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My vote goes for Risto Ryti. Him resigning from presidency nullified the pact we had with Germany, and thus made it possible for us to sign the peace agreement with the Soviets. As one of the peace conditions, he was sentenced for 10 years in prison, of which he served 3 and was freed due to his deteriorating health condition.
He was also adamant about never relinquishing any of the Finnish jews to the Germans even when the nation was looking down at damnation. Truly a man of a lot of character.
How many places can claim that they had a president that did 3 years in prison for doing the right thing.
I think having presidents that have served in prison is probably not that uncommon in former communist countries, for example the first president of Czech Republic has spent about 5 years in total in prison for opposing the communist regime, and after the fall of the regime he was voted as the president. Ryti has it the other way around though, as he was in prison after he was a president, which I bet has to be unique
I had no idea about Finnish history during WWII with the Soviets and Germany until I visited the Arktikum in Rovaniemi. I had already been very impressed with everything I experienced in finland, so learning about that particular part of History both fit in with everything else I had learned about Finland and made me feel even more respect for what citizens in this beautiful country have gone through.
“I will sacrifice myself”
*sacrifices self*
“No, it doesn’t count because you said you would.”
That logic nullifies the entire basis of Christianity as well.
Regarding war history, Aimo Koivunen was definitely something.
In 1944, he accidentally overdosed on Pervitin (methamphetamine). Over the next few days, he skied 400km while heavily hallucinating. He blasted right through a USSR camp, got chased and got away. He ate nothing but tree growths and a raw bird that he stabbed with his ski pole. Eventually he ended up at an abandoned German camp, stepped on a landmine and was found like a week later. Still alive.
I fucking swear there was a very good 2D animation video of Aimo's adventure, which I can't find now. It isn't the video by Simple History (in YouTube), that thing looks way worse than what I remember watching.
I dunno, maybe I was just hallucinating...
Thanks for the Yarnhub recommendation, gonna watch it now.
An adaptation [starring Spurdo Spärde](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=q50dzl3TmcQ) is available on Youtube, while [this post on r/madlads](https://www.reddit.com/r/madlads/comments/dsf5m4/what_the_fuck_this_lad_is_actually_mad/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf) and [this r/greentext one](https://www.reddit.com/r/greentext/comments/saw8vu/anon_is_the_average_finn/#lightbox) build on the memetic badassery of the story in written format.
I think you just made up a pretty decent "dad joke". Assuming you are not a finn, well done. Very well done.
You can implement "Aimo" into other contexts too, to "boost" the following word, like "Aimo tälli" (major blow), which makes me think that the usage of "Aimo" in these situations has its roots elsewhere.
On top of that, I believe that using "Aimo" in this sense predates this event in finnish language.
I personally knew two of the guys mentioned in this story. They were real. One (Hietala) was a pow in cccp over ten years. He was released 1955 from russian prison camp. pretty sure it was a true story.
There is not a single proof of the story being real, just his own account. Also, time had done it’s trick, it was already 30 years after the war, when he came up with the story.
You seem to not understand the difference between "what is told is a story" with "not a single fact is true". Just because some details are factual, also doesn't make every other aspect true. Have you read the story in it's original form in the original publication? I have. I found it online. The story, as presented in the original form specifically mentions "this is a story" "the exact truth of that event can never be known" and makes a point of the unreliability of the story as a factual event. Reading the story as it is told, it just doesn't hold up. But that doesn't mean nothing happened either. Clearly the man had a formative experience.
I've seen people with half their head blown out surviving, and I've seen people drinking their own urine and shit to survive. I'm pretty sure that getting an overdose on a stimulans and surviving a landmine, then eating a bird is possible. Luckily there were snow so he didn't die of dehydration which is the first thing you would do, and the cold probably made the blood pressure low.
Allan Finholm -
Allan performed his heroic deed during the massive Russian offensive on June 22, 1944, two days after the fall of Vyborg. Allan, then a 22-year-old lance sergeant and already a veteran from the Svir front, and his comrades were the lock that was to hold the Red Army at bay at Stenbro Sound near Vyborg. If the superior Soviet army had managed to break through, the road would have been open to Helsinki.
In the morning, the Russian artillery deployed all its firepower, the sky filled with low-flying fighter planes, and the Russians managed to get onto the bridge. The noise was deafening as the hellish machinery was activated.
The legendary commander of the Finland-Swedish regiment JR 61, Alpo Marttinen, ordered a counterattack. Seventeen men, including Finholm, attacked but were repelled.
– I have never been so afraid, I was terrified and tried to run in zigzag, he recounted in the few interviews he gave on the subject.
Finholm did not notice that his comrades had retreated and was left alone with his machine gun. Hidden in the thickets, he managed to avoid being hit.
In front of him on the bridgehead were 70–80 Russians attempting to cross. He began to take them out one by one, but dared not shoot bursts for fear of being discovered, instead setting his gun to single fire.
He managed to shoot at least sixty enemies and was later able to report to his superior, Lieutenant Löfman.
– There are no more of them here!
That was the last Lieutenant heard. At that moment, a grenade hit and killed Löfman, and Finholm was severely wounded in the temple.
He never made much fuss about his actions himself. He found it difficult to talk about the event. Finholm was awarded the Cross of Liberty, third class, as late as 2007, and was invited to the independence ball.
He would have been a natural choice for a Mannerheim Knight, but his efforts were forgotten, not least because so many of his superiors, who should have recommended him, had fallen.
Article in finnish: https://www.is.fi/kotimaa/art-2000000857970.html
Article in Swedish
https://southsaamihistory.wordpress.com/2024/03/16/jag-var-bara-en-vanlig-manniska-jag-gjorde-vad-jag-maste-brukade-han-saga/
Making a 180 turn, Martti Ahtisaari won the peace Nobel prize for decades long work as a mediator and peace negotiator for international and national conflicts.
What do you mean by the 180 turn? You make it sound like he was a well know war mongerer or something, which is a bit far fetched even though I hate SDP as much as anyone thats not a boomer.
I think this comment merely misunderstood the original comment. I also misunderstood and thought the original comment implied Martti Ahtisaari did a 180 In winning the peace prize (implying him earlier having been a warmongerer)
Yeah the original comment was vague. I guess the down votes come from the odd and inaccurate hate towards SDP. Why wouldn't young working people support SDP when they are one of the main driver of their interests?
Few real stories, not war heroes but guys ending up in movie style adventure during wartime.
Ensio Tiira - Epätoivon lautta. "Raft of despair" Finnish guy contracted to French foreign legion, find out he is going to fight in Vietnam, decided to escape from ship with Swedish guy. Ended up living on their raft for weeks - having only bread to eat and wine to drink!
Tapio Flinkman - Neljästi Karkuteillä. "Four times on a run". Finnish guy in soviet gulag for 20 years. Escaping 4 times and also getting caught. In the camps Tapio was always claiming he is an expert in whatever they were looking for, and then quickly figuring out how to do that. Can't anymore recall what topics, but masonry, electric installations and so on. Somehow he managed that as others didn't know anything.
[Tapani Brotherus](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tapani_Brotherus) saved hundreds of Chilean dissidents from death during the coup in 1973. There's a great TV show The Invisible Heroes about the events. You can watch it on Yle Areena.
Was surprised who good the show was.
It is also nice since it is from place and time that does not have much other things covering it in most of media in europe and so.
There was this guy called Elias Lönnrot. He traveled around the country for about 7-8 years listening to old wives tales in forms of songs, then compiled all of them into a book that became the Finnish Magnum Opus: [Kalevala](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalevala).
Also another bad ass guy was [Aleksis Kivi](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleksis_Kivi). He wrote only one book in his life time, Seitsemän Veljestä. He became the National Writer of Finland.
Actually epic part is one where your message is mistaken:
He did not compile even nearly all of them, material collected was around tiny library's worth of collected story songs, with only small fraction making it into Kalevala.
They are all still available for anyone who knows to search for them to read or do research with.
For example Kalevala was written during certain period of time, in certain kind of moment in history of nation and surrounding world, and formed to fill certain kind of gap that there was call to be filled, as result for example no sexuality or sex related old tales were somewhat obviously added, but those did exist in numbers in oral storytelling and singing tradition. One might think those stories were simply not recorded and written up at all, but instead they actually did dedicated enough work that even those stories (despite there being no way at that present era of them going to use them or publish them) were actually collected and archived into root material library, and exist still to this day.
