Diskussion:Belejringen af Leningrad

message: Der er indsat afsnit fra den tyske udgave om befolkningens levevilkår. --Lindberg 1. feb 2009, 20:49 (CET)

message: This article is copyed  from english wikipedia. The article there is mostly written and dominated by russians who are using the tragedy of Leningrad to their own purposes.  The ultra-nationalistic point of wiew makes all  nations which where fighting against russians facists and guilty for the nazi crimes or something else. The finns, the estonians, the latvians, the lithuanians, the poles, and many other nationalities are facing the same kind of problems with this one-sided group. 
Rising nationalism in Russia has its advocates like Nikolai Baryshnikov. This author is known in Finland as David Irwing of Russia falsifying history  of the second world war between Finland and Soviet Union. For example he sees the winter war as a defensive  action against fasistic finns who where planning the invasion to Soviet Union. In his book “Finland and siege of Leningrad” (2003) he sees finish army an active but uncapable ally to the nazies trying to destroy Leningrad. This wikipedia article follows mostly his guidelines, but it doesn´t  follow the opinion of majority of historians.  This argument  is stated in his own book.  “Almost all historians regard the siege as a German operation and do not consider that the Finns effectively participated in the siege.” (Baryshnikov, page 3) In the english wikipedia  this fact is now hided in the end of the article. 
To understand the whole picture here is The Second world war of Finland in short:
Finland was forced to war when the soviets and the germans subscribed the Molotov-Ribbentrop -pact, where Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Finland and a part of Romania where dealed by the two big powers. In the Winter war 1939-1940 Finland was embargoed by Germany which was supporting the invading Soviet Union. The finns managed to save the inipendence of the country, but the lost was bitter in the end. The soviets took the thick settled Carelian isthmus and the second biggest town of Finland, Viipuri. The finnish border was before the soviet offence in Rajajoki (Border river) only twenty kilometers northwest from Leningrad, but after the war far in the west.  
In the interim peace 1940-1941 the soviets occupied the baltic states in the spring 1940 and annexed them into the Soviet Union in the summer. The similar fate of Finland seemed  inescapable. The soviets pushed hard and for example demanded the free passage to the red army through Finland to their military base  (which they got  after the winter war) west from Helsinki. The saviour of Finland at this point was The Soviet occupation of  Northern Bucovina of Romania  which was more than Bessarabia agreed in Molotov-Ribbentrop -pact. Hitler was then afraid of losing the Romanian olifields to the russians and saw them now as a rivals in Europe and decided to halt them. So the germans asked finns about a free passage to Norway (occupied by the germans in spring 1940 like Denmark and the rest of the western Europe) and finnish goverment surrounded by hostile forces had to say yes both of  the germans and the soviets, hoping that the german forces could prevent a new russian invasion (and that is what exactly happend).  In November 1940 Soviet foreign minister Molotov visited in Berlin and  insisted Hitler to draw the german forces from Finland, so that the russians could liqvidate Finland.
In summer 1941 the germans launched operation Barbarossa, the invasion to Soviet Union. Few days later the soviets bombed Helsinki and the re-armed finnish army started it´s own offence against russians, the continuation war. In few months the finnish army took back the territories lost in 1940. It also occupied the soviet East-Carelia, which was then called "liberation" of the etnic finns in that area. In carelian isthmus the finnish army however did not continue the offence, when it came to the Border river. The finns digged to the ground and in the end of 1941 there was not sierious fighting between the finns and the russians. This so called trench warfare continued to 1944 and finnish soldiers spent a lot of hollidays in that time. In summer 1944 russians started a massive assault against the finns. It was much bigger operation than simultanious invasion of Normandy in the west. The finnish army retreated from the Carelian Isthmus but managed to halt the russians in Tali-Ihantala -battle and managed to save the indipendence. The russians had to hurry to Berlin so they  did an armistice with the finns. In the end finns fighted against the germans in the war of Lappland deporting them from Finland and the germans burned the whole Lapland.
Finland and Leningrad in litterature:
In most of the dictionaries Finland is not mentioned as a participant of the siege, but there is some exeptions, most important is Encyclopedia britannica. In books concerning the siege Finland is mentioned only in few pages (for example Glanz or Wykes). Even in Russia the Baryshnikovs book (2003) is the first one ever dealed Finland as an active participant of the siege. In Finland Baryshnikovs book got crushing critisism, when it simply contained a lot of  untrue claims and distortions. 
