Finland's War of Choice

The Troubled German-Finnish Coalition in World War II

By: Henrik Lunde

Narrated by: Tom Parks

This book describes the odd coalition between Germany and Finland in World War II, and their joint military operations from 1941 to 1945. This is a topic often missing in English, though in stark contrast to the numerous books on the shorter and less bloody Winter War. That conflict represented a gallant fight of a democratic “David” against a totalitarian “Goliath” that caught the imagination of the world. The story of Finland fighting alongside a “Goliath” of its own has not brought pride to that nation and was a period many Finns would rather forget.

The prologue of this book brings the listener up to speed by briefly examining the difficult history of Finland, from its separation from the Soviet Union in 1917 to its isolation after being bludgeoned in 1939-40. It then examines both Finnish and German motives for forming a coalition against the USSR, and how - as logical as a common enemy would seem - the lack of true planning and preparation would doom the alliance. This book posits that it was mind-boggling how the highly professional German General Staff allowed itself to accept the militarily unsound and shaky coalition that resulted. The war aims were not discussed or harmonized, there were no campaign plans with tasks and missions spelled out past the initial assault, no effective main effort established, inadequate force levels, and an unsound command structure with various headquarters. Practically every rule in the book was broken. The objective of linking up with the Finns in the Leningrad area was an important factor in Hitler opting for three main drives into the Soviet Union rather than an earlier OKH plan that called for only two.

After describing the operations during and after Barbarossa, this book describes how the Finnish theater became a blind ally for the Germans. Their strongest and best army was trapped both operationally and geographically in central and northern Finland, making virtually no contribution to the war effort. The Germans could not bring to bear enough forces to accomplish their objectives without substantial Finnish assistance, and that was not forthcoming.

The final chapters deal with the Soviet counteroffensive against the Finns in 1944. The Finns lost all their gains and quickly concluded a separate armistice. This left the German forces in Finland to simply vacate the territory, fighting between the Finns and Soviets alike as they tried to return to the main war. Jointly suffering 291,000 casualties, the only consolation was that the coalition had inflicted some 830,000 on the Soviets.

In this book, Henrik Lunde, a former US Special Operations colonel, and the renowned author of Hitler’s Pre-emptive War: The Battle for Norway, 1940, once again fills a profound gap in our understanding of World War II.

©2011 Henrik O. Lunde (P)2013 Audible, Inc.

Great Book

Best recap of the action in the Nordics during WWII that I've seen. Author does a great job linking the tactical actions to the operational, strategic and political levels.

learn about a hidden part of WW 2 history

an interesting look into a hidden part of world war 2 history.
the only thing I can say against it is the reader really doesn't know how to pronounce a lot of Finnish names and Cities. other then that it is a good book.

The Swedish Chef lives!

Good book , but the narration lets it down because of the unfortunate "Swedish Chef" pronunciations of Finnish personal and place names. Swedish and Finnish are NOT related or within the same language group. Wikipedia could have provided proper pronunciations.

I gave up

I gave up, I wish the narrator had too. So badly read, terrible pronunciation, he must have said "Murmanks" about 300 times, it is Murmansk. Likewise there is apparently a town in Sweden called "Torino", when this should be Tornio. The delivery was so poor and emotionless the book which is of great interest to me becomes nothing more than a catalogue of military movements in places which make no sense due to poor pronunciation.

informative, detailed.

Movements of units on battlefield are very hard to follow in an audiobook.
otherwise veri indormative, easy to follow the story. valid analysis points.
For a short version just listen last chapter 15mins.