The Karelian Front in 1941-1944

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The Karelian Front in 1941-1944

Metina V.R.

war soviet karelian front

The Karelian Front was a Front (a formation of Army Group size) of the Soviet Union's Red Army during World War II, and operated in Karelia.

The Karelian Front was created in August 1941 when Northern Front was split into Karelian Front and Leningrad Front to take account of the different military developments and requirements on the Leningrad approaches and along the Finnish border to the Arctic. It remained in existence until the end of the war.

The front covered the sector north of Lake Ladoga and the Svir River to the Arctic Coast near Murmansk. It was involved in combat with both Finnish and German forces along the Soviet-Finnish border. The front between Lake Ladoga and Lake Onega was split of to the independent 7th Army during the static phase of the war.

During 1944, the front participated with Leningrad Front in the final offensive against Finland which led to the Soviet-Finnish armistice. In October 1944 it conducted the Petsamo-Kirkenes Operation, capturing some parts of northern Finland and liberating the easternmost parts of the Norwegian Finnmark province from German occupation.

Karelian Front conducted the only successful major military operation ever undertaken in an Arctic environment in modern warfare. The experiences in the conduct of the operation, particularly in terms of organising rear-area services and supply, were considered important to the conduct of the Red Army's offensive against the Japanese Kwantung Army in Manchuria, and many leading officers were transferred from Karelian Front to the Baikal theatre of war.

The Finnish military administration in Eastern Karelia was an interim administrative system established in those areas of the Karelo-Finnish Soviet Socialist Republic (KFSSR) of the Soviet Union which were occupied by the Finnish army during the Continuation War. The military administration was set up on July 15, 1941 and it ended during the summer of 1944. The goal of the administration was to prepare the region for eventual annexation into Finland.

The administration did not encompass the territories ceded to the Soviet Union in the Moscow Peace Treaty and subsequently recaptured by the Finns during the summer offensive of 1941.

Finnish interest in Russian Karelia goes back to the 19th century. Eastern Karelia was seen as the cradle of Finnish culture and the ancient land of the heroic sagas of the Kalevala. Along with the rise of Finnish Russophobia, the "Karelia question" became politicized. During and after the Finnish civil war several voluntary expeditions were launched with the intended goal of liberating the Karelian "kindred people", without success.

The Continuation War and a trust in a quick German victory over the Soviet Union once again gave rise to Finnish irredentism. The legality of the Finnish claims on Eastern Karelia was justified by both ethno-cultural and military security factors. During the spring of 1941, when the Finnish political leadership understood the full extent of the German plans concerning the Soviet Union, president Ryti commissioned professor of geography Vдinц Auer and historian Eino Jutikkala to demonstrate "scholarly" that Eastern Karelia formed a natural part of the Finnish living space. The resulting book Finnlands Lebensraum ("Finland's Living Space") was published in the autumn of 1941, and was intended to legitimize Finnish claims and actions to the international audience. A similar book by historian Jalmari Jaakkola, Die Ostfrage Finnlands ("Finland's Eastern Question") was published in the summer of the same year.

The Finnish expansionist aims are present in Finnish Commander-in-Chief C. G. E. Mannerheim's Order of the Day given on July 10, 1941, which was based on an earlier declaration given by him during the Finnish civil war.

The long-term goal of the military administration was to make it possible for Eastern Karelia to be permanently integrated to the Finnish state after the ultimate German victory over the Soviet Union. This was to be done by inspiring the native population's confidence towards the Finnish occupiers.

As most place-names in Eastern Karelia had a historical Finnish or Karelian alternatives which were still in use in the KFSSR, extensive renaming was not necessary. The notable exception is Petroskoi (Petrozavodsk), which was deemed as sounding too "Russian", and was renamed Ддnislinna, a literal Finnish translation of the name Onegaborg used in the Theatrum Orbis Terrarum of Abraham Ortelius. Although Finnish troops never reached Kemi (Kem) on the shores of the White sea, this town was also to be renamed, as a town with an identical name already stood in Finnish Lapland. The new name was tentatively suggested to be Vienanlinna ("Castle of Viena"), a continuation of several Finnish cities and towns ending in suffix -linna (e.g. Hдmeenlinna, Savonlinna).

