This information is relevant to understanding Marti Ahtisaari’s background and worldview. This information would also help in understanding his stance and position as a negotiator of the Kosovo conflict.

	German machine gun crew in Helsinki, 1918, after they had occupied Finland.

Just who were these Finnish Nazi SS troops that Marti Ahtisaari wanted to honor and to commemorate?
 
What are the important facts? The Finnish SS troops swore an oat to the Supreme Commander "Hitler" of the German Armed Forces, that is, to Adolf Hitler. The Finnish Government recruited these Finnish troops. The recruitment was done in secret. If Finland had nothing to hide, why was the recruitment into Heinrich Himmler’s Waffen SS kept a secret? Why not brag and boast about it?

The formation of the Finnish Waffen SS unit was organized on March, 1941, three months before the German invasion of the USSR. There was pre-meditation and planning. Finland was engaged in an unprovoked act of aggression with Finnish ally Nazi Germany. This shows knowledge and intent. This was a calculated and cold-blooded act of aggressive intent. The name of the formation was the Finnische Freiwillige Battallion der Waffen SS. The secret SS recruitment went under the name Engineer Bureau "Ratas".  The Finnish recruits came from Helsinki, the capital, where 1,200 were assembled.

The Finnish troops were sent to Nazi Germany for training, where they joined several Nazi Waffen SS formations: The Wiking Division, SS Freiwilligen Batallion "Nordost", their own Finnish Waffen SS unit, and the II SS Regiment "Nordland", which was part of the Wiking SS Division. The Finnish Freiwillige Batallion der Waffen SS consisted of three infantry companies and one motorized company and was commanded by German SS Hauptsturmfueher Hans Collani. In total, approximately 3,000 Finnish troops served in the Nazi Waffen SS, in military operations in the Caucasus and in the Ukraine during Operation Barbarossa.

German recruitment of Finnish troops for the Nazi Waffen SS was not the first time Germany had recruited Finnish troops. During World War I, an estimated 2,000 Finnish troops, known as Jaegers, were recruited by Imperial Germany to fight against Russia on the Eastern Front.  Finland was at that time officially a part of Russia. These Finnish recruits in the German Army were thus traitors.
 
Why would any leader want to honor and commemorate Nazi SS troops? How can you explain it? Is it some sort of pathological obsession or moral aberration?
 
According to Finnish historiography, Viipuri was seized by the Soviet Union during the Winter War, 1939-40. Finnish entry into World War II as an ally of Nazi Germany is rationalized as a just attempt to regain Viipuri and the Karelian Peninsula. World War II is termed the “Continuation War”, a continuation of the conflict over Viipori.

But how did Finland obtain Viipuri in the first place? This is the key to understanding Finland’s and Ahtisaari’s relationship with Germany.

It was German military “intervention” or aggression that allowed the right-wing, reactionary White faction to win the Civil War and to occupy Karelia and Viipuri. This is why the Soviet Union retook Viipuri during the so-called Winter War in 1939-40. The Soviet Union and Finland had never reached a territorial agreement or diplomatic settlement regarding Viipuri. The only reason Viipuri was part of Finland after World War I was because the Imperial German Army had intervened and seized it.

To understand the issue of Viipuri, you have to examine the relationship of Germany with Finland and with Russia. Finland gained independence in 1917 following the collapse of Russia in World War I. A civil war broke out in Finland between a right-wing, monarchist, pro-German faction, the White Guard, led by former Russian commander Carl Gustav Mannerheim, and a left, Communist, pro-Russian faction, the Red Guard. The Red faction initially took Helsinki, the capital, and held Vyborg and the Karelia region. The White faction retreated to Vaasa and was led by the virulently pro-German Vaasa Senate. The factions were evenly matched. What turned the tide decisively in the favor of the White Guards was German military intervention.

German officer Max Bayer commanded 2,000 Finnish Jaeger recruits in the German Army during World War I in 1915.

This is where the relationship between Finland and Germany began and continued into World War II with the formation of Finnish Volunteer Waffen SS troops. To keep Viipuri and Karelia, which Germany had effectively seized for Finland, Finland had to join Nazi Germany because the claim to Viipuri was based on force, that is, German military power. It was German military power that established the artificial and arbitrary Finnish borders. Once German military power collapsed, those borders could not be sustained, as happened in 1944 when Soviet forces defeated Germany and drove German military forces out of Finland.

