Russian occupation of Kuusamo 23 September–18 November 1944

In the photograph, a gate leading to the Red Square of Kuusamo 1944. Image: Kinnunen’s archive / Tuomo Kallioniemi

Little attention has been paid to the Russian occupation of the centre of Kuusamo and parts of Suomussalmi between the end of the Continuation War and the start of the Lapland War The armistice agreement of 4 September 1944 started a chain of events which led to the Lapland War and the Russian occupation of areas in Suomussalmi and Kuusamo. The Soviet Union suspended military action against the Finnish Army on 5 September and started to concentrate its military forces to Northern Finland to ensure that the German troops would leave Petsamo [Pechenga] and the Finnish territory. According to the preconditions of the peace negotiations, the Germans were to leave the country by 15 September. On 8 September, the evacuation of civilians started in Kuusamo and lasted for almost a week. Only the doctor and chaplain stayed on in the town centre. A Finnish official had been ordered to stay in Kuusamo in order to represent the State of Finland and negotiate with the Russians, but he left without permission and later lost his position.

German withdrawal – destruction of the centre of Kuusamo

The evacuation of Kuusamo residents was completed on 15 September 1944, and the last convoy left Kuusamo on 17 September. The vanguard of the Red Army crossed the Finnish border on 20 September
and moved four kilometres inland. On 22 September, this advance party reached Haukiniemi in Kuusamo and – after fighting a delaying action against the German troops – the Lahtela area on 23 September, where they stopped as they were approaching the Salpa Line of defence. The German SS-Nord troops defended their strongly fortified stations, thus delaying the advance of the Russian troops to the town of Kuusamo. A delaying action was necessary, as at the same time, the 7th division of the German Army was marching towards Rovaniemi from Juntusranta via Pudasjärvi.

In the area of Kuusamo and Suomussalmi, there were German troops equivalent to a whole corps in Kiestinki [Kestenga] and Uhtua [Kalevala]. There was a road connection to Kuusamo via Lämsänkylä and to
Suomussalmi via Juntusranta.

The German withdrawal started soon after the ceasefire. There were various formations in the centre of Kuusamo that provided supplies and maintenance to the troops in Kiestinki. Germans had built a narrow-gauge railway (Kenttärata Trench railway) from Hyrynsalmi to Kuusamo in order to transport supplies and to provide direct support to the troops in the east.

Tursday 21 September 1944 was a sunny autumnal day in Kuusamo, with the temperature rising to 14 degrees and a wind blowing from the southwest to the northeast. The rearguard troops of the German SS
Mountain Division Nord were protecting the withdrawal of the army to Rovaniemi. The defensive stations located in Lahtela, Kuusamo, had been mandated to remain in place until the evening of the 26 September, as it was known that Soviet troops had crossed the Finnish border on that particular Thursday morning and were marching towards Kuusamo.

In Kuusamo, a Finnish delegation was monitoring the withdrawal of the Germans. The delegation was led by Väinö Isola, the police chief of Kempele, and Lieutenant Seppo Alanne served as the military attaché. Its responsibilities included monitoring the interests of Finland and Kuusamo, and protecting Finnish people’s property. The commander of the 20th Mountain Army, Colonel General Lothar Rendulic had visited Kuusamo on 20 September 1944 and forbidden his troops from destroying civilian targets in the area. However, the investigation report drafted by the Criminal Records Officer, Lieutenant M. O. Kantanen demonstrates that the German troops showed a lack of discipline as soon as the Finns had departed. Property left over by the residents of Kuusamo was looted and destroyed. On 20 September, the Germans started placing firelighters in civilian homes. The fires that took place over the following two days were considered to have been started by German soldiers*, who were seen leaving the vicinity of the burning buildings (*in the last few years, views have been expressed suggesting that not all the fires were started by German troops.) The Germans left Kuusamo towards Posio on 23 September, and the Russians arrived in the village the same evening.

Russian occupation – frontier barriers to the village of Kuolio

In defiance of the armistice agreement, Russian troops crossed the Finnish border in Kuusamo on 20 September 1944, and occupied the town of Kuusamo on 27 September despite the Moscow Armistice
signed on 19 September 1944. By then, the last German troops had already left Kuusamo. New frontier barriers were erected from Kuusamo to Kuolio, in the direction of Oulu, approximately 55 km west of the agreed border. The same day, Lieutenant General Hjalmar Siilasvuo was given command of the forces in Northern Finland, and the Lapland War truly started.

In October, Siilasvuo had two negotiations with the Russian Major-General Sergei Tokarev regarding the occupation of Kuusamo and Suomussalmi. Siilasvuo demanded to know when the Red Army troops would
leave the Finnish territory. Tokarev never answered this question. However, he promised to pass on the question to Colonel-General Andrei Zhdanov, the Russian chairman of the Allied Commission.
In mid-October 1944, a group of local officials and businessmen were given permission to visit Kuusamo. Thereafter, people were sent for the harvest. However, it was not considered possible for the evacuated civilians to return to the town that had been significantly damaged. And so, supply and maintenance activities were placed near the unofficial border of Kuolio.

Again in early November, Siilasvuo reported about Russian activities in the area to Marshal Mannerheim. In the Kuusamo region, they had been patrolling much further west than their stations, looted civilian property, demolished houses to build dugouts and so on. In the direction of Salla, Finnish patrol-men had been arrested on the Finnish side of the border but released after interrogations. Battle drills and busy patrolling activities had been observed in all directions.

From 12 November onwards, there were signs indicating that the Russians had left Kuusamo and Suomussalmi. The moving of the Russian army to the other side of the border was completed on 18
November 1944. The occupation of Kuusamo had ended, but the residents of Kuusamo were not allowed to return yet.

A contemporary report in the Kaleva newspaper on Independence Day 1944 describes how there was still a fire burning in the crossing of the Neljäntie Road in the town of Kuusamo, and a wall next to the burned church was still warm.

Return to Kuusamo 13 March 1945 – reconstruction begins

During the occupation, the Russians lived in dugouts they had built. “The town centre was like a dugout village with triumphal arches in Russian style”, Captain Vaalama stated on 17 November 1944 upon his arrival in Kuusamo The Ministry of the Interior did not give the families evacuated from Kuusamo permission to return until 13 March 1945. The town had been badly destroyed and looted. At least in the public eye, German soldiers were blamed for the destruction, although people were quietly certain of the Russian occupiers’ share in the proceedings. At first, people settled in the dugouts, stone foundations and basements, and built kitchens in barns. The evacuees were in a hurry to start the spring work in May and by the start of June,
already 10 000 of the 13 000 residents had returned.

The local government returned from Oulainen to Kuusamo in May and the regional hospital started operating in July 1945. However, the children of Kuusamo did not complete the school year of 1944–45.
Although the return to normal life had started, people continued living in the dugouts for years due to the lack of construction material.

Sources:

Eero Eho’s notes and presentation at the Merikoski Rotary Club on 4 May 1981 (Eho served in roles such as head of the constabulary of Kuusamo 1949–1959); ”Itä-Suomen unohdettu miehitys” [The Forgotten Occupation of Eastern Finland], Juhani Susineva, Savon Sanomat 17.11.2008; ”Taistelu elintilasta. Kuusamo 1939-1945” [Fighting for Living Space. Kuusamo 1939–1945], Matti Kyllönen, Itä-Karjalan Kustannus Oy, 2020; ”Venäjän Puna-armeijan sotapolku” [Military Campaign of the Russian Red Army], Tuomo Kallioniemi, Koillissanomat 23.3.2019.