Streets were to be named after prominent Finns and patriots (such as Mannerheim, Elias Lцnnrot, Elias Simojoki and Paavo Talvela), and also after names featured in the Kalevala and the Kanteletar. The Karelian population was also discouraged to give newly-born children Slavic names.

The remaining population of Eastern Karelia was estimated to be under 85, 000 in 1941, and consisted mainly of women, children and the elderly, while the pre-war population was about 300, 000. The Finnish authorities further estimated that of the remaining 85, 000, about half could be classified as "national"; that is, Karelians, Finns, Estonians, Ingrians, Vepsians and other smaller Finnic minorities considered "kindred peoples" (heimo). The majority of the population was defined as "non-national", with most being Russian or Ukrainian. The Finns encountered considerable challenges in dividing the population into these two groups, as linguistic and ethnic boundaries were not very apparent. Ultimately, the division was based on ethnic principles (sometimes expressing somewhat pseudoscientific anthropological theories), and thus monolingual Russian-speaking Karelians and children from multinational families were usually classified as "national".The long-term goal of this pursued policy was to expel the "nonnational" part of the population to German-occupied Russia after the war had reached a victorious conclusion.

Finnish propaganda directed for the Karelian population focused on panFinnicism, presented the occupiers as liberators, and also tried to encourage antagonism between the Karelians and Russians. Main propaganda tools of the military administration were the newspaper Vapaa Karjala ("Free Karelia") and Aunus Radio.

Obligatory school attendance applied to 7- to 15-year-old children classified as "national" in ethnicity. The language of instruction was Finnish and the teaching had a heavy focus on Finnish nationalistic and religious themes. If the children were monolingual Russian or Veps speakers, with the latter language differing considerably from Finnish, Karelian-speaking children were used as translators. By the end of 1942, 110 elementary schools were opened, with an attendance of over 10 000 children.

One of the aims of the military administration was the revival of religious observation, which had been completely repressed under Soviet rule. The central idea of this policy was to bolster anti-communist feelings among the "nationals".

Suffering from severe underpopulation, especially after the planned expulsion of the "non-national" ethnic groups, the Finns theorized several possible ways to repopulate the region. Most suggestions revolved around the re-settlement of certain Finnic minorities of Russia. The Karelians of Tver, who had escaped Swedish and Lutheran rule from the County of Kexholm and Ingria after the Ingrian War and the Treaty of Stolbovo of 1617 were especially considered, as the Soviet Census of 1926 had counted them as numbering over 140 000, making the Karelian population of Tver more numerous than the Karelians in the KFSSR itself. The transfer was not, however, possible before Finnish and German fronts reached each other on the River Svir, which never happened during the war.

The other main group intended to be settled in Eastern Karelia were the Ingrian Finns of the Leningrad Oblast, who according to the 1926 census numbered c. 115 000. However, during Stalin's purges tens of thousands of Ingrians had perished or were transferred to other parts of the Soviet Union, and in 1941 the Ingrians of Leningrad probably numbered only c. 80 000-90 000. In the autumn of 1941, Western and Central Ingria were occupied by the advancing German forces and placed under German military administration. Because Ingria was to be reserved for German colonization according to the Generalplan Ost (Ingermanland), the German and Finnish authorities agreed on a treaty which stated that Ingria was to be totally emptied of Finns and other Finnic minorities, mainly Votes and Izhorians. This treaty was implemented during March 1943 to the summer of 1944, when over 64 000 people were transferred from Ingria to Finland. The Ingrians remaining areas still under the control of the Red Army (c. 20, 000-30, 000) were deported to Siberia during the winter of 1942-1943. After the Moscow Armistice, some 55 000 Ingrians were repatriated to the Soviet Union, but were not allowed to return to theirs homes in the Leningrad Oblast before the 1950s. Around 7, 000 to 8, 000 Ingrians moved from Finland to Sweden to escape the Soviet authorities.

Other discussed sources for East Karelian settlers included the Finnish immigrants of America and Canada, the Finnic Soviet prisoners of war under German capture, Eastern Karelian refugees currently living in Finland, and Finnish war veterans. Land redistribution was to favor those without farms or land, disabled veterans who were still capable of working, former NCOs, border jдgers and soldiers distinguished in battle.