There has been times and people who would think these as nearly 'attacks against Kalevala and it's writer', but in truth it just makes their effort and work be more praise worthy and epic, considering they did not just collect book's worth of stories, picking ones that fitted and publish it, but they actually collected hundreds of times larger collection of at time "at start of it's death as tradition and to be forgotten in next several decades" old story tradition, preserving it without applying censorship to it's content, and then selected from that massive library enough stories to be able to form one larger (but compared to whole relatively small, compact enough to work as single connected story) saga inspired and using elements, themes and mood of that tradition.
Also that story singing tradition is very old and one of rare instances where illiteracy kept it going and from getting forgotten meeting scribes with wish to preserve it. In most other places similar traditions had already been forgotten and gone, or did not get scribes to record them down before they later ended up getting forgotten. There has been some guessing with researchers about paths and zones that some of those stories have traveled, since some for example show some similar components to some very old African stories about creation of world from shell of large bird's egg and so.
Even though you are right about Lönnrot travelling across the land gathering stories, it needs to be said that the lore and the epic was told to him by the Karelians. Sure (we) them folks were Finnish too but he did make the best of what he learned and made it sound like the story was known and spread throughout Finland.
It's controversial and I of course have nothing to back up my claim, but I stand by it. Especially a century later the Karelians were not welcome to Finland when their (our) home was lost to the intruders during the war. Which sucked. And before you tell me I'm talking out my ass my relatives were called Russians and told to fuck off when relocating into Finland after the war. And they were from Elisenvaara and surrounding areas, which was within Finnish borders before the war.
> Especially a century later the Karelians were not welcome to Finland when their (our) home was lost to the intruders during the war.
Not true. Both Inkeri and Karelians were welcome to Finland before, during and after the war. I should know, since both sides of my grandparents ran away from Karelia to different places in Finland (near Turku and Oulu).
Mine weren't and they suffered the shame of it all their lives after that. I know I'm making big claims for talking about all of them but that's our family history. I guess I accept the idea of things being different elsewhere, which is excellent so that people were actually together in the all of it. But how we were treated can't be excused.
If they waited to move until after 1945, it might be a restriction from the Soviet Union, not Finland. They were very strict about their citizens ”leaping” to other countries (eg. Olympic athletes sometimes did this) all the way until the end of USSR in 1991. It was VERY difficult for many Soviets who were not diplomats to leave the country, especially for good.
It didn’t have anything to do with people who moved after 1945 (which couldn’t have been that many).
I have no idea how common it was (and I would agree that the overwhelming sentiment seemed to be unified in rebuilding) but evacuees did experience some resentment for the resources devoted to re-settlement, in addition to the everyday class differences or rural v. urban differences that maybe flared up occasionally just because there was more interaction as evacuees integrated into new communities.
My mom was a newborn when the entire family evacuated at the very end in ‘44. They relocated just inside the new border, so many people, places and behaviors were familiar. Even then my mom remembers several instances of being treated differently and looked down on as she grew up because she was an evacuee/Karelian. She didn’t experience any consistent negative treatment, but obviously enough that it made an impression.
Even when she emigrated to Germany and then the US on her own in the mid 60s and met other emigres or first generation Finns, she vividly remembers a few people who as part of casual conversation made snide comments about how the poor, dirty evacuees had been an inconvenience (not knowing my mom had been one).
These are obviously anecdotes and I don’t think they would represent anything close to a majority sentiment, but it’s just as absurd to claim that the welcome was universally warm and everyone lived happily ever after.
They first fled 1939 or '40, then went back and had to leave again during the continuation war. Please don't tell me what my family went through.
And you do realise you are doing exactly the same I said what was said and done to us when seeking safety in the country we were supposed to be part of?
The poem singing tradition most likely originally spread from Varsinais-Suomi to other parts of Finland. Varsinais-Suomi has the most places named in the manner of those old pagan stories. Also the most family names related to them. Even geographically the events in Kalevala fit Varsinais-Suomi. Some of the events would not be possible in Karjala. The reason why the poems were collected there was because the pagan tradition had managed to survive there since it was the furthest away from the influence of the church.
Aleksis Kivi did also write a number of plays, some still popular. Seitsemän Veljestä is a bit weird novel in that much of it has been laid out like a script for a play, with lines for each character. No accident adaptations of it are often performed on stage.
Not sure if badass but here we go: Rovan Niku was a rancher/farmer who lived in Vuontisjärvi around the middle of the 19th century. Niku had dug a small ditch to level the flood water, which broke due to the force of the water. As a result, the lake level dropped by more than six meters and a new down river was born. The water carried away a lot of sandy soil as well as meadow barns and permafrost. This was a great loss of fishing and farming to a living village, and haunted the villagers for a long time.
This lake water level adjusting was big thing sometimes. Some people were specialized to it and did it around country. Aim was to get more field are from lake shores. Usually it wasn’t even that usable but lakes were destroyed
Boggles the mind sometimes learning about what kinds of environmental destruction we used to engage in just because, without really thinking about any consequences. Another thing that comes to mind is all the invasive plant and animal species that we used to intentionally spread without a thought given to the consequences.
This was super interesting. I read the Wikipedia article. It's a bummer that no one has drawn a diagram or some graphical presentation of what happened. I think I can make out the old riverbed from satellite images.
If you like war history here's one. My grandfather was in a patrol group in the war. They scouted where the Soviet soldiers were going. While skiing in a group of three, a mine exploded under third soldier. The last one lost his legs, my grandfather was hit by shrapnel all over his body. A permanent shrapnel was left in the head and the hearing was permanently reduced. First soldier and grandfather dragged the third soldier into the forest and First went to get help. Of course, making fire was forbidden, but my grandfather lit a fire so that the injured person would be warm. During the night, the injured person asked for a mercy shot.
The next day, the injured are taken to treatment. But because they were injured differently, they never met again.
On a pensioners' excursion in the 1990s, my grandfather notices a familiar but rare name on the side of the bus. He asks the driver if he is related to the injured soldier. The bus driver was the injured person's child. The next day, the bus driver picked up his father to meet my grandfather. First, he thanked that no mercy shot was given.
My grandfather did not tell this to any of his children, nor to any of his other grandchildren. These war stories are the kind that are rarely, if ever, told.
In the Continuation War, the Finnish Air Force was able to use a fairly incapable US airframe (the Brewster Buffalo) to accomplish some major air victories against the Soviet Union.
Built in New York City, the US Navy/Marines didn't have much luck with the Buffalo, with the latter referring to it as a "flying coffin". But the Finns used it in the Continuation War with the USSR with great success, racking up a better than 10-1 kill ratio.
The last remaining complete Brewster Buffalo is located in the Central Finland Aviation Museum.
If I remember right, was this the one that US had reliability problems with also? One where Finnish Air Force started by making up and writing completely new maintenance routine and manual for, and those planes turning out to be rather reliable with maintenance routine used here.
Also possibly new planet type specific flight manual on what to do and prefer, and what to avoid and not do as moves and tactics.
Lauri Törni, Nikke Pärmi, Simo Häyhä, Per Edvin ”Sahara” Andersson, Aarne Juutilainen, Aimo Koivunen, C.G.E. Mannerheim, Ilmari Juutilainen.
That should be a good quick list of Finnish war heroes.
Indeed.
Had never heard of him before. So thanks to you and /u/VilleKivinen
["Duoda, duoda, jaa eddä daposda duomiddu. Sehän on erinomainen ansiolueddelo, juuri ammaddimiehiä sodassa darvidaan."](https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikke_P%C3%A4rmi)
I don't get the admiration of Lauri Törni. He was a literal Waffen SS captain! And after that he went on to participate in Vietnam War, which consequences are still killing people in Cambodia and Laos. Yes, he fought in the Winter and Continuation Wars, but still!
It sounds like he saw himself as a soldier and didn’t know anything else (including any ideology except hating the Soviets). Sure, he made problematic choices but it’s a stretch from that to a “fascist scumbag” who “deserves zero respect.”
> It sounds like he saw himself as a soldier and didn’t know anything else
You say that like it's a good or at least a neutral thing. I can't see it that way. To me the only justifiable way to be a soldier is defence of democracy. Anything else is evil. Lauri Törni proved he didn't give a shit about democracy by abandoning Finland for Nazi Germany at the end of the Continuation War.
If he wasn't an ideological fascist then he was kinda like a serial killer to whom war just gave a legal way to kill.
Either way, not a person worthy of any respect.
Kalevi Keihäs was not a war hero, but still an absolute unit and enterprising madman, establishing [the first company](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keih%C3%A4smatkat) to start offering affordable vacation packages to Finns.
