War-responsibility trials in Finland
Encyclopedia
The war-responsibility trials in Finland was a trial of the Finnish
wartime leaders held responsible for "definitely influencing Finland in getting into a war with the Soviet Union
and United Kingdom
in 1941 or preventing peace" during the Continuation War
, 1941-1944. Unlike other World War II
war-responsibility trials, the Finnish trials were not international. The trials were conducted by a special court consisting of the presidents of the Supreme Court of Finland
, the Supreme Administrative Court of Finland
, a professor from the University of Helsinki
and twelve MPs appointed by the Parliament of Finland
.
contained the following article:
Finns initially thought that the trials would be for conventional war crimes. However, as the Moscow Declaration
of October 30, 1943 made clear, the Allied powers
intended to prosecute for other actions as well.
The Allied Control Commission and the Communist Party of Finland
raised the issue of the trials repeatedly during the spring and summer of 1945. When the Treaty of London (London Charter) August 8, 1945 defined three types of crimes, war crime
s, crimes against peace and crimes against humanity, it became evident that Finland couldn't be the only country fighting on the German side where leaders wouldn't be convicted. On September 11th the parliament passed a law enabling prosecution of those responsible for war. The Supreme Court of Finland
and leading judicial experts protested the law as conflicting with the constitution of Finland
and contrary to Western judicial principles, but they didn't comment on the political necessity of it. Also the Finnish public regarded it as a mockery of the rule of law
. Juho Kusti Paasikivi
, who was the prime minister of Finland at the time, is known to have stated that the conditions of the armistice concerning this matter disregarded all laws.
Shortly thereafter, the War Crimes Section of the British Foreign Office issued a statement that the British government wouldn't wish to prosecute Finnish political leadership for crimes against peace.
) law with Finnish judges.
The law limited criminal liability to the highest leadership; only politicians and the Finnish war-time ambassador in Berlin, Toivo Mikael Kivimäki, could be prosecuted.
The trial started at November 15. The Allied Control Commission, which had a tight grip over Finland, set up a committee to observe the trials and interfered on numerous occasions before the trials ended in February 1946.
On the negotiations between the leadership of the Communist Party of Finland and Andrei Zhdanov
, the chairman of Allied Control Commission the question of removal of Väinö Tanner
, the chairman of Social Democratic Party, was raised. In his private notes Zhdanov wrote:"If Tanner is removed, the Social Democratic Party will shatter..." thus opening road to Communist control of the left.
set up for the Soviet Union in order to discredit the Finnish wartime leaders, since ex post facto law
was against the Finnish Constitution
.
Even worse in the public opinion was the fact that the Soviet leadership, which had conducted an aggressive war, the Winter War
, just over a year before, were not indicted at all, making the whole process hypocritical victor's justice
. This view was supported by Finnish historians, especially by former intelligence officer, professor Arvi Korhonen, who in 1961 constructed the so called "Driftwood Theory" , to explain how Finland was dragged into the war without any active involvement by the Finnish political leadership. This theory was however rejected already in the 1960s by research of Hans Petter Krosby from the USA and British Anthony F. Upton
, although it was actively presented in Finnish non-socialist media for decades. The current consensus, that emerged in the 1980s was sewed up in 1988 by Mauno Jokipii's massive study, which sees the Finnish leadership actively collaborating with Nazi Germany in the preparation of Operation Barbarossa
.
The conviction of Väinö Tanner didn't shatter the Social Democrats as Zhdanov had predicted; on the contrary, it made him a martyr and hardened the anti-communist stance in the party. Communist sympathizers were ousted from the Social Democrats and control of the labor unions was bitterly contested.
Even President Paasikivi
complained to his aide that the convictions handed down in the Trials were one of the biggest stumbling blocks to improving relations between Finland and the Soviet Union.
was ratified in the Soviet Union August 29, 1947, the Allied Control Commission left Finland on September 26th, 1947. President Paasikivi paroled Kukkonen and Reinikka in October and Ramsay in December when they had served five sixths of their sentences. The rest were granted parole in accordance with Finnish criminal law when they had served half of their sentences. On May 19th, 1949 Paasikivi pardoned Ryti, who was hospitalized (his health collapsed during the imprisonment and he remained an invalid until his death in 1956). He also pardoned Rangell, Tanner, Linkomies, and Kivimäki, who were still on parole. That day, Paasikivi wrote in his diary:"[It was] ... the most noble deed, I have participated in, in the last five years."