At the beginning of the Finnish occupation of Karelia, over 20, 000 of the local ethnic Russians (almost half of them) were placed in internment and labor camps. In the end of 1941 the number rose up to 24, 000. During time prisoners were gradually released and they were transferred to empty villages. However, their movement were controlled as they had a red clearance, while "national" people had a green clearance. Furthermore, ethnic Russians did have permission to travel to Finland.

Living in Finnish camps was harsh as 4, 000-7, 000 of civil prisoners died, mostly from hunger during the spring and summer of 1942 due to failed harvest of 1941. Also segregation in education and medical care between Karelians and Russians created resentment among the Russian population. These actions made many local ethnic Russian people support the partisan attacks.

In a conversation held on November 27, 1941 with the Finnish Foreign Minister Witting, Hitler proposed that the new Finnish border should run from the Kola peninsula to the Svir, and in the case Leningrad was razed to the ground as originally planned, to the River Neva. In Finland this theoretical border was sometimes referred to as Kolmen kannaksen raja ("the Border of Three Isthmuses", referring to the Karelian Isthmus, Olonets Isthmus and the White Sea Isthmus). The exact border of the White Sea Isthmus was left undefined during the war, but

Alfred Rosenberg, head of the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories (RMfdbO), held that Finland should annex the whole KFSSR. The most eastward suggestion discussed among the Finnish officer corps before the war drew the line from Nimenga in the Arkhangelsk Oblast to the Pudozhsky District on Lake Onega. Professor Gerhard von Mende (RMfdbO) had consulted Finnish far-right activist Erkki Rдikkцnen on Finland's "natural" eastern borders, and sent to Rosenberg a memorandum suggesting that the northeastern border between Finland and Germany should run along the Northern Dvina River (Finnish: Vienanjoki) near Arkangelsk.

Soviet air attack

On the morning of 25 June, the Soviet Union launched an air offensive of 460 fighters and bombers targeting 19 airfields in Finland; however, inaccurate intelligence and poor bombing accuracy caused several raids to hit Finnish cities or municipalities. There was considerable destruction in the cities. Twenty-three Soviet bombers were lost, while the Finns lost no aircraft.

The Soviet Union stated that the air attack was directed against German targets, especially airfields, in Finland. At the same time, Soviet artillery stationed at the Hanko base began to shell Finnish targets, and a minor Soviet infantry attack was launched over the Finnish side of the border in Parikkala.

The bombings offered the Finnish government a ground for claiming that the country had become the target of a new assault, and the Finnish parliament approved the "defensive war" as a fait accompli. According to historian David Kirby, the message was intended more for public opinion in Finland than abroad, where it was seen that the country was in the German camp.

1941: Finnish offensive

Finnish advance in Karelia during the Continuation War. Old border marked in grey.

In July the Finnish military began its planned offensive. According to Finnish historian Olli Vehvilдinen, in 1941 most Finns thought that the scope of the new offensive was only to regain what had been wrongly taken in the Winter War.

The Soviet Union struggled to contain the German invasion, and soon the Soviet High Command had to call all available units stationed along the Finnish border to the rapidly deteriorating front line. According to Finnish historian Ohto Manninen, because of this, the initial air offensive against Finland could not be followed up with a supporting land offensive as allegedly planned. Moreover, the 237th Infantry Division and, excluding the 198th Motorized Division, the Soviet 10th Mechanized Corps were withdrawn from Ladoga Karelia, thus stripping most of the reserves from the remaining defending Soviet units.

The Finnish plans for the offensive in Ladoga Karelia were completed on 28 June. The offensive was launched on 10 July, and by 16 July, the Finns reached the shore of Lake Ladoga and cut the defending Soviet army in two, hindering the Soviets' defense of the area. Finnish headquarters halted the offensive in Ladoga Karelia on 25 July after reconquering the area of Ladoga Karelia lost to the Soviet Union in 1940 and after advancing as far as Vitele. The Finnish offensive then shifted to other sections of the front.