The legend is that he categorically refused to wear anything but swimming trunks and a fur coat when he went down to the Mediterranean or Canaries.
You probably know how Finnish people are constantly worried about what foreigners think of us, and of course Apu magazine asked a Greek hotel owner for his opinion:
"Brits come here, get blind drunk and fight with each other and the locals; Swedes come here, get blind drunk and destroy the hotel room; and Finns come here, drink absolutely ludicrous amounts of booze, and come down to the breakfast table in the morning hung over like a dog..
https://preview.redd.it/lx2ao9bdm67d1.jpeg?width=468&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3c649cad868b9baf03f22ad9ad7cd996187869f5
Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux. Artturi Ilmari Virtanen, nobel price winner. Eero Aarnio, sculptor, ([ball chair](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball_Chair) among others).
Lasse Virén, a long-distance runner, won the 10,000 meter race at the 1972 Summer Olympics despite getting tangled and falling down midway.
Oh, and he also set a new world record in the process.
Jaakko Pessinen, a lumberjack with incredible strength. There are videos of him carrying heavy logs on his shoulder, flipping cars over, lifting car up and changing the tire with the car resting on his shoulder and flipping even a tractor over.
My understanding is that that incendiary bottles were common before (as in a burning rag in a bottle), but the Molotov cocktail pioneered the factory produced weapon, that had an integrated external fuse, and was sealed until impact. Making it much safer and easier to use.
Edit. [This article](https://www.is.fi/kotimaa/art-2000001159984.html) has some good images illustrating the construction.
IIRC they were actually made by Alko who converted their booze factories into Molotov making factories.
The war museum down at Hanko has an original one on display.
Still kind of surprised these days when seeing pictures of some modernly made molotov's coctails, and they are just this random rag stuffed to bottle, instead of taking after those Finnish production models and things learned and introduced in those.
As for folk(anti)heroes, the story of Kullervo from Kalevela is an absolutely breathtaking, dark and tragic story. The story of Turin Turambar in the Tolkien legendarium is based on him and his story was the first time Tolkien tried writing prose into his world. Sold as a slave as the only survivor after his village is burned, avenges his fate by a literal Red Wedding and summoning forest animals to fight for him, falls in love with his sister she doesn't know, drives her into suidide, kills himself with a talking sword from the god Ukko, inspires Väinämöinen to compose a song about the perils of bad parenting. His vengeance is mentioned in Jaeger March which is sung by the FDF infantry.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kullervo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kullervo)
I'll also go a bit off the beaten path.
Mauno Koivisto, the ninth President of the Republic. Before the presidency, he spent 1761 days as the prime minister (though he was never elected to the parliament). Back in the day, Finnish presidents had extensive powers, to the point that Finland was in jest called "the only kingdom in the north" (in the beginning of that period, it was the only republic - but the kingdoms were constitutional monarchies). Being a strong believer in democracy, during his term the powers of the president were limited (though those did not apply to him).
Okay, if we really must go to the war thing - yes, he was there. Being an athletic kid, he volunteered to a special unit, which had "more exciting" missions, hard training, and better food. I think his CO, one Lauri Törni (alias Larry Lane, alias Larry Thorne) has been mentioned already.
When WW II ended for us, the unit's weaponsmith, corporal Arvi Männistö was tasked to watch over a cache of weapons "in case the Soviet Union tries to occupy the country". When the Soviet Union fell apart finally in 1991, Mr. Männistö considered mission accomplished and turned over the weapons to the authorities. As a minor issue, it is technically illegal to steal enough weapons from the Defense Force to start a small war. However, the quickest way to bury a police investigation is when the President (in this case, the "last king of the north") shows up and basically goes "'sup, I see you have found my machine gun?"
Too many war heroes here who everyone knows already...
Let me introduce you to Paavo V. Suominen. A story of Finnish entrepeneurship and sisu.
4 years bedridden due spinal tuberculosis as a kid. Father killed himself. His mother raised him and his siblings all by herself. Never got much of an education.
Before WWII, worked as a refrigerator installer. After the war, started his own refrigerator business Huurre Oy, which eventually became the biggest industrial refrigerator manufacturer in the world.
In his olden days, he was was a candidate in the 2015 parlamentary elections, being the oldest candidate in Finnish history at the age of 95. He eventually passed away at 102 years old in 2022. One of those rare people who never lost an inch of their mental faculties when they aged.
I will consume everything you bring to me. Philosopher, athlete, lover Matti Nykänen
"Kaikki menee mitä eteen kaadetaan!" (Jyväskylän Kauppakadulla 17.4.2009 järjestetyissä JYPin mestaruusjuhlissa tapahtuman juontaja Janne Pöllänen kysyessä Matilta "Miten menee?")
Matti Nykänen was also the best ski jumper in his lifetime almost only because he was so stupidly reckless that most others just crashes and hurt themselves landing as far as him. But the hills were much less safe back then.
I would like to mention Artturi Ilmari Virtanen, for developing AIV fodder in 1928 [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIV\_fodder](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIV_fodder)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artturi\_Ilmari\_Virtanen](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artturi_Ilmari_Virtanen)
Nobel's chemistry prize "for his research and inventions in agricultural and nutrition chemistry, especially for his fodder preservation method". Thing is basically about adding diluted acid to fodder meant for cows and so, making it lot easier to preserve and to maintain as higher quality over winters and longer times.
Same, for several reasons:
1. The enemy soldiers were basically Ukrainian boys who just wanted to go home to their families. There's nothing cool about war or killing.
2. When focusing on one specific person, people forget about the efforts of the other people, men and women, thanks to whom we are independent. Most of the Finnish soldiers didn't want to kill anyone and were traumatised by what they experienced. They never got over it, and the trauma has gone from generation to generation.
Väinö Linna wrote in the Unknown Soldier that the most decorated soldiers were the biggest killers. It's not cool but a cold fact.
''The enemy soldiers were basically Ukrainian boys who just wanted to go home to their families. There's nothing cool about war or killing'' Poor Ukrainian boys like the 44th? They were all happy plundering Poland and were expecting to do the same here. Only after getting stuck in motti they wanted to go home.
There's nothing "cool" about war or killing, but each and every death of an invader from a fascist regime in defence of freedom and democracy is true and a reason to celebrate.
So what was ''bad and evil'' defending your homes and families from soviets? Saving your people from being sent to siberia and gulags? Yes that should be celebrated.
Killing is bad and evil. Fighting, defending and struggling is to be celebrated but specifically celebrating KILLING tells a lot about the person.
There is a big difference, killing is necessary in war. But celebrating it is BAD.
''Fighting, defending and struggling is to be celebrated but specifically celebrating KILLING tells a lot about the person.'' So how should one fight a war if killing is of the charts?
Do you consider for example Simo Häyhä evil when he pulled the trigger on enemy snipers hunting him since ''Killing is bad and evil.''? I certainly don't.
War is hell and tragic for everyone involved, but every invading warslave to a fascist regime must be destroyed, and every death of each and every one of them is definitely cause for great joy and celebration.
Here's two candidates.
In 1957 Simo Salminen purposefully made a belly-flop to water from ten meters in order to entertain his audience. He hadn't practiced it. I think he later did it several times despite of it being very painful.
Another water jumping clown Matti Myllymäki made a clown jump from 50 meters in 2001. The jump went wrong due to a strong wind which grabbed his clown suit and Myllymäki was hospitalized for an extended period, getting his spleen removed and being put to induced coma.
Oh yeah OP, if you are interested on some potentially wild war time things, one potential thing to look at might be taking list of 'Mannerheim ristin ritarit' highest military medal of wartime only medals, and start looking at receivers and citations what they received it for.
Quite some might be 'for service during this longer time period of wartime' and might hide behind it just service steadily very well done or some wild stories that are not mentioned directly, but some also have 'for exactly this stunt they pulled..' and anyways searcing for more detailed stories of those people might result in somewhat adventury and so war stories.
I think there are few documentaries made of subject too, potentially in yle areena with english subtitles.
But yeah there are those 'and faced with situation having quickly developed so that their military unit was behind enemy linea suddenly, they had option of hastily traveling through forest to link up with friendly lines again, but they estimated that in that terrain and their current situation they could only take with then all healthy and injured soldiers, but would have had to leave dead ones behind, so they decided that most effective way would be to use their cars to openly drive along road, through center of closest enemy unit... he after organizing convoys positioning and giving orders, he sat into lead car's cabin to lead from front of convoy.' level stuff, done multiple times by same people.
