Finland signed an Armistice Agreement with both the USSR and allied nations, acting as representatives of countries at war with Finland, on September 19, 1944, marking the end of...
The Soviet-Finnish War of 1941-1944 came to an end on September 19, 1944, with the signing of the Armistice Agreement. The negotiations for this agreement began a week later, on September 10, 1944, with conditions more challenging than the Finns had anticipated.
The conditions for peace were demanding. Finland was required to sever diplomatic relations with Germany and its allies, disarm German troops on its territory, and transfer German prisoners of war to the USSR, while internally detaining German and Hungarian citizens. The Finnish army was to be reduced to peacetime levels within two and a half months.
One of the most significant concessions was the return of the region of Petsamo (Pechenga) to the Soviet Union, along with parts of Karelia that had been ceded under the 1940 peace treaty, the Salla region, and a number of islands in the Gulf of Finland. All Finnish citizens, including Estonians and 60 thousand Ingrians, were to be returned to the USSR.
The Soviet offensive had stopped in July 1944, after the capture of Vyborg. On September 2, 1944, Finnish President Gustaf Mannerheim officially severed relations with Germany. In response, Stalin demanded that Finland comply with these conditions by August 29, 1944.
Mannerheim had proposed to begin the withdrawal of Finnish troops beyond the 1940 borders from September 6, 1944, and promised to independently monitor the evacuation (or internment) of German units. The official representative of the Soviet Union at the peace negotiations with Finland in September 1944 was Vyacheslav Molotov.
Interestingly, the head of the Finnish delegation, Antti Hackzell, had a stroke upon learning about the conditions from Molotov just a few hours before the start of the negotiations. He was replaced by Foreign Minister Enckell.
On August 4, 1944, Marshal Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim became both the commander-in-chief of the Finnish army and the president of Finland. The conditions for peace negotiations were requested through the USSR Ambassador to Sweden, Alexandra Kollontai, on August 24, 1944.
The Armistice Agreement also included clauses for war criminals to be identified and tried, and the ban on communist organizations to be lifted. All pro-Hitler political, military, paramilitary, and other organizations conducting hostile propaganda to the United Nations, particularly the Soviet Union, were to be dissolved.
The Armistice Agreement marked the end of a significant chapter in the history of both Finland and the Soviet Union. It paved the way for a new era of relations between the two nations.
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