My grandson has a summer reading project to complete before school begins this August. He and I are trying to obtain information about Finland's status/position as to whether it was a German Nazi-occupied country during World War ll. We have looked in various encyclopedias, books and summaries but these sources seem to be vague with no definitive answer. We were hoping this library service could direct us to a true and accurate source of information that answers this question about Nazi occupation.
Answer
In short, Finland and Germany were allies from 1941 to 1944. During that time German troops were based in Finland, but the country retained an independent democratic government and was never occupied. The co-operation ended in 1944, and Finland declared war on Germany.
Here are some worthwhile sources of information online.
ThisisFINLAND by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland:
http://finland.fi/life-society/main-outlines-of-finnish-history/
An article by C. Peter Chen in World War II Database:
http://ww2db.com/country/Finland
In Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_history_of_Finland_during_World_…
Printed sources:
Lunde, Henrik: Finland's War Of Choice: The Troubled German-Finnish Coalition in World War II (a desciption of the book in Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8710740-finland-s-war-of-choice)
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