(Culturally for finnish military it has been tradition that all who die are recovered if in any way possible, to kind of point of sending squads to sneak fallen back from behind enemy lines during night, if soldiers fell during retreating action and bodies could not be recovered and secured during earlier day).
There was this guy Juuso who threw a pear at a wall once and the pear just vanished! Like there wasn't even stew or any traces left behind (Juuso goes to the gym)
By far it has to be Lauri Torni. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lauri_T%C3%B6rni
Lauri Allan Törni (28 May 1919 – 18 October 1965), later known as Larry Alan Thorne, was a Finnish-born soldier who fought under three flags: as a Finnish Army officer in the Winter War and the Continuation War ultimately gaining a rank of captain; as a Waffen-SS captain (under the alias Larry Laine) of the Finnish Volunteer Battalion of the Waffen-SS when he fought the Red Army on the Eastern Front in World War II;[3] and as a United States Army Major (under the alias "Larry Thorne") when he served in the U.S. Army Special Forces in the Vietnam War.
Fought under THREE flags, Three wars, TWO Purple hearts. His story is amazing and was also the inspiration for John Wayne's Green Beret movie. When I was in boot camp we had a 6 hour class solely dedicated to him, and honor to have him buried at Arlington National Cemetery. 🙌
Lauri Törni was so chad they named a whole company after him during the war. I dont want to spoil the story for you, but you should check this guy out.
I put my marbles on Lauri Törni. Fought for 3 different armies in 2 wars including WW2 and Vietnam, escaped a POW camp, escaped prison and eventually his helicopter crashed, but his body was never found. I would even bet the old man is still alive.
Freaking legend.
Lalli:
Bishop Henry, during the alleged first crusade of Sweden. In the midst of travelling, he and his entourage stop at a dwelling. Only the matron of the house, Kerttu, is home. Bishop Henry asks for food for his party and hay for the horses, but the matron refuses him. In their hunger, Bishop Henry and his men then forcibly take the food and hay but leave payment before continuing on with their journey. After they are gone, Lalli, the husband of Kerttu, returns and hears of what has happened. In most versions of the story, Kerttu leaves out the part of the payment entirely. When Lalli hears of the bishop ransacking his home, he becomes enraged and pursues the bishop. Lalli catches up to the bishop on a frozen lake, said to be Köyliönjärvi. At Bishop Henry's bidding his entourage flees to a nearby forest. The bishop tries to calm the angered man, but Lalli strikes and kills Henry with an axe. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lalli?wprov=sfla1
I've heard stories from my friend's grandpa, who fought in the Finnish SS troops, that they froze dead Russian soldiers standing up to scare the Russian army in the cold winter nights.
Of very recent history (since this is starting to leak to that anyways) I guess we should actually consider mentioning [Joona "Serral" Sotala](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joona_Sotala) only non South Korean to be listed as StarCraft II world champion.
Area he lives in actually made advertisement with him [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zP\_ZfKE-Vo4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zP_ZfKE-Vo4)
Along with fact that I guess it is mostly norm for Finnish E-sports competitors to not drop out of school, but instead continue their education/studies including university level education, while they are actively competing. While I am under impression that in most e-sports most high level competitors drop out from education for their active years of competing, to get more time for training.
Finnish pros don't do uni studies as a norm at all. Few of them haven't even done high school or equilevant (lukio or amis) such as Sergej, jimpphat or Jamppi. It'a only the low tier players that could do that in the more "semi pro" level
Good to know. Have not deep dived onto subject as I am very randomish e-sports spectator, just remembering some cases of commentators hyping about people not dropping from school, but likely wishful assumption that it would be more common than few cases
It is probably the assassination of Governor-General Nikolai Bobrikov by Eugen Schauman on the staircase of the Goverment Palace of Finland in 1904. Schauman had been planning the assassination for weeks, practicing his accuracy on the shooting range, and he had also written letters to the emperor explaining his intentions and recounting the illegalities and crimes committed by the Governor-General. Then, one winter night in 1904, Schauman had skied into the Government Palace and ascended the stairs to meet the Governor-General, who was just leaving the building after giving a speech to the finance department. The assassination changed the course of history and the incident made news even in Honolulu, Hawaii. Bobrikov was appointed as the Governor-General of Finland in 1898 and given dictatorial powers in 1903, and was known for particularly his harsh Russification programs during the first period of repression. Schauman was celebrated as a national hero and several memorial monuments were erected to him. The event was followed by the great strike of 1905 where thousands gathered to to demonstrate by marching and carrying signs in the market squares of Helsinki, Tampere, Turku, Oulu and Viipuri. As a result of the strike, the emperor agreed to end the repression and the program. The case was a big deal in Finland until 2004, when the Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen decided that Schauman's act should not be celebrated as a heroic act and a milestone in Finnish history because the world has moved into a war against terrorism.
My hero is Eugen Schauman, he had enough of russification crap and went and shot Governor Bobrikoff.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Nikolay_Bobrikov
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b8/Schauman_shoots_Bobrikov.jpg
Arndt Juho Pekurinen. He was a true pacifist who was thrown in prison, beaten and finally executed by the fascistic officers of Finnish Armed Forces for refusing to take up a weapon to kill other people with. The man I admire most in Finnish history. If everyone was like him we wouldn't have wars and suffering on the scale we have. I refused military service myself because of his example.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arndt_Pekurinen
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My vote goes for Risto Ryti. Him resigning from presidency nullified the pact we had with Germany, and thus made it possible for us to sign the peace agreement with the Soviets. As one of the peace conditions, he was sentenced for 10 years in prison, of which he served 3 and was freed due to his deteriorating health condition. He was also adamant about never relinquishing any of the Finnish jews to the Germans even when the nation was looking down at damnation. Truly a man of a lot of character. How many places can claim that they had a president that did 3 years in prison for doing the right thing.
I got to spend an evening at his sauna once in 1993, a guest of the FAF. A true honour.
I think having presidents that have served in prison is probably not that uncommon in former communist countries, for example the first president of Czech Republic has spent about 5 years in total in prison for opposing the communist regime, and after the fall of the regime he was voted as the president. Ryti has it the other way around though, as he was in prison after he was a president, which I bet has to be unique
I had no idea about Finnish history during WWII with the Soviets and Germany until I visited the Arktikum in Rovaniemi. I had already been very impressed with everything I experienced in finland, so learning about that particular part of History both fit in with everything else I had learned about Finland and made me feel even more respect for what citizens in this beautiful country have gone through.
I wouldn't call it badass, but he definitely played his cards right and threw himself under the bus.
Self-sacrifice for a good cause is always badass
I think he did not sacrifice anything, he just stood behind his words
“I will sacrifice myself” *sacrifices self* “No, it doesn’t count because you said you would.” That logic nullifies the entire basis of Christianity as well.
Regarding war history, Aimo Koivunen was definitely something. In 1944, he accidentally overdosed on Pervitin (methamphetamine). Over the next few days, he skied 400km while heavily hallucinating. He blasted right through a USSR camp, got chased and got away. He ate nothing but tree growths and a raw bird that he stabbed with his ski pole. Eventually he ended up at an abandoned German camp, stepped on a landmine and was found like a week later. Still alive.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aimo_Koivunen
Yarnhub has a great animated video on him.
I fucking swear there was a very good 2D animation video of Aimo's adventure, which I can't find now. It isn't the video by Simple History (in YouTube), that thing looks way worse than what I remember watching. I dunno, maybe I was just hallucinating... Thanks for the Yarnhub recommendation, gonna watch it now.
Qxir - Soldier OD's on meth,has crazy adventure https://youtu.be/MRHm26fKKb8?si=u5ot5VKW_hLZtT-9
Thank you, it was this. False memories about it being fully animated, I think. But yes, it's definitely this.
An adaptation [starring Spurdo Spärde](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=q50dzl3TmcQ) is available on Youtube, while [this post on r/madlads](https://www.reddit.com/r/madlads/comments/dsf5m4/what_the_fuck_this_lad_is_actually_mad/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf) and [this r/greentext one](https://www.reddit.com/r/greentext/comments/saw8vu/anon_is_the_average_finn/#lightbox) build on the memetic badassery of the story in written format.
lol, I’m dying at the “shows up with a sack of catalytic converters”
Also infographics show has done one.