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...
wartime leaders held responsible for "definitely influencing Finland in getting into a war with the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
and United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
in 1941 or preventing peace" during the Continuation War
Continuation War
The Continuation War was the second of two wars fought between Finland and the Soviet Union during World War II.At the time of the war, the Finnish side used the name to make clear its perceived relationship to the preceding Winter War...
, 1941-1944. Unlike other World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
war-responsibility trials, the Finnish trials were not international. The trials were conducted by a special court consisting of the presidents of the Supreme Court of Finland
Supreme Court of Finland
The Supreme Court of Finland , located in Helsinki, consists of a President and at minimum 15, currently 18 other Justices, usually working in five-judge panels...
, the Supreme Administrative Court of Finland
Supreme Administrative Court of Finland
The Supreme Administrative Court of Finland is the highest court in the Finnish administrative court system, parallel to the Supreme Court of Finland. Its jurisdiction covers the legality of the decisions of government officials, and its decisions are final...
, a professor from the University of Helsinki
University of Helsinki
The University of Helsinki is a university located in Helsinki, Finland since 1829, but was founded in the city of Turku in 1640 as The Royal Academy of Turku, at that time part of the Swedish Empire. It is the oldest and largest university in Finland with the widest range of disciplines available...
and twelve MPs appointed by the Parliament of Finland
Parliament of Finland
The Eduskunta , is the parliament of Finland. The unicameral parliament has 200 members and meets in the Parliament House in Helsinki. The latest election to the parliament took place on April 17, 2011.- Constitution :...
.
Background
The Moscow ArmisticeMoscow Armistice
The Moscow Armistice was signed between Finland on one side and the Soviet Union and United Kingdom on the other side on September 19, 1944, ending the Continuation War...
contained the following article:
Finns initially thought that the trials would be for conventional war crimes. However, as the Moscow Declaration
Moscow Declaration
The Moscow Declaration was signed during the Moscow Conference on October 30, 1943. The formal name of the declaration was "Declaration of the Four Nations on General Security". It was signed by the foreign secretaries of the Governments of the United States, the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union...
of October 30, 1943 made clear, the Allied powers
Allies of World War II
The Allies of World War II were the countries that opposed the Axis powers during the Second World War . Former Axis states contributing to the Allied victory are not considered Allied states...
intended to prosecute for other actions as well.
The Allied Control Commission and the Communist Party of Finland
Communist Party of Finland
The Communist Party of Finland was a communist political party in Finland. The SKP was a section of Comintern and illegal in Finland until 1944.SKP did not participate in any elections with its own name. Instead, front organisations were used...
raised the issue of the trials repeatedly during the spring and summer of 1945. When the Treaty of London (London Charter) August 8, 1945 defined three types of crimes, war crime
War crime
War crimes are serious violations of the laws applicable in armed conflict giving rise to individual criminal responsibility...
s, crimes against peace and crimes against humanity, it became evident that Finland couldn't be the only country fighting on the German side where leaders wouldn't be convicted. On September 11th the parliament passed a law enabling prosecution of those responsible for war. The Supreme Court of Finland
Supreme Court of Finland
The Supreme Court of Finland , located in Helsinki, consists of a President and at minimum 15, currently 18 other Justices, usually working in five-judge panels...
and leading judicial experts protested the law as conflicting with the constitution of Finland
Constitution of Finland
The Constitution of Finland is the supreme source of national law of Finland. It defines the basis, structures and organisation of government, the relationship between the different constitutional organs, and lays out the fundamental rights of Finnish citizens...
and contrary to Western judicial principles, but they didn't comment on the political necessity of it. Also the Finnish public regarded it as a mockery of the rule of law
Rule of law
The rule of law, sometimes called supremacy of law, is a legal maxim that says that governmental decisions should be made by applying known principles or laws with minimal discretion in their application...
. Juho Kusti Paasikivi
Juho Kusti Paasikivi
Juho Kusti Paasikivi was the seventh President of Finland . Representing the Finnish Party and the National Coalition Party, he also served as Prime Minister of Finland , and was generally an influential figure in Finnish economics and politics for over fifty years...
, who was the prime minister of Finland at the time, is known to have stated that the conditions of the armistice concerning this matter disregarded all laws.
Shortly thereafter, the War Crimes Section of the British Foreign Office issued a statement that the British government wouldn't wish to prosecute Finnish political leadership for crimes against peace.
The trial
Unlike other nations that were declared guilty, Finland was allowed to conduct the trials in Finland under Finnish (retroactiveEx post facto law
An ex post facto law or retroactive law is a law that retroactively changes the legal consequences of actions committed or relationships that existed prior to the enactment of the law...