Finland and the siege:
In real life the Finnish army halted to the pre winter war border (the Border river). The army was not trying to invade the city. The city of Leningrad was the goal of german Northern army. When the finns stopped their offence, the russians could move all the important forces from finnish sector to german sector.  That was important because now the russians could halt the german army. When the germans couldn´t  brake the defence of russians, they decided to establish the siege and moved troops from Leningrad to Moscow.  The finns stayed out of the city despite German wishes and requests and also did not allow the Germans to bring their own land forces to Finnish lines. In the days of siege there was silent in finnish sector  and the fighting was between the germas and the russians.  So the battle order of the finns metioned in the article was only in paper. Where was the battle? The finnish units where only partly occupied and not fighting. 
In the north of lake Ladoka there was one hundred kilometers gap between the finns and the germans. The germans tried to complete  the siege there, but the finns did not.  Secretly finnish president Risto Ryti had dealed with the USA that the finns are not trying to cut the route of life to Leningrad. 
Why the finns saved Leningrad and did not enter the city?  The answer is simple. The main task of finnish leaders was to save the nation. They counted that the war could have different kind of results. If the russians win the war it would be a bad thing to enter Leningrad. That is the reason why the finns didn´t even shell the city, while finnish cities were bombed hard at the same time. The safety of Leningrad has also been an excuse to the russians to invade Finland 1939-1940 winter war, now the silent Finnish sector was an open manifest against this. 
Finland and Germany:
This article draws onesided and untrue picture about Finland and Finnish leaders and their relasionship to the nazi-Germany. In continuation war the finns had their own wargoals, finnish army was led by Marshall Mannerheim, not the germans and politically Finland never joined the axis and Finnish leaders kept distance  to the Germany . In fact the finnish leaders tried to balance between the western powers and the germans, but truly the british declared a  war to Finland after the russians insisted it, and USA understood better the finnish situation.  The Finnish leaders also didn´t have anything to do with the rightwing radicalism, which was very common in many countries. The most denigraded finns by the stalinists/ultra-nationalist russians are social democrat party leader Väinö Tanner and president Risto Ryti, who was an anglophile and a liberal. Almost all attention to Finland in this article is purposefully denigrading finnish leaders.
Tragedy of Leningrad is a vast human catastrophe. When writig about this kind of suffering, it is irresponsible to falsify history. Don´t believe anything in this article. Make your own studies. Don´t be a copycat of ultra-nationalistic or stalinist forces, because they will use you into wrong purposes.
Greetings from Finland
Nordenstreng 9. dec 2008, 22:50 (CET)
replies: text: Please observe that talk pages are for discussion of content - and not for airing private opinions about events. Please limit your efforts to point to factual errors, backed up with reliable sources, so your comments are within the scope of the talk page. --Sir48 (Thyge) 10. dec 2008, 14:51 (CET)
replies: text: :It is correct, that this article is translated from english wikipedia. All Bruger:Nordenstrengs other comments regarding the article are false, and it seems that our esteemed Finnish collegue has somehow managed not to understand a word of neither the English nor the Danish version. The article does not subscribe to Nikolai Baryshnikov's point of view, it does however mention that his point of view exists, which is what one would expect from a neutral perspective. --Nis Hoff 12. dec 2008, 19:02 (CET)
Well .. my Danish friends  propably should know more about the nature of the continuation war. It may be that this looks like a neutral article. Anyway, I'm quite familiar with the continuation war. And I'm not interested to compromise with nationalism, neither with that sovtet/russian tradition nor the finnish, when it exist. I´m also always ready to come back with sources. My sources are very reliable, but unfortunately most of them are written in finnish, but yes, some of them are in english. And there is a lot reasons for the critisism for the article. 
The real problem in this article is in contextual level as much as in separate "facts", so it is important to clarify what is the real big picture. It is also easy to use facts telling just half of the truth and processing them in the way that the result is misleading and that is done here too. 
With my knowledge there is two major problems here. The first is that the article lacks the critism and aproximation of Stalin regime considering the catastrphe in the city. This means the evacuation policy and especially the intentional time delay with the liberation of the city (forbidden topics in Russia, read for example Radzinski: Stalin). The second problem is how situation of how Finland is handled.  I can assure that the picture of the finnish role here is much more complex, when it is analysed with the finnish sources.  Also you get purposefully selected picture for the international political game played around the Finnish war in the article.
If you really want a neutral article I can help you with it, if anyone is interested to co-operate. At the same time there is a possibility to build article about the continuation war. But the method should be then that I translate my sources to english and you have to the power to use them. I understand danish to some point, but I don't have any capability to write danish. 
The first thing is, that I propose that you change the chapter Finland and Germany to another name for example "The finns in Karelian isthmus and in the east Karelia"  Then there is more space to explain also the other dimensions of the Finnish policy. 1.why the Finns were there 2.what was the attitude concernig Leningrad 3.What they did in relation to the siege. 4. what were the international aspects in the finnish politics conserning Leningrad.  Nordenstreng 3. jan 2009, 15:13 (CET)
thread_title: Serious warning about this article