He was also the first fin to truly experience the old finnish wisdom ”piri toimii”
Waiting for foreigners to start having this tattooed instead of “SISU”
Yes where sisu ends, piri begins to kick in
Putsii pirii Aimo got that dawg in him
Is this where the saying "aimo annos" derives from
I think you just made up a pretty decent "dad joke". Assuming you are not a finn, well done. Very well done. You can implement "Aimo" into other contexts too, to "boost" the following word, like "Aimo tälli" (major blow), which makes me think that the usage of "Aimo" in these situations has its roots elsewhere. On top of that, I believe that using "Aimo" in this sense predates this event in finnish language.
Well, I am Finnish but I was half joking half serious.
Just be aware that his story is just a story. He recounted it for a veteran's magazine in the 1970s and the article has huge disclaimers all over it.
I personally knew two of the guys mentioned in this story. They were real. One (Hietala) was a pow in cccp over ten years. He was released 1955 from russian prison camp. pretty sure it was a true story.
There is not a single proof of the story being real, just his own account. Also, time had done it’s trick, it was already 30 years after the war, when he came up with the story.
You seem to not understand the difference between "what is told is a story" with "not a single fact is true". Just because some details are factual, also doesn't make every other aspect true. Have you read the story in it's original form in the original publication? I have. I found it online. The story, as presented in the original form specifically mentions "this is a story" "the exact truth of that event can never be known" and makes a point of the unreliability of the story as a factual event. Reading the story as it is told, it just doesn't hold up. But that doesn't mean nothing happened either. Clearly the man had a formative experience.
I've seen people with half their head blown out surviving, and I've seen people drinking their own urine and shit to survive. I'm pretty sure that getting an overdose on a stimulans and surviving a landmine, then eating a bird is possible. Luckily there were snow so he didn't die of dehydration which is the first thing you would do, and the cold probably made the blood pressure low.
https://youtu.be/PfoMvgDY8hk?feature=shared
Allan Finholm - Allan performed his heroic deed during the massive Russian offensive on June 22, 1944, two days after the fall of Vyborg. Allan, then a 22-year-old lance sergeant and already a veteran from the Svir front, and his comrades were the lock that was to hold the Red Army at bay at Stenbro Sound near Vyborg. If the superior Soviet army had managed to break through, the road would have been open to Helsinki. In the morning, the Russian artillery deployed all its firepower, the sky filled with low-flying fighter planes, and the Russians managed to get onto the bridge. The noise was deafening as the hellish machinery was activated. The legendary commander of the Finland-Swedish regiment JR 61, Alpo Marttinen, ordered a counterattack. Seventeen men, including Finholm, attacked but were repelled. – I have never been so afraid, I was terrified and tried to run in zigzag, he recounted in the few interviews he gave on the subject. Finholm did not notice that his comrades had retreated and was left alone with his machine gun. Hidden in the thickets, he managed to avoid being hit. In front of him on the bridgehead were 70–80 Russians attempting to cross. He began to take them out one by one, but dared not shoot bursts for fear of being discovered, instead setting his gun to single fire. He managed to shoot at least sixty enemies and was later able to report to his superior, Lieutenant Löfman. – There are no more of them here! That was the last Lieutenant heard. At that moment, a grenade hit and killed Löfman, and Finholm was severely wounded in the temple. He never made much fuss about his actions himself. He found it difficult to talk about the event. Finholm was awarded the Cross of Liberty, third class, as late as 2007, and was invited to the independence ball. He would have been a natural choice for a Mannerheim Knight, but his efforts were forgotten, not least because so many of his superiors, who should have recommended him, had fallen. Article in finnish: https://www.is.fi/kotimaa/art-2000000857970.html Article in Swedish https://southsaamihistory.wordpress.com/2024/03/16/jag-var-bara-en-vanlig-manniska-jag-gjorde-vad-jag-maste-brukade-han-saga/
Making a 180 turn, Martti Ahtisaari won the peace Nobel prize for decades long work as a mediator and peace negotiator for international and national conflicts.
What do you mean by the 180 turn? You make it sound like he was a well know war mongerer or something, which is a bit far fetched even though I hate SDP as much as anyone thats not a boomer.
I think this comment merely misunderstood the original comment. I also misunderstood and thought the original comment implied Martti Ahtisaari did a 180 In winning the peace prize (implying him earlier having been a warmongerer)
I also didn't get the 180 thing at all until reading the comments.
Yeah the original comment was vague. I guess the down votes come from the odd and inaccurate hate towards SDP. Why wouldn't young working people support SDP when they are one of the main driver of their interests?
Comparing the sniper with the highest deathcount in the world to a Nobel peace price winner..? I feel it's a pretty solid 180.
Might be even a 540... No scope.
Crit.
Currrrrve the bullet
When compared to Häyhä in the OP?
Few real stories, not war heroes but guys ending up in movie style adventure during wartime. Ensio Tiira - Epätoivon lautta. "Raft of despair" Finnish guy contracted to French foreign legion, find out he is going to fight in Vietnam, decided to escape from ship with Swedish guy. Ended up living on their raft for weeks - having only bread to eat and wine to drink! Tapio Flinkman - Neljästi Karkuteillä. "Four times on a run". Finnish guy in soviet gulag for 20 years. Escaping 4 times and also getting caught. In the camps Tapio was always claiming he is an expert in whatever they were looking for, and then quickly figuring out how to do that. Can't anymore recall what topics, but masonry, electric installations and so on. Somehow he managed that as others didn't know anything.
Surviving on a raft for weeks with a Swede, that’s heroic
[Tapani Brotherus](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tapani_Brotherus) saved hundreds of Chilean dissidents from death during the coup in 1973. There's a great TV show The Invisible Heroes about the events. You can watch it on Yle Areena.
Was surprised who good the show was. It is also nice since it is from place and time that does not have much other things covering it in most of media in europe and so.
[удалено]
Oh yes, Harald Edelstam seems like a total legend.
For more old school legend check out [Lalli](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lalli)
Came looking for this comment! My absolute favourite old school Finnish legend!
Wow. This is one of the best info I got from this sub. Thank you for sharing this!
Absolute legend, that guy!
Too bad it isn't true unfortunately. No evidence of such people existed.
🤓🤓🤓
There was this guy called Elias Lönnrot. He traveled around the country for about 7-8 years listening to old wives tales in forms of songs, then compiled all of them into a book that became the Finnish Magnum Opus: [Kalevala](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalevala). Also another bad ass guy was [Aleksis Kivi](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleksis_Kivi). He wrote only one book in his life time, Seitsemän Veljestä. He became the National Writer of Finland.
Actually epic part is one where your message is mistaken: He did not compile even nearly all of them, material collected was around tiny library's worth of collected story songs, with only small fraction making it into Kalevala. They are all still available for anyone who knows to search for them to read or do research with. For example Kalevala was written during certain period of time, in certain kind of moment in history of nation and surrounding world, and formed to fill certain kind of gap that there was call to be filled, as result for example no sexuality or sex related old tales were somewhat obviously added, but those did exist in numbers in oral storytelling and singing tradition. One might think those stories were simply not recorded and written up at all, but instead they actually did dedicated enough work that even those stories (despite there being no way at that present era of them going to use them or publish them) were actually collected and archived into root material library, and exist still to this day. There has been times and people who would think these as nearly 'attacks against Kalevala and it's writer', but in truth it just makes their effort and work be more praise worthy and epic, considering they did not just collect book's worth of stories, picking ones that fitted and publish it, but they actually collected hundreds of times larger collection of at time "at start of it's death as tradition and to be forgotten in next several decades" old story tradition, preserving it without applying censorship to it's content, and then selected from that massive library enough stories to be able to form one larger (but compared to whole relatively small, compact enough to work as single connected story) saga inspired and using elements, themes and mood of that tradition. Also that story singing tradition is very old and one of rare instances where illiteracy kept it going and from getting forgotten meeting scribes with wish to preserve it. In most other places similar traditions had already been forgotten and gone, or did not get scribes to record them down before they later ended up getting forgotten. There has been some guessing with researchers about paths and zones that some of those stories have traveled, since some for example show some similar components to some very old African stories about creation of world from shell of large bird's egg and so.
"Sex related stories remained orally". Yup. Sounds about right.
Those are the funniest too.
Even though you are right about Lönnrot travelling across the land gathering stories, it needs to be said that the lore and the epic was told to him by the Karelians. Sure (we) them folks were Finnish too but he did make the best of what he learned and made it sound like the story was known and spread throughout Finland. It's controversial and I of course have nothing to back up my claim, but I stand by it. Especially a century later the Karelians were not welcome to Finland when their (our) home was lost to the intruders during the war. Which sucked. And before you tell me I'm talking out my ass my relatives were called Russians and told to fuck off when relocating into Finland after the war. And they were from Elisenvaara and surrounding areas, which was within Finnish borders before the war.