Several factors explained why the Whites were able to win the civil war. They had experienced former Russian military commanders while the Red Communist faction lacked this military expertise.

There were ultra-nationalist Finns who wanted to use World War I to achieve secession from Russia. The German government and military strongly supported Finnish separatists as a way to weaken Russia. On February 25, 1915, 200 Finnish volunteers were trained by German officers and NCOs at the Lockstedt camp near Hamburg in Germany. This training was secret. German Army Major Maximilian Bayer was in charge of the training of the Finnish recruits. The Finnish battalion was first called the Lockstedt Training Corps and later the 27th Royal Prussian Jaeger Battalion. These Finnish recruits wore German military uniforms and had to speak German. These German-trained Finnish recruits of the Imperial German Army, known as Jaegers, German for “hunter”, who numbered 2,000, subsequently joined the White faction as German-trained Jaeger or Jaakarit troops, elite Finnish troops who had been trained in Germany and had fought in the German Army on the Eastern Front against Russian forces. These were combat-hardened Finnish troops who had experience fighting as part of the Germany Army.
 
Right-wing, nationalistic Finnish leaders were motivated by an anti-Slavic, anti-Russian, and anti-Jewish animus. Many were ultra-nationalists and racists who opposed democracy. This nationalist extremism was explainable, in part, because they wanted to secede from Russia and to violently disassociate from their former mother country. It is similar to a divorce and break-up. This separatism resulted in a virulently pro-German posture. Finnish leaders opposed Russian rule, but not German rule of Finland. On October 9, 1918, the Finnish Senate and Parliament even picked a German prince, Friedrich Karl, who was the brother-in-law of German Kaiser Wilhelm II, as the King of Finland. A reactionary, anti-democratic, right-wing German monarch was made the ruler of Finland.

What gave Finland control over Viipuri was direct and massive German military involvement and intervention in the conflict. Russia and Germany were involved at the time in the Brest-Litovsk peace negotiations which would allow Russia to reach an agreement with Germany on ending the war between the two countries. For a time, Germany held back its forces. Then, to force Russian capitulation, German military forces attacked the Russian positions. German armed forces attacked Russia on February 18, 1918. Germany was determined to strip Russia of vast territory and to destroy and to dismember the country. Pursuant to this policy, Germany sought to dismember Russia and to seize as much territory for Finland as possible.
 
On March 5, 1918, a German Naval squadron landed on the Aland Islands in the southwestern archipelago of Finland to begin offensive military operations against the Red factions, which held Helsinki and Viipuri. On April 3, 1918, the Imperial German Baltic Sea Division, the Ostsee Division, consisting of 10,000 crack German troops, commanded by German officer Gustav Adolf Joachim Rudiger von der Goltz, attacked Hanko. These German troops were called Baltische Landeswehr. Von Goltz was a Major-General in the German Army who had earlier commanded the German Infantry Division on the German Front in occupied France. Thus it was German troops who seized territory in Finland and allowed the White faction to take over the country.

	German Waffen SS officer Felix Steiner, one of Adolf Hitler's favorite commanders, inspects Finnish Nazi SS troops, 1943.

Two German battleships and German navy ships and craft subsequently entered the harbor at Helsinki. These German naval vessels then shelled and bombarded the city and the Presidential Palace. This is how the right-wing, White faction was able to seize Finland. Indeed, it was the German Army and Navy that had seized Finland and drove out the Red faction, not Finns themselves. Germany was responsible for the right-wing, White takeover of Finland. This is an important fact in understanding why Ahtisaari would honor Finnish Nazi Waffen SS troops that fought as part of the Germany Army during World War II. The German connection to Finland and to Viipuri goes back further in time than just the Nazi Waffen SS units formed during World War II.

The German Brandenstein Brigade then seized and occupied the Finnish town of Lahti on April 19, 1918. The main German troops then fanned out and seized Hyvinkaa and Riihimaki by April 22. On April 26, German troops captured Hameenlinna. Finnish Red troops were forced to retreat from Viipuri on April 25. German troops thus gave effective control of all of Finnish territory to the White faction.