The Finnish II Corps (II AK) started its offensive in the region of the Karelian Isthmus on 31 July. Finnish troops reached the shores of Lake Ladoga on 9 August, surrounding most of three defending Soviet divisions on the northwestern coast of the lake; the Soviet divisions were evacuated across the lake. On 22 August, the Finnish IV AK Corps started its offensive from the 1940 border between the Gulf of Finland and the II AK, and advanced towards Viborg. By 23 August, the Finnish II Corps had reached the Vuoksi waterway from the east and continued to surround the Soviet forces defending Viborg. The Soviet withdrawal order came too late, and the Soviet divisions lost much of their equipment, although a sizable portion of their manpower was later evacuated via the Koivisto islands. The badly mauled defending Soviet army was unable to halt the Finnish offensive, and by 2 September the Finns had reached the 1939 border along its whole length. On 31 August, Finnish headquarters ordered the 2nd and 4th Army Corps, which had advanced the furthest, to halt their offensive after reaching a line just past the former border that ran from the mouth of the River Sestra via Retukylд, Aleksandrovka, and the eastern edge of the village of S. Beloostrov (Russian: Старого Белоомстров) to Ohta and form for defense.

According to Soviet sources, the Finns advanced and took the settlement of Novyi Beloostrov with its train station on 4 September, but a Soviet counter-attack threw them out the next day. The war diary of the Finnish 12th Division facing this settlement notes that it was quiet at the time, while the neighboring 18th Division had orders on the morning of 4 September 1941 to form a line of defense north of N. Beloostrov, and the Finnish 6th Regiment responsible for the Finnish 18th Division's front line facing N. Beloostrov formed for defense along the small stream (Serebryanyy ruchey) north of N. Belootrov on 4 September 1941. According to Finnish sources, Soviet forces advanced north from N. Beloostrov and attacked the Finnish positions along the small stream on the morning of 5 September 1941, but the Finns managed to repel them. Staryi Beloostrov (Valkeasaari) was taken by the Finns on September 4 and the Soviet counterattacks failed to retake the settlement. Finnish forces captured N. Beloostrov again on 10 or 11 September 1941. According to the war diary of the Finnish 12th Division, this was done to strengthen their lines. The Soviet war correspondent Luknitsky noted that this created a dangerous bulge in the Soviet defensive line. According to Russian historian Nazarenko, the Finns were not able to advance further due to stronger Soviet defensive positions. Fighting for the settlement continued until 20 September, when the Soviets managed to force the Finns out. After that the front stabilized.

The Finnish offensive in East Karelia started in early July in the northern section of the front. In early September, the attack in the northern section reached Rukajдrvi (Ругозеро, Rugozero) village and Finnish headquarters halted the offensive there. On August 27, Finnish headquarters ordered the offensive in the south to reach the Svir River. Finnish troops cut the Kirov railroad on 7 September, crossed the Svir on 15 September, and then halted the offensive. Advance troops reached the shores of Lake Onega on 24 September. The town of Petrozavodsk was captured on 1 October after the Soviets withdrew to avoid encirclement. On 6 November, Finnish headquarters ordered their forces to capture Karhumдki and then shift to defense. The Finnish forces captured the area of Karhumдki and Povenets, and halted the offensive in early December.

Related to the Finnish advance to the Svir, the German Army Group North advanced from the south towards the Svir River and managed to capture Tikhvin before Soviet counterattacks forced the Germans to withdraw to the Volkhov River. Soviet forces also made several attempts to force the Finns out from their bridgehead south of the Svir during October and December 1941; however, the Soviet efforts to reduce the bridgehead were blocked by the Finns. Soviet forces also attacked the German 163rd Division, which was operating under Finnish command across the Svir in October 1941, but the Soviet forces that had crossed the river were pushed back soon after.

The German objective in northern Finland was to take Murmansk and seize control of the Murman Railway. Murmansk was the only year-round ice-free port in the north, and it was a threat to the nickel mine at Petsamo. Operation Silver Fox was run by the German AOK Norwegen and had two Finnish divisions under its command. The German soldiers were from central Europe and they had difficulty moving over the roadless terrain of swamp and forest. The troops managed to advance some distance with heavy casualties, but the terrain offered good defensive positions for the Soviet resistance. The German-Finnish troops were ordered on 17 November to move to defensive operations, when attempts to reach the Murmansk Railway had failed.