) law with Finnish judges.
The law limited criminal liability to the highest leadership; only politicians and the Finnish war-time ambassador in Berlin, Toivo Mikael Kivimäki, could be prosecuted.
The trial started at November 15. The Allied Control Commission, which had a tight grip over Finland, set up a committee to observe the trials and interfered on numerous occasions before the trials ended in February 1946.
The accused
Full list of the indicted and their convictions:- Risto RytiRisto RytiRisto Heikki Ryti was the fifth President of Finland, from 1940 to 1944. Ryti started his career as a politician in the field of economics and as a political background figure during the interwar period. He made a wide range of international contacts in the world of banking and within the...
, president, 10 years hard labor - Johan Wilhelm RangellJohan Wilhelm RangellJohan Wilhelm Rangell was the Prime Minister of Finland from 1941 to 1943 . Educated as a lawyer, he was a close acquintance of President Risto Ryti before the war, and made his initial career as a banker in the Bank of Finland...
, prime minister, 6 years prison - Edwin LinkomiesEdwin LinkomiesEdwin Johannes Hildegard Linkomies was Prime Minister of Finland March 1943 to August 1944, and one of the seven politicians sentenced to 5½ years in prison as allegedly responsible for the Continuation War, on the demand of the Soviet Union...
, prime minister, 5.5 years - Väinö TannerVäinö TannerVäinö Tanner was a pioneer and leader in the cooperative movement in Finland, and Prime Minister of Finland from 1926 to 1927....
, trade minister, 5.5 years - Toivo Mikael KivimäkiToivo Mikael KivimäkiToivo Mikael Kivimäki , J.D., was head of the department of civil law at Helsinki University 1931–1956, Prime Minister of Finland 1932–1936, and Finland's ambassador to Berlin 1940–1944 ....
, ambassador to Germany, 5 years - Henrik RamsayHenrik RamsayCarl Henrik Wolter Ramsay was a Finnish politician and an economist from the Swedish People's Party. He belonged to a Scottish noble family emigrated to Finland and was one of the few in Finland entitled to use the title Sir, however, Ramsay did not use the title.Henrik Ramsay completed his Ph.D...
, foreign minister, 2.5 years - Antti KukkonenAntti KukkonenAntti Kukkonen was a Finnish Lutheran pastor and politician. He was a member of the Agrarian League...
, education minister, 2 years - Tyko Reinikka, finance minister, 2 years
On the negotiations between the leadership of the Communist Party of Finland and Andrei Zhdanov
Andrei Zhdanov
Andrei Alexandrovich Zhdanov was a Soviet politician.-Life:Zhdanov enlisted with the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1915 and was promoted through the party ranks, becoming the All-Union Communist Party manager in Leningrad after the assassination of Sergei Kirov in 1934...
, the chairman of Allied Control Commission the question of removal of Väinö Tanner
Väinö Tanner
Väinö Tanner was a pioneer and leader in the cooperative movement in Finland, and Prime Minister of Finland from 1926 to 1927....
, the chairman of Social Democratic Party, was raised. In his private notes Zhdanov wrote:"If Tanner is removed, the Social Democratic Party will shatter..." thus opening road to Communist control of the left.
Reactions to the trial
Many Finns see the War Responsibility Trials as a kangaroo courtKangaroo court
A kangaroo court is "a mock court in which the principles of law and justice are disregarded or perverted".The outcome of a trial by kangaroo court is essentially determined in advance, usually for the purpose of ensuring conviction, either by going through the motions of manipulated procedure or...
set up for the Soviet Union in order to discredit the Finnish wartime leaders, since ex post facto law
Ex post facto law
An ex post facto law or retroactive law is a law that retroactively changes the legal consequences of actions committed or relationships that existed prior to the enactment of the law...
was against the Finnish Constitution
Constitution of Finland
The Constitution of Finland is the supreme source of national law of Finland. It defines the basis, structures and organisation of government, the relationship between the different constitutional organs, and lays out the fundamental rights of Finnish citizens...
.
Even worse in the public opinion was the fact that the Soviet leadership, which had conducted an aggressive war, the Winter War
Winter War
The Winter War was a military conflict between the Soviet Union and Finland. It began with a Soviet offensive on 30 November 1939 – three months after the start of World War II and the Soviet invasion of Poland – and ended on 13 March 1940 with the Moscow Peace Treaty...
