalist Pasi Jaakkonen, who wrote a book on the rumours of Huhtiniemi, and War Archive expert Tapio Nurminen.
     
It would seem unique in Finnish historical research that an entire book is dedicated to the purpose of debunking the study of one researcher. That is the unenviable position that Ylikangas finds himself in. A critical x-ray by a group of experts like this one will reveal the inadequacies of even the best of studies without mercy.
      Ohto Manninen puts forward a valid overview of the military and political situation of the summer of 1944. The approach of the study is coolly conservative, traditional political and war history in its purest form.
      Manninen describes Finland’s difficult position in the squeeze between Stalin and Hitler. He shows that the goals of both the Soviet Union and Germany lived throughout the summer of 1944.
      For once, Erik Heinrichs, Chief of the General Staff, who had a decisive influence on the most important decisions, gets the attention that he deserves.
     
Tapio Nurminen questions the claim made by Ylikangas that 100,000 people would have been left without military training for political reasons.
      The large number of those who were rejected by the Defence Forces resulted from the poor condition of state finances at the time, and the poor physical condition of many Finnish men. When a man is 140 cm. tall and weighs 40 kilos (one case in Joutsa), he didn’t need a communist background to be rejected by the military.
      Kulomaa and Nieminen show in their joint article that in June - July 1944 the desertion rate was a real strategic problem for the Finnish military. The total number of soldiers who had deserted, or who had lost track of their units in the Karelian Isthmus was over 30,000.
      Some of the commanders on the front were in favour of extreme measures to stop the flight, but according to the writers, death sentences did not ultimately affect the military action at all.
      Lindstedt and Kulomaa show that claims that the number of those executed was downplayed is impossible to prove. According to sources, it is possible to confirm that 46 were executed, and that 12 were shot in an urgent situation, involving refusal or urgency.
      Pasi Jaakkonen, for his part, shows that talk about public downplaying, or denial of executions is not true. On the contrary, he says that the media accepted the “conspiracy theory” promoted by Ylikangas, and was too eager to give it space.
     
In spite of occasional overlapping, the book is a good reading experience. The writers mercilessly reveal the methodological slips of Ylikangas, the inadequacies of his base of sources, and his mistaken conclusions.
      Just in case, the book contains a list of all of the people sentenced to death during the war by Finnish courts.
      Ylikangas is a prolific historian, who has produced many studies that have broken new ground. Also, with his polemical attitude, he has launched many debates that have advanced research and historical understanding. Teloitettu totuus shows that when speaking of the executions of the summer of 1944, Ylikangas’s achievements are limited to the sparking of debate.
      This work cannot give a definite answer to the question of how many Finnish soldiers were killed by Finnish bullets. When we speak of cases that can be proven on the basis of sources, we are nevertheless close to the final figures.
      Critical debate of our military history needs to be continued, but no compromise must be allowed in the methodology.
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 8.10.2008
     
Dr. Jokisipilä is a political historian.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Historian Heikki Ylikangas challenges Finnish national mythology (7.10.2007)
  Historian claims number of executions of deserters during Continuation War was deliberately understated (3.10.2007)
  Orthodox regalia found in Huhtiniemi graves (1.11.2006)
  New tipoffs on locations of more possible wartime mass graves (24.10.2006)
  Remains of 11 men found in mass grave in southeastern Finland (18.10.2006)

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