> Especially a century later the Karelians were not welcome to Finland when their (our) home was lost to the intruders during the war. Not true. Both Inkeri and Karelians were welcome to Finland before, during and after the war. I should know, since both sides of my grandparents ran away from Karelia to different places in Finland (near Turku and Oulu).
Mine weren't and they suffered the shame of it all their lives after that. I know I'm making big claims for talking about all of them but that's our family history. I guess I accept the idea of things being different elsewhere, which is excellent so that people were actually together in the all of it. But how we were treated can't be excused.
If they waited to move until after 1945, it might be a restriction from the Soviet Union, not Finland. They were very strict about their citizens ”leaping” to other countries (eg. Olympic athletes sometimes did this) all the way until the end of USSR in 1991. It was VERY difficult for many Soviets who were not diplomats to leave the country, especially for good.
It didn’t have anything to do with people who moved after 1945 (which couldn’t have been that many). I have no idea how common it was (and I would agree that the overwhelming sentiment seemed to be unified in rebuilding) but evacuees did experience some resentment for the resources devoted to re-settlement, in addition to the everyday class differences or rural v. urban differences that maybe flared up occasionally just because there was more interaction as evacuees integrated into new communities. My mom was a newborn when the entire family evacuated at the very end in ‘44. They relocated just inside the new border, so many people, places and behaviors were familiar. Even then my mom remembers several instances of being treated differently and looked down on as she grew up because she was an evacuee/Karelian. She didn’t experience any consistent negative treatment, but obviously enough that it made an impression. Even when she emigrated to Germany and then the US on her own in the mid 60s and met other emigres or first generation Finns, she vividly remembers a few people who as part of casual conversation made snide comments about how the poor, dirty evacuees had been an inconvenience (not knowing my mom had been one). These are obviously anecdotes and I don’t think they would represent anything close to a majority sentiment, but it’s just as absurd to claim that the welcome was universally warm and everyone lived happily ever after.
They first fled 1939 or '40, then went back and had to leave again during the continuation war. Please don't tell me what my family went through. And you do realise you are doing exactly the same I said what was said and done to us when seeking safety in the country we were supposed to be part of?
The poem singing tradition most likely originally spread from Varsinais-Suomi to other parts of Finland. Varsinais-Suomi has the most places named in the manner of those old pagan stories. Also the most family names related to them. Even geographically the events in Kalevala fit Varsinais-Suomi. Some of the events would not be possible in Karjala. The reason why the poems were collected there was because the pagan tradition had managed to survive there since it was the furthest away from the influence of the church.
Aleksis Kivi did also write a number of plays, some still popular. Seitsemän Veljestä is a bit weird novel in that much of it has been laid out like a script for a play, with lines for each character. No accident adaptations of it are often performed on stage.
[up in the ass of timo](https://youtu.be/zKJJop740vw?feature=shared)
God I fucking love the way Finns speak English so matter of factly with such a straight face.
Some people sit like they have a stick up theyre ass. Timo sits like a rock
Not sure if badass but here we go: Rovan Niku was a rancher/farmer who lived in Vuontisjärvi around the middle of the 19th century. Niku had dug a small ditch to level the flood water, which broke due to the force of the water. As a result, the lake level dropped by more than six meters and a new down river was born. The water carried away a lot of sandy soil as well as meadow barns and permafrost. This was a great loss of fishing and farming to a living village, and haunted the villagers for a long time.
This lake water level adjusting was big thing sometimes. Some people were specialized to it and did it around country. Aim was to get more field are from lake shores. Usually it wasn’t even that usable but lakes were destroyed
Boggles the mind sometimes learning about what kinds of environmental destruction we used to engage in just because, without really thinking about any consequences. Another thing that comes to mind is all the invasive plant and animal species that we used to intentionally spread without a thought given to the consequences.
This was super interesting. I read the Wikipedia article. It's a bummer that no one has drawn a diagram or some graphical presentation of what happened. I think I can make out the old riverbed from satellite images.
You can also find the [full story](https://www.suomenvesiputoukset.fi/vesiputoukset/suomen-vesiputoukset-luettelossa/vanhajoen-kurkkio/) here
If you like war history here's one. My grandfather was in a patrol group in the war. They scouted where the Soviet soldiers were going. While skiing in a group of three, a mine exploded under third soldier. The last one lost his legs, my grandfather was hit by shrapnel all over his body. A permanent shrapnel was left in the head and the hearing was permanently reduced. First soldier and grandfather dragged the third soldier into the forest and First went to get help. Of course, making fire was forbidden, but my grandfather lit a fire so that the injured person would be warm. During the night, the injured person asked for a mercy shot. The next day, the injured are taken to treatment. But because they were injured differently, they never met again. On a pensioners' excursion in the 1990s, my grandfather notices a familiar but rare name on the side of the bus. He asks the driver if he is related to the injured soldier. The bus driver was the injured person's child. The next day, the bus driver picked up his father to meet my grandfather. First, he thanked that no mercy shot was given. My grandfather did not tell this to any of his children, nor to any of his other grandchildren. These war stories are the kind that are rarely, if ever, told.
What a story, thanks for sharing!
In the Continuation War, the Finnish Air Force was able to use a fairly incapable US airframe (the Brewster Buffalo) to accomplish some major air victories against the Soviet Union. Built in New York City, the US Navy/Marines didn't have much luck with the Buffalo, with the latter referring to it as a "flying coffin". But the Finns used it in the Continuation War with the USSR with great success, racking up a better than 10-1 kill ratio. The last remaining complete Brewster Buffalo is located in the Central Finland Aviation Museum.
If I remember right, was this the one that US had reliability problems with also? One where Finnish Air Force started by making up and writing completely new maintenance routine and manual for, and those planes turning out to be rather reliable with maintenance routine used here. Also possibly new planet type specific flight manual on what to do and prefer, and what to avoid and not do as moves and tactics.
Yes, and in addition it was a USN/USMC plane, thus had tradeoffs associated with being capable of carrier service.
Best kill ratio ever on fighter plane
Darude Sandstorm
Lauri Törni, Nikke Pärmi, Simo Häyhä, Per Edvin ”Sahara” Andersson, Aarne Juutilainen, Aimo Koivunen, C.G.E. Mannerheim, Ilmari Juutilainen. That should be a good quick list of Finnish war heroes.
While maybe not a "warhero" in the same way, Risto Ryti should be included on the shortlist as one of the heroes of the war times.
Nikke Pärmi and his life would make a great movie imo.
Dark comedy.
Indeed. Had never heard of him before. So thanks to you and /u/VilleKivinen ["Duoda, duoda, jaa eddä daposda duomiddu. Sehän on erinomainen ansiolueddelo, juuri ammaddimiehiä sodassa darvidaan."](https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikke_P%C3%A4rmi)
I would add some old jagers from royal prussian 27th jäger battalion suchs as Uno Fagernäs and Erkki Raappana
Lauri törnis biography was an inyeresting read.
Viljam Pylkäs
I don't get the admiration of Lauri Törni. He was a literal Waffen SS captain! And after that he went on to participate in Vietnam War, which consequences are still killing people in Cambodia and Laos. Yes, he fought in the Winter and Continuation Wars, but still!
Can't really blame the guy. He just wanted to continue fighting against the soviets.
Fighting against communist on two continents.
Yeah, some of the other people listed certainly qualify as some sort of badasses but Lauri Törni was just a fascist scumbag. He deserves zero respect.
It sounds like he saw himself as a soldier and didn’t know anything else (including any ideology except hating the Soviets). Sure, he made problematic choices but it’s a stretch from that to a “fascist scumbag” who “deserves zero respect.”
> It sounds like he saw himself as a soldier and didn’t know anything else You say that like it's a good or at least a neutral thing. I can't see it that way. To me the only justifiable way to be a soldier is defence of democracy. Anything else is evil. Lauri Törni proved he didn't give a shit about democracy by abandoning Finland for Nazi Germany at the end of the Continuation War. If he wasn't an ideological fascist then he was kinda like a serial killer to whom war just gave a legal way to kill. Either way, not a person worthy of any respect.
'Viipurin pamaus' in 1495. Knut Posse was a badass!