, just over a year before, were not indicted at all, making the whole process hypocritical victor's justice
Victor's justice
The label "victor's justice" is a situation in which an entity partakes in carrying out "justice" on its own basis of applying different rules to judge what is right or wrong for their own forces and for those of the enemy. Advocates generally charge that the difference in rules amounts to...
. This view was supported by Finnish historians, especially by former intelligence officer, professor Arvi Korhonen, who in 1961 constructed the so called "Driftwood Theory" , to explain how Finland was dragged into the war without any active involvement by the Finnish political leadership. This theory was however rejected already in the 1960s by research of Hans Petter Krosby from the USA and British Anthony F. Upton
Anthony F. Upton
Anthony F. Upton is a professor of Nordic history. He worked in University of St. Andrews in Scotland. He has published about the first decennies 1918–1944 of the Finnish independency. He received the Hon. D...
, although it was actively presented in Finnish non-socialist media for decades. The current consensus, that emerged in the 1980s was sewed up in 1988 by Mauno Jokipii's massive study, which sees the Finnish leadership actively collaborating with Nazi Germany in the preparation of Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa was the code name for Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II that began on 22 June 1941. Over 4.5 million troops of the Axis powers invaded the USSR along a front., the largest invasion in the history of warfare...
.
The conviction of Väinö Tanner didn't shatter the Social Democrats as Zhdanov had predicted; on the contrary, it made him a martyr and hardened the anti-communist stance in the party. Communist sympathizers were ousted from the Social Democrats and control of the labor unions was bitterly contested.
Even President Paasikivi
Juho Kusti Paasikivi
Juho Kusti Paasikivi was the seventh President of Finland . Representing the Finnish Party and the National Coalition Party, he also served as Prime Minister of Finland , and was generally an influential figure in Finnish economics and politics for over fifty years...
complained to his aide that the convictions handed down in the Trials were one of the biggest stumbling blocks to improving relations between Finland and the Soviet Union.
Aftermath
After the Paris Peace treatyParis Peace Treaties, 1947
The Paris Peace Conference resulted in the Paris Peace Treaties signed on February 10, 1947. The victorious wartime Allied powers negotiated the details of treaties with Italy, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Finland .The...
was ratified in the Soviet Union August 29, 1947, the Allied Control Commission left Finland on September 26th, 1947. President Paasikivi paroled Kukkonen and Reinikka in October and Ramsay in December when they had served five sixths of their sentences. The rest were granted parole in accordance with Finnish criminal law when they had served half of their sentences. On May 19th, 1949 Paasikivi pardoned Ryti, who was hospitalized (his health collapsed during the imprisonment and he remained an invalid until his death in 1956). He also pardoned Rangell, Tanner, Linkomies, and Kivimäki, who were still on parole. That day, Paasikivi wrote in his diary:"[It was] ... the most noble deed, I have participated in, in the last five years."
See also
- Crime against peaceCrime against peaceA crime against peace, in international law, refers to "planning, preparation, initiation, or waging of wars of aggression, or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances, or participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the foregoing"...
- Nuremberg TrialsNuremberg TrialsThe Nuremberg Trials were a series of military tribunals, held by the victorious Allied forces of World War II, most notable for the prosecution of prominent members of the political, military, and economic leadership of the defeated Nazi Germany....
- War crimeWar crimeWar crimes are serious violations of the laws applicable in armed conflict giving rise to individual criminal responsibility...
- Nuremberg PrinciplesNuremberg PrinciplesThe Nuremberg principles were a set of guidelines for determining what constitutes a war crime. The document was created by the International Law Commission of the United Nations to codify the legal principles underlying the Nuremberg Trials of Nazi party members following World War II.- Principle...
- Show trialShow trialThe term show trial is a pejorative description of a type of highly public trial in which there is a strong connotation that the judicial authorities have already determined the guilt of the defendant. The actual trial has as its only goal to present the accusation and the verdict to the public as...
Further reading
- Lehtinen, Lasse; and Rautkallio, Hannu; Kansakunnan sijaiskärsijät ("Scapegoats of the Nation"), WSOY 2005
- Tarkka, Jukka; Nobody wanted a cell near Edwin Linkomies Helsingin SanomatHelsingin SanomatHelsingin Sanomat is the largest subscription newspaper in Finland and the Nordic countries, owned by Sanoma. Except after certain holidays, it is published daily. In 2008, its daily circulation was 412,421 on weekdays and 468,505 on Sundays...
International edition, 28 October 2005