760D.62/76: Telegram
The Minister in Finland (Schoenfeld) to the Secretary of State
[Received 12:50 p.m.]
419. My telegram No. 416, September 26. The Prime Minister informed me yesterday afternoon that the transit arrangement with the Germans contemplated the passage of some 5,000 (?)67 auxiliary troops including air force, ground, quartermaster and labor forces and that the material to pass through Finland included 12 heavy anti-aircraft guns. The Germans had also ordered a large number of super-fabricated wooden buildings as well as a quantity of lumber estimated at 10,000 standards to be delivered from Finland for constructing barracks in northern Norway. It was the Prime Minister’s original understanding that two German divisions would be transported through [Page 349] southern Norway, Sweden and Narvik to the Tromso area but he was informed yesterday that four such divisions would be garrisoned in northern Norway.
The Prime Minister said that the German action was plainly a precautionary measure with reference to the Soviet Union and betokened no great degree of confidence in German-Soviet relations. When the Finnish Foreign Minister apprised the Soviet Minister here of the Finnish-German transit agreement the latter was apparently taken completely by surprise and his only question had been, “Was there a German ultimatum?”
It is apparent that the transit agreement is considered here as a measure of stabilization which though precarious is not unwelcome to Finnish opinion.
- Query appears in the original.↩