Word: finland
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...Finland's "War" Debt...
...Normandy last week Colonel General Friedrich Dollmann, commander of the German Seventh Army, was killed-possibly by specially briefed Allied dive bombers. Colonel General Eduard Dietl, commander of Germany's seven divisions in Finland, was killed somewhere in an air crash, apparently in Finnish Lapland (although some reports said Austria). Russia's netful of captives for the week included a General Gollwitz, commanding the 53rd Army Corps...
With scarcely an audible sigh, mesmerized Finland sank into the arms of Nazi Germany. The Germans took over with only a few companies of second-rate occupation troops to back up the fast and foamy talk of Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop. The Nazis' proposition was simple: Germany would send six divisions if the Finns would keep up the fight and agree not to sign a separate peace...
Through three daylight summer nights Ribbentrop played on President Risto Ryti's fear of Red Russians while spineless Henrik Ramsay, Finland's Foreign Minister, and indecisive Premier Edwin Linkomies sat by bemused. Then Ryti took the offer to the full Cabinet. He encountered unexpected opposition from Russian-hating Finance Minister Väinö Tanner, strong man of Finnish politics and long the leader of Finland's fight-to-the-finish school. The battle in the Cabinet was so close that Ryti decided against submitting the proposal to the Finnish Diet. Instead he used his wartime power...
...looked as though Tanner's Social Democrats (85 out of 200 Diet seats) would revolt. But the effective time had passed. Germans were arriving every day, parading the streets of Helsinki and singing mechanically. The citizens glared. Ribbentrop flew home to tell his master that Finland would tie up some 20 Russian divisions, prevent a Russian breakthrough to Norway and possible juncture with the Western Allies. Down by the harbor a stolid crowd watched flustered Germans dredge for 15 tanks, sent to the bottom the day before when a small and poorly loaded German freighter turned over near...