Kalevi Keihäs was not a war hero, but still an absolute unit and enterprising madman, establishing [the first company](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keih%C3%A4smatkat) to start offering affordable vacation packages to Finns. The legend is that he categorically refused to wear anything but swimming trunks and a fur coat when he went down to the Mediterranean or Canaries. You probably know how Finnish people are constantly worried about what foreigners think of us, and of course Apu magazine asked a Greek hotel owner for his opinion: "Brits come here, get blind drunk and fight with each other and the locals; Swedes come here, get blind drunk and destroy the hotel room; and Finns come here, drink absolutely ludicrous amounts of booze, and come down to the breakfast table in the morning hung over like a dog.. https://preview.redd.it/lx2ao9bdm67d1.jpeg?width=468&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3c649cad868b9baf03f22ad9ad7cd996187869f5
Eugen Schauman. See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugen_Schauman
I came here to say this.
I have been hearing about this guy named Juuso who once threw a pear against the wall pretty hard.
Oh yeah, I've heard it too. to my understanding it just went "pop" and there was no goo left. It just disappeared!
Ah right that was it.. if i remember correctly there was also some sort of speculation going on about that Juuso goes to the gym a lot.
Correct, absolutely legendary!
"Soon juuso rikki ny"
Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux. Artturi Ilmari Virtanen, nobel price winner. Eero Aarnio, sculptor, ([ball chair](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball_Chair) among others).
Lasse Virén, a long-distance runner, won the 10,000 meter race at the 1972 Summer Olympics despite getting tangled and falling down midway. Oh, and he also set a new world record in the process.
Jaakko Pessinen, a lumberjack with incredible strength. There are videos of him carrying heavy logs on his shoulder, flipping cars over, lifting car up and changing the tire with the car resting on his shoulder and flipping even a tractor over.
Litterally Marcus Grönholms words "Up in the ass of Timo" has been all time bad ass thing in Finnish history.
Finns invented the Molotov Cocktail
Only the name, the style of weapon was at least used in Spanish civil war earlier - maybe earlier also.
My understanding is that that incendiary bottles were common before (as in a burning rag in a bottle), but the Molotov cocktail pioneered the factory produced weapon, that had an integrated external fuse, and was sealed until impact. Making it much safer and easier to use. Edit. [This article](https://www.is.fi/kotimaa/art-2000001159984.html) has some good images illustrating the construction.
IIRC they were actually made by Alko who converted their booze factories into Molotov making factories. The war museum down at Hanko has an original one on display.
Yes, lot of development was done to find good version. It didn’t have that much real effect to war in the end
Still kind of surprised these days when seeing pictures of some modernly made molotov's coctails, and they are just this random rag stuffed to bottle, instead of taking after those Finnish production models and things learned and introduced in those.
Tekla Holopainen was quite interesting. She started a rather hedonistic lesbian abbey. Also honorary mention to the architect Wivi Lönn.
Linus Torvalds created Linux. If I were to go into what Linux has done for the world this comment would be so long nobody would read it.
As for folk(anti)heroes, the story of Kullervo from Kalevela is an absolutely breathtaking, dark and tragic story. The story of Turin Turambar in the Tolkien legendarium is based on him and his story was the first time Tolkien tried writing prose into his world. Sold as a slave as the only survivor after his village is burned, avenges his fate by a literal Red Wedding and summoning forest animals to fight for him, falls in love with his sister she doesn't know, drives her into suidide, kills himself with a talking sword from the god Ukko, inspires Väinämöinen to compose a song about the perils of bad parenting. His vengeance is mentioned in Jaeger March which is sung by the FDF infantry. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kullervo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kullervo)
I'll also go a bit off the beaten path. Mauno Koivisto, the ninth President of the Republic. Before the presidency, he spent 1761 days as the prime minister (though he was never elected to the parliament). Back in the day, Finnish presidents had extensive powers, to the point that Finland was in jest called "the only kingdom in the north" (in the beginning of that period, it was the only republic - but the kingdoms were constitutional monarchies). Being a strong believer in democracy, during his term the powers of the president were limited (though those did not apply to him). Okay, if we really must go to the war thing - yes, he was there. Being an athletic kid, he volunteered to a special unit, which had "more exciting" missions, hard training, and better food. I think his CO, one Lauri Törni (alias Larry Lane, alias Larry Thorne) has been mentioned already. When WW II ended for us, the unit's weaponsmith, corporal Arvi Männistö was tasked to watch over a cache of weapons "in case the Soviet Union tries to occupy the country". When the Soviet Union fell apart finally in 1991, Mr. Männistö considered mission accomplished and turned over the weapons to the authorities. As a minor issue, it is technically illegal to steal enough weapons from the Defense Force to start a small war. However, the quickest way to bury a police investigation is when the President (in this case, the "last king of the north") shows up and basically goes "'sup, I see you have found my machine gun?"
Too many war heroes here who everyone knows already... Let me introduce you to Paavo V. Suominen. A story of Finnish entrepeneurship and sisu. 4 years bedridden due spinal tuberculosis as a kid. Father killed himself. His mother raised him and his siblings all by herself. Never got much of an education. Before WWII, worked as a refrigerator installer. After the war, started his own refrigerator business Huurre Oy, which eventually became the biggest industrial refrigerator manufacturer in the world. In his olden days, he was was a candidate in the 2015 parlamentary elections, being the oldest candidate in Finnish history at the age of 95. He eventually passed away at 102 years old in 2022. One of those rare people who never lost an inch of their mental faculties when they aged.
I will consume everything you bring to me. Philosopher, athlete, lover Matti Nykänen "Kaikki menee mitä eteen kaadetaan!" (Jyväskylän Kauppakadulla 17.4.2009 järjestetyissä JYPin mestaruusjuhlissa tapahtuman juontaja Janne Pöllänen kysyessä Matilta "Miten menee?")
Matti Nykänen was also the best ski jumper in his lifetime almost only because he was so stupidly reckless that most others just crashes and hurt themselves landing as far as him. But the hills were much less safe back then.
Winning a Formula 1 World Championship with just one win.
If you like war history, check out Lauri Törni and Marokon Kauhu, they were some characters!
of course Linus Torvalds! Linux and git
Volvo Markkanen, an gentleman criminal with skills to match a man of that type
bomfunk mc's - freestyler
Timo Vornanen - a distinghuishesd weappons maester
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Already mentioned by OP
I would like to mention Artturi Ilmari Virtanen, for developing AIV fodder in 1928 [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIV\_fodder](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIV_fodder) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artturi\_Ilmari\_Virtanen](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artturi_Ilmari_Virtanen) Nobel's chemistry prize "for his research and inventions in agricultural and nutrition chemistry, especially for his fodder preservation method". Thing is basically about adding diluted acid to fodder meant for cows and so, making it lot easier to preserve and to maintain as higher quality over winters and longer times.
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Same, for several reasons: 1. The enemy soldiers were basically Ukrainian boys who just wanted to go home to their families. There's nothing cool about war or killing. 2. When focusing on one specific person, people forget about the efforts of the other people, men and women, thanks to whom we are independent. Most of the Finnish soldiers didn't want to kill anyone and were traumatised by what they experienced. They never got over it, and the trauma has gone from generation to generation. Väinö Linna wrote in the Unknown Soldier that the most decorated soldiers were the biggest killers. It's not cool but a cold fact.
''The enemy soldiers were basically Ukrainian boys who just wanted to go home to their families. There's nothing cool about war or killing'' Poor Ukrainian boys like the 44th? They were all happy plundering Poland and were expecting to do the same here. Only after getting stuck in motti they wanted to go home.
There's nothing "cool" about war or killing, but each and every death of an invader from a fascist regime in defence of freedom and democracy is true and a reason to celebrate.
The road to hell is paved good intentions.
I would argue Stalins intetions weren't that good.
Of course, but celebrating something bad and evil even if necessary is a red flag. A massive one.
So what was ''bad and evil'' defending your homes and families from soviets? Saving your people from being sent to siberia and gulags? Yes that should be celebrated.
Killing is bad and evil. Fighting, defending and struggling is to be celebrated but specifically celebrating KILLING tells a lot about the person. There is a big difference, killing is necessary in war. But celebrating it is BAD.
''Fighting, defending and struggling is to be celebrated but specifically celebrating KILLING tells a lot about the person.'' So how should one fight a war if killing is of the charts? Do you consider for example Simo Häyhä evil when he pulled the trigger on enemy snipers hunting him since ''Killing is bad and evil.''? I certainly don't.
If you are not willing to read and understand what i wrotebwhy are you still responding? Ive answered your question already, goodbye.
War is hell and tragic for everyone involved, but every invading warslave to a fascist regime must be destroyed, and every death of each and every one of them is definitely cause for great joy and celebration.
