Office of the Historian

740.0011 European War/29771: Telegram

The Chargé in Finland (McClintock) to the Secretary of State

Helsinki, June 11, 1943—11 a.m.
[Received 11:51a.m.]

789. An official of the Political Section of the Foreign Office last night told me that the Germans had proposed to the Finnish High Command that the Finnish SS battalion83 whose return to Finland was recounted in my 749 and 751, June 3, 753, June 4,84 should enter into active service in the far north, cooperating with the Finnish battalion now attached to Dietl’s85 army in summer operations against Murmansk.

This demand according to my informant was categorically refused by Marshal Mannerheim. Troops of the disbanded Finnish SS battalion who are subject to active service will be called into the Finnish Army but (see last sentence my 759, June 5)86 those not so subject are free to re-enlist in the Waffen–SS in Germany if they so desire.87

My source said that recently the Germans had requested the Finns to undertake “greater activity” on the Karelian Isthmus but this demand also had met with refusal.

McClintock
  1. From the beginning of the Nazi-Soviet conflict in the summer of 1941, Finland had maintained in service in the Soviet Union, along with the German Waffen–SS (combat units of the SS, or Schutzstaffel, military Elite Corps of the Nazi Party), a special voluntary battalion of soldiers known as the Finnish SS battalion.↩
  2. None printed.↩
  3. Col. Gen. Eduard Dietl, Commander of the German Army in North Finland.↩
  4. Not printed.↩
  5. In his telegram No. 507, April 3, the Chargé in Finland reported he had learned “on good authority” that Finland had informed Germany “that no further recruitment will be permitted for the Finnish SS Battalion now on the Caucasus front and that when the present term of enlistment of these soldiers expires on May 1, the Finnish Government requests their return to Finland for active duty in the Finnish Army.” (740.00119 European War 1939/1372)↩