Soviet troop transport nearly sunk by German mines on 3 December 1941 in the Finnish Gulf during the Hanko evacuation

Although the Soviet Red Banner Baltic fleet started the war in a strong position, German naval mine warfare and aerial supremacy and the rapid advance by German land forces forced the Soviet Navy to evacuate its bases to Kronstadt and Leningrad. The Soviets' evacuations from Tallinn and Hanko proved to be very costly operations for them. As the Soviet Navy withdrew to the eastern end of the Gulf of Finland, it left nearly the whole Baltic Sea, as well as many of the islands, to the German and Finnish navies. Although Soviet submarines caused some threat to German traffic on the Baltic, the withdrawal of the Soviet Navy made the Baltic Sea a "German lake" until the second half of 1944. Although the Soviet Navy left in a hurry, the naval mines it had managed to lay before and during the evacuations caused casualties both to the Germans and the Finns, including the loss of one of the two Finnish coastal defence ships, the Ilmarinen.

Germany's main forces advanced rapidly deep into Soviet territory during the first weeks of the Operation Barbarossa campaign. The Finns believed the Germans would defeat the Soviet Union quickly. President Ryti envisioned Greater Finland, where the country and other Finnic people would live inside a "natural defence borderline" by incorporating the Kola Peninsula, East Karelia, and perhaps even northern Ingria. In public, the proposed frontier was introduced by the slogan "A short border - a long peace". Some members of the Finnish parliament, such as the Social Democrats and the Swedish People's Party, opposed the idea, arguing that maintaining the 1939 frontier would be enough. On 10 July, Finnish Commander-in-Chief C. G. E. Mannerheim gave an order of the day, the Sword Scabbard Declaration, in which he pledged to liberate Karelia. The Finnish government assured the Americans that it was unaware of the order.

Finland had prepared for a short war, but in late autumn it was clear that there would be no decisive outcome in the short term. Finnish troops suffered losses during their advance; and, overall, German victory became uncertain as German troops were halted near Moscow. The Finnish economy suffered from a lack of labour, food shortages, and increased prices. The Finnish government had to demobilize part of the army so that industrial and agricultural production would not collapse. In October, Finland informed Germany that it would need 175, 000 short tons (159, 000 t) of grain to manage until next year's harvest. The German authorities would have rejected the request, but Hitler himself agreed. Annual grain deliveries of 200, 000 short tons (180, 000 t) equaled almost one half of the Finnish domestic crop. In November, Finland decided to join the Anti-Comintern Pact. The advance in East Karelia was halted on 6 December. The Finns had suffered 75, 000 casualties, of whom 25, 000 were Finnish deaths during the advance.

Finland worked to maintain good relations with the Western powers. The Finnish government stressed that Finland was fighting as a co-belligerent with Germany against the Soviet Union only to protect itself. Furthermore, Finland stressed that it was still the same democratic country as it had been in the Winter War. However, on 12 July 1941, the United Kingdom had signed an agreement of joint action with the Soviet Union. Furthermore, under German pressure, Finland had to close the British legation in Helsinki. As a result, diplomatic relations between Finland and the United Kingdom were broken on 1 August. On 28 November, Britain presented Finland an ultimatum demanding that Finland cease military operations by 3 December. Unofficially, Finland informed the Western powers that troops would halt their advance in the next few days. The reply did not satisfy the United Kingdom, which declared war on Finland on 6 December. The Commonwealth member states of Canada, Australia, India, and New Zealand followed suit.

Relations between Finland and the United States were more complex; the American public was sympathetic to the "brave little democracy", and there were anti-communist feelings. At first, the United States empathised with the Finnish cause; however, the situation became problematic after Finnish troops crossed the 1939 border. Finnish and German troops were a threat to the Murmansk Railway and northern communication supply line between the Western Allies and the Soviet Union. On 25 October 1941, the United States demanded that Finland cease all hostilities against the Soviet Union and withdraw behind the 1939 border. In public, President Ryti rejected the demands, but in private he wrote to Mannerheim on 5 November, asking him to halt the offensive. Mannerheim agreed and secretly instructed General Hjalmar Siilasvuo to break off the assault against the Murmansk Railway.

