The Continuation War 1941 – 1944

Soviet bombardment of Helsinki

Soviet spy executed by a firing squad

Finnish sergeant armed with a Suomi KP/-31

The Finns had earned the respect of the world, and Germany now considered Finland a worthy ally for their planned invasion of the Soviet Union. The Finnish government was informed of plans for Operation Barbarossa during January 1941, and agreed to cooperate with Germany to recover its lost territory. They agreed upon the arrival of German troops, Finnish mobilization and general division of operations. The Germans took responsibility for a 500 km stretch of the front in the northern Finland. Acts of war between Finland and the Soviet Union started on June 22 1941, the day Germany launched Barbarossa. Open warfare started with a Soviet air offensive on June 25 1941. The Soviet air forces bombed Helsinki and other major Finnish cities. This offered the Finnish government a ground for claiming that the country had become the target of a new assault. Finnish government stressed that Finland was fighting as a co-belligerent of the German Reich only against the Soviet Union to protect itself. However, the United Kingdom had signed with the Soviet Union an agreement of joint action on July 12 1941. As a result, Britain declared war against Finland. Both Churchill and Roosevelt were assisting the Soviets in acts of territorial conquest through huge supplies of arms. Top image: mother and child after a Soviet bomb raid against the capital of Finland on July 9 1941. The Soviet Pravda newspaper stressed that no civilian targets in Finland had been struck, even accidentally. During World War II some 70,000 Finnish children were evacuated from Finland, chiefly to Sweden. Most were evacuated during the Continuation War. Ultimately, about 20 percent of the so-called war children stayed with their Swedish foster families after the war had ended. Credit: Jussi Luostarinen. Middle image: Finnish execution of a Soviet saboteur named Victor Feigin on July 13 1941. When being arrested he was wearing black Finnish Navy uniform without ranks. Feigin was allegedly an Estonian national in Soviet service having been airdropped close to Hangö in Southernmost Finland. Credit: Jared Enos. Photo by Finnish politician and author Laurin Zilliacus. Bottom image: Finnish sergeant posing with a Suomi KP/31 SMG in the South Karelia region on July 25 1941. Credit: Jussi Luostarinen. All photos: The Finnish Wartime Photo Archive.