After the end of World War I, German military forces remained in the region as part of a Freikorps formation known as the Iron Brigade or Eiserne Brigade. The Freikorps were paramilitary volunteer formations that emerged after the war and which were the precursors of the Nazi storm troopers and SS. Von Goltz continued to play a military role in the region on behalf of Germany and the Allies, who were using him as a instrument to destabilize the new Soviet regime. The German military forces were used by the Allies in the region to attempt to overthrow the Communist government of Russia by seizing St. Petersburg, which was then the Russian capital. This is one reason why the capital of Russia was moved to Moscow, in the interior.

The strategic threat to St. Petersburg remained, however, due to the territory seized around the city by German troops nominally on behalf of Finland, but also due to the military and strategic importance for Germany. Vyborg or Viipuri, located north of St. Petersburg, was vital strategically and militarily for Germany. It gave Germany a knife to use against the throat of the Russian capital, St. Petersburg.

A total of 13,000 German troops participated in the attacks that eventually resulted in the seizure of Vyborg.

The White Terror then followed. Up to 10,000 Finnish troops of the Red faction were executed by White firing squads. Up to 13,500 Finns of the Red faction died from starvation, executions, and disease in White-run prison camps, while 2,000 POWs were missing in action. This White Terror showed that the right-wing, ultra-nationalist and pro-German White faction that Germany had given power to was brutal to any opposition.

On April 29, 1918, the German military attacks resulted in the seizure of Viipuri, Vyborg. This is how Marti Ahtisaari’s birthplace was “liberated”. The German Army was able to take the town, which was known by its original Swedish name of Vyborg. Finnish ultra-nationalists later changed the name to Viipuri after it was seized by the German Army in 1918.

This German role in the history of Viipuri is the part of the story that is not told. When historians write of the Winter War of 1939-40, they omit any reference to how it was seized by military force by German troops in 1918. The false assumption they want to create is that Viipuri was legally a part of Finland. The Finnish claim to Viipuri is based on military aggression or force, nothing more. This explains why Ahtisaari is not very concerned about legality and international law and sovereignty in regards to the Kosovo conflict. What is legality, after all, but legitimized force?

All countries and nations see their own history through a biased and subjective viewpoint. This results in mythmaking and a glorified past that represses or denies aspects of that history that do not conform to the myths and official histories. Our national past is invariably idealized and manufactured.

These events, the German invasion and occupation of Finland, its “liberation” by Germany, set the stage for the 1939 Winter War between the Soviet Union and Finland.

	Finnish White soldiers execute Red faction POWs during civil war in 1918.

This is a reality of international relations, but it also shows why it is crucial to have international laws and agreements. The large country has to be bound by international law to the same extent as a small country. It is imperative that both large and small countries be bound by the same laws. There cannot be one set of laws for large countries and another for small countries.

Ironically, Marti Ahtisaari, however, does not support such equality before the law of both large and small countries. He favors force over law. For example, the Viipuri issue should have been settled diplomatically between Finland and the Soviet Union/Russia, based on international law. Similarly, the Kosovo issue should be resolved relying on international law and national sovereignty. Instead, Ahtisaari sought to resolve the Kosovo issue by military force. He treated Kosovo as a spoil of war, occupied by NATO and US forces. He rejected international law and sovereignty, rejected UN Resolution 1244 as a sham. Force was the only thing that mattered for Ahtisaari.

Settlements achieved by force do not have permanency and stability. Once the foreign military occupation ends and the occupier departs, a state of war will result. Ahtisaari did not learn anything from what happened in the case of Viipuri. He seeks to perpetuate the mistake and misconceptions with his “resolution” of the Kosovo conflict. He is transferring the Viipuri template to Kosovo. Resolutions and settlements imposed by force and by military occupation have the danger of creating further instability and of resulting in future conflicts and wars. By using the rule of force or of the club as his method of conflict resolution, Ahtisaari is arrogantly and blindly ignoring the lessons of history. When force is used to resolve conflicts, instability and future wars are the results. Force does not lead to peace, but more war.