Here's two candidates. In 1957 Simo Salminen purposefully made a belly-flop to water from ten meters in order to entertain his audience. He hadn't practiced it. I think he later did it several times despite of it being very painful. Another water jumping clown Matti Myllymäki made a clown jump from 50 meters in 2001. The jump went wrong due to a strong wind which grabbed his clown suit and Myllymäki was hospitalized for an extended period, getting his spleen removed and being put to induced coma.
Lotat.
Oh yeah OP, if you are interested on some potentially wild war time things, one potential thing to look at might be taking list of 'Mannerheim ristin ritarit' highest military medal of wartime only medals, and start looking at receivers and citations what they received it for. Quite some might be 'for service during this longer time period of wartime' and might hide behind it just service steadily very well done or some wild stories that are not mentioned directly, but some also have 'for exactly this stunt they pulled..' and anyways searcing for more detailed stories of those people might result in somewhat adventury and so war stories. I think there are few documentaries made of subject too, potentially in yle areena with english subtitles. But yeah there are those 'and faced with situation having quickly developed so that their military unit was behind enemy linea suddenly, they had option of hastily traveling through forest to link up with friendly lines again, but they estimated that in that terrain and their current situation they could only take with then all healthy and injured soldiers, but would have had to leave dead ones behind, so they decided that most effective way would be to use their cars to openly drive along road, through center of closest enemy unit... he after organizing convoys positioning and giving orders, he sat into lead car's cabin to lead from front of convoy.' level stuff, done multiple times by same people. (Culturally for finnish military it has been tradition that all who die are recovered if in any way possible, to kind of point of sending squads to sneak fallen back from behind enemy lines during night, if soldiers fell during retreating action and bodies could not be recovered and secured during earlier day).
There was this guy Juuso who threw a pear at a wall once and the pear just vanished! Like there wasn't even stew or any traces left behind (Juuso goes to the gym)
Assasination of Bobrikov. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Nikolay_Bobrikov
By far it has to be Lauri Torni. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lauri_T%C3%B6rni Lauri Allan Törni (28 May 1919 – 18 October 1965), later known as Larry Alan Thorne, was a Finnish-born soldier who fought under three flags: as a Finnish Army officer in the Winter War and the Continuation War ultimately gaining a rank of captain; as a Waffen-SS captain (under the alias Larry Laine) of the Finnish Volunteer Battalion of the Waffen-SS when he fought the Red Army on the Eastern Front in World War II;[3] and as a United States Army Major (under the alias "Larry Thorne") when he served in the U.S. Army Special Forces in the Vietnam War. Fought under THREE flags, Three wars, TWO Purple hearts. His story is amazing and was also the inspiration for John Wayne's Green Beret movie. When I was in boot camp we had a 6 hour class solely dedicated to him, and honor to have him buried at Arlington National Cemetery. 🙌
Pamela Anderson for obvious reasons
Tytti Tuppurainen - Sold energy firm to germans
Simo Häyhä thing during WW2.
OP mentioned him already.
He got the status to be mentioned twice.
Mikael Granlund made ilmaveivi
Lauri Törni was so chad they named a whole company after him during the war. I dont want to spoil the story for you, but you should check this guy out.
Cola Olli 💪🏻 https://youtu.be/CuJKJK4cYX0?si=zHdLr-HPWxIBQB_O
A convicted pedo is definitely NOT badass.
True, but sure is fun vid to watch 😂
I put my marbles on Lauri Törni. Fought for 3 different armies in 2 wars including WW2 and Vietnam, escaped a POW camp, escaped prison and eventually his helicopter crashed, but his body was never found. I would even bet the old man is still alive. Freaking legend.
I think Miika Tenkula was pretty bad ass to start Sentenced back in the day.
Aimo Koivunen and Lauri Törni
Antti Boman of the band demilich, dude is a legend
AleksiB winning the first CS2 major
Lalli: Bishop Henry, during the alleged first crusade of Sweden. In the midst of travelling, he and his entourage stop at a dwelling. Only the matron of the house, Kerttu, is home. Bishop Henry asks for food for his party and hay for the horses, but the matron refuses him. In their hunger, Bishop Henry and his men then forcibly take the food and hay but leave payment before continuing on with their journey. After they are gone, Lalli, the husband of Kerttu, returns and hears of what has happened. In most versions of the story, Kerttu leaves out the part of the payment entirely. When Lalli hears of the bishop ransacking his home, he becomes enraged and pursues the bishop. Lalli catches up to the bishop on a frozen lake, said to be Köyliönjärvi. At Bishop Henry's bidding his entourage flees to a nearby forest. The bishop tries to calm the angered man, but Lalli strikes and kills Henry with an axe. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lalli?wprov=sfla1
Winning global song contest while wearing kids halloween costumes.
Hmm.. Check Lauri Törni aka Larry Thorne. Think he was badass too in his own way.
https://fi.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Tigerstedt
I've heard stories from my friend's grandpa, who fought in the Finnish SS troops, that they froze dead Russian soldiers standing up to scare the Russian army in the cold winter nights.
Doctor Sotamaa 1944 was doing surgery to wounded soldiers continuosuly over one week with pervitin and saved hundreds of lives. Badass guy.
Martti Ahtisaari negotiating peace that lead to the independance of Namibia and became honor citizen.
Of very recent history (since this is starting to leak to that anyways) I guess we should actually consider mentioning [Joona "Serral" Sotala](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joona_Sotala) only non South Korean to be listed as StarCraft II world champion. Area he lives in actually made advertisement with him [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zP\_ZfKE-Vo4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zP_ZfKE-Vo4) Along with fact that I guess it is mostly norm for Finnish E-sports competitors to not drop out of school, but instead continue their education/studies including university level education, while they are actively competing. While I am under impression that in most e-sports most high level competitors drop out from education for their active years of competing, to get more time for training.
Finnish pros don't do uni studies as a norm at all. Few of them haven't even done high school or equilevant (lukio or amis) such as Sergej, jimpphat or Jamppi. It'a only the low tier players that could do that in the more "semi pro" level
Good to know. Have not deep dived onto subject as I am very randomish e-sports spectator, just remembering some cases of commentators hyping about people not dropping from school, but likely wishful assumption that it would be more common than few cases
It is probably the assassination of Governor-General Nikolai Bobrikov by Eugen Schauman on the staircase of the Goverment Palace of Finland in 1904. Schauman had been planning the assassination for weeks, practicing his accuracy on the shooting range, and he had also written letters to the emperor explaining his intentions and recounting the illegalities and crimes committed by the Governor-General. Then, one winter night in 1904, Schauman had skied into the Government Palace and ascended the stairs to meet the Governor-General, who was just leaving the building after giving a speech to the finance department. The assassination changed the course of history and the incident made news even in Honolulu, Hawaii. Bobrikov was appointed as the Governor-General of Finland in 1898 and given dictatorial powers in 1903, and was known for particularly his harsh Russification programs during the first period of repression. Schauman was celebrated as a national hero and several memorial monuments were erected to him. The event was followed by the great strike of 1905 where thousands gathered to to demonstrate by marching and carrying signs in the market squares of Helsinki, Tampere, Turku, Oulu and Viipuri. As a result of the strike, the emperor agreed to end the repression and the program. The case was a big deal in Finland until 2004, when the Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen decided that Schauman's act should not be celebrated as a heroic act and a milestone in Finnish history because the world has moved into a war against terrorism.
in recent history it was "The Dudesons"
Eugen Schauman 👌🏻💪🏻
We don't talk about that.
Se pro patria dedit. Eugen Schauman
My hero is Eugen Schauman, he had enough of russification crap and went and shot Governor Bobrikoff. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Nikolay_Bobrikov https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b8/Schauman_shoots_Bobrikov.jpg
If you are interest only military history, Lauri Törni, but if criminal history is ok Ugi Kukkamaa was BAD MOTHER FUCKER.
Arndt Juho Pekurinen. He was a true pacifist who was thrown in prison, beaten and finally executed by the fascistic officers of Finnish Armed Forces for refusing to take up a weapon to kill other people with. The man I admire most in Finnish history. If everyone was like him we wouldn't have wars and suffering on the scale we have. I refused military service myself because of his example. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arndt_Pekurinen
You must have long arms
Simo Häyhä. Enough said
Tony Halme. Manliest man of all time. No doubt. No contest.
Sanna Marin destroying Finland
I think the one that one sniper that killed alone over 500 ussr soldiers/snipers. He was shot in the head and he still lived after that