Although military operations during 1942 and 1943 were limited, the front did see some action. In early 1942, Soviet Karelian Front forces attempted to retake Medvezhyegorsk, which had been lost to the Finns in late 1941. As spring came, the Soviet forces also went on the offensive on the Svir front as well as in Kiestinki region. All Soviet offensives started promisingly, but due either to the Soviets overextending their lines or stubborn defensive resistance, the Soviet offensives were stopped and repulsed. After Finnish and German counterattacks in Kiestinki, the eventual front lines had moved very little. In September 1942, the Soviets tried again at Kriv near Medvezhyegorsk, but despite five days of fighting, the Soviets managed to push the Finnish lines back only 500 m (550 yd) on a roughly 1 km (0.62 mi)-long stretch of the front.

Unconventional warfare was fought in both the Finnish and Soviet wilderness. Finnish LRRPs organized both by Finnish HQ--4th Separate Battalion (Er.P 4)--and by local units patrolled beyond Soviet lines. In summer 1942, the Soviet Union had formed the 1st Partisan Brigade. The unit was only 'partisan' in name, as it was essentially more than 600 men and women on long range patrol. The 1st Partisan Brigade was able to infiltrate beyond Finnish patrol lines but was found out and largely destroyed.

On the naval front, the Soviet Baltic Fleet still operated from the besieged city of Leningrad. In early 1942, Soviet forces recaptured the island of Gogland but lost both Gogland and Bolshoy Tyuters to the Finns later in spring 1942. During the winter of 1941/1942, the Soviet Baltic Fleet made the decision to use the large Soviet submarine fleet to carry the fight to the enemy. Though initial submarine operations in the summer of 1942 were successful, the German Kriegsmarine and Finnish Navy soon stepped up their anti-submarine efforts, making the Soviet submarine operations later in 1942 very costly. The underwater offensive carried out by the Soviets convinced the Germans to lay anti-submarine nets as well as supporting minefields between Porkkala and Naissaar which proved to be an insurmountable obstacle for the Soviet submarines.

Operation Barbarossa was planned as a blitzkrieg intended to last a few weeks. British and U.S. observers believed that the invasion would be concluded before August. In the autumn of 1941, this turned out to be wrong, and leading Finnish military officers started to doubt Germany's capability to finish the war quickly. German troops in northern Finland faced circumstances they were not properly prepared for, and failed to reach their targets, most importantly Murmansk. As the lines stabilized, Finland sent out peace feelers to the Soviet Union several times. Germany was alarmed by this, and reacted by drawing down shipments of desperately needed materials each time. The idea that Finland had to continue the war while putting its own forces in the least possible danger gained increasing support, perhaps in the hope that the Wehrmacht and the Red Army would wear each other down enough for negotiations to begin, or to at least get them out of the way of Finland's independent decisions. Nationalist elements, including the IKL, may also have continued to hope for an eventual victory by Germany.

Finland's participation in the war brought major benefits to Germany. The Soviet fleet was blockaded in the Gulf of Finland, so that the Baltic was freed for the training of German submarine crews as well as for German shipping, especially for the transport of vital iron ore from northern Sweden and nickel and rare metals (needed in steel processing) from the Petsamo area. The Finnish front secured the northern flank of the German Army Group North in the Baltic states. The sixteen Finnish divisions tied down numerous Soviet troops, put pressure on Leningrad (although Mannerheim refused to attack it directly), and threatened the Murmansk railway. Additionally, Sweden was further isolated and was increasingly pressured to comply with German and Finnish wishes, though with limited success.

Despite Finland's contributions to the German cause, the Western Allies had ambivalent feelings, torn between residual goodwill for Finland and the need to accommodate their vital ally, the Soviet Union. As a result, Britain declared war against Finland, but the United States did not. With few exceptions, there was no combat between these countries and Finland, but Finnish sailors were interned overseas. In the United States, Finland was denounced for naval attacks made on American Lend-Lease shipments, but received approval for continuing to make payments on its World War I debt throughout the inter-war period.

Because Finland joined the Anti-Comintern Pact and signed other agreements with Germany, Italy, and Japan, the Allies characterized Finland as one of the Axis Powers, although the term used in Finland is "co-belligerence with Germany", emphasizing the lack of a formal military alliance.

Finland began to actively seek a way out of the war after the disastrous German defeat at the Battle of Stalingrad in February 1943. Edwin Linkomies formed a new cabinet with peace as the top priority. Negotiations were conducted intermittently in 1943-44 between Finland and its representative, Juho Kusti Paasikivi, on one side, and the Western Allies and the Soviet Union on the other, but no agreement was reached. Stalin decided to force Finland to surrender; a bombing campaign on Helsinki followed. The air campaign in February 1944 included three major air attacks involving a total of over 6, 000 sorties. Finnish anti-aircraft defences managed to repel the raids as only five percent of the dropped bombs hit their planned targets. Helsinki's air defense included the strategic placing of searchlights and fires as decoys outside the city to lure the Soviet bombers to drop their payloads in what were actually unpopulated areas. Major air attacks also hit Oulu and Kotka, but because of radio intelligence and effective anti-aircraft defences, the number of casualties was small.

Meanwhile, the lengthy and ferocious German defence in Narva aided by the Estonians eliminated Soviet-occupied Estonia as a favorable base for Soviet amphibious invasions and air attacks against Helsinki and other Finnish cities. The tactical success of the army detachment "Narwa" from mid-February to April diminished the hopes of the Stavka to assault Finland and force it into capitulation from Estonia. Finland terminated the negotiations in mid-April 1944, because they considered the Soviet terms to be impossible to fulfill.

On 9 June 1944, the Soviet Union opened a major offensive against Finnish positions on the Karelian Isthmus and in the area of Lake Ladoga (it was timed to accompany D-Day). On the 21.7 km (13.5 mi)-wide breakthrough segment the Red Army had concentrated 3, 000 guns and mortars. In some places, the concentration of artillery pieces exceeded 200 guns for every kilometer of the front (one every 5 m (5.5 yd)). On that day, Soviet artillery fired over 80, 000 rounds along the front on the Karelian Isthmus. On the second day of the offensive, the Soviet forces broke through the Finnish front lines. The Soviets penetrated the second line of defence by the sixth day. The Soviet pressure on the Karelian Isthmus forced the Finns to reinforce the area. This allowed the second Soviet offensive in Eastern Karelia to meet less resistance and to capture Petrozavodsk by 28 June 1944. According to Erickson (1991), James Gebhardt (1989), and Glantz (1998), the main objective of the Soviet offensives was to force Finland from the war.

Finland especially lacked modern antitank weaponry which could stop Soviet heavy tanks, and German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop offered these in exchange for a guarantee that Finland would not seek a separate peace again. On 26 June, President Risto Ryti gave this guarantee as a personal undertaking, which he intended to last only for the remainder of his presidency. In addition to delivering thousands of hand-held Panzerfaust and Panzerschreck antitank weapons, Hitler sent the 122nd Infantry Division, the half-strength 303rd Assault Gun Brigade, and Luftwaffe Detachment Kuhlmey to provide temporary support in the most threatened defense sectors.

With new supplies from Germany, the Finnish army halted the Soviet advance in early July 1944. At this point, the Finnish forces had retreated about one hundred kilometres, which brought them to approximately the same line of defence they had held at the end of the Winter War. This line was known as the VKT-line (short for "Viipuri-Kuparsaari-Taipale"; it ran from Viborg to the River Vuoksi to Lake Ladoga at Taipale), where the Finnish Army stopped the Soviet offensive in the Battle of Tali-Ihantala in spite of Soviet numerical and materiel superiority. The front stabilized once again.

A few battles were fought in the latter stages of the war. The last of them was the Battle of Ilomantsi, a Finnish victory, from 26 July to 13 August 1944. The struggle to contain the Soviet offensive was exhausting Finnish resources. The German support under the Ryti-Ribbentrop Agreement had prevented a disaster, but it was believed the country would not be able to hold another major attack. The Soviet advances against German Army Groups Center and North further complicated matters for Finland.

With the front being stable so far, it was a good time for Finland to seek a way out of the war. At the beginning of August President Ryti resigned to allow Finland to sue for peace again, which the new government did in late August. The Soviet peace terms were harsh, but the $600, 000, 000 reparations demanded in the spring were reduced to $300, 000, 000, most likely due to pressure from the United States and Britain. However, after the ceasefire the Soviets insisted that the payments should be based on 1938 prices, which doubled the amount. This sum constituted half of Finland's annual gross domestic product in 1939.

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