The Luftwaffe had four operational fields in the Mountain Corps Norway sector. They were located at Kirkenes in Norway, and at Luostari, Salmijärvi, and Nautsi in Finland. A forward headquarters for the 5th Air Fleet was established at Kemi.
SEVEN
ABORTED PLANS AND DASHED HOPES, 1941–42
There is considerable disagreement in the sources when it comes to Finnish views on interdicting the Murmansk Railroad. On some issues they are absolutely contradictory. General Erfurth, for example, writes that the issue between the German and Finnish high commands was not over the question of whether to attack the Murmansk Railroad but over how best to do it. This may have been true in the beginning but it changed drastically during the course of the war. In his memoirs Marshal Mannerheim wrote: “I had never intended to continue the advance from the Maaselkä Isthmus towards the Murmansk railway.”1 It is hard to square this statement with what follows below.
Operations against the Murmansk Railroad were agreed to during the planning leading up to war and were one of the issues discussed by Mannerheim and General Jodl when the latter visited Finland on September 4, 1941. Mannerheim opined that the simplest solution would be to reinforce General Siilasvuo’s III Corps and send it against Loukhi. After capturing that town General Siilasvuo should advance north to Kandalaksha and roll up its defenses from the south since General Dietl’s Mountain Corps Norway needed that railroad north of Kandalaksha for supplies after it reached Murmansk.2
On September 23, 1941, Field Marshal Keitel wrote a letter to Mannerheim where he stated, “The Führer is adamant about the goal of such operations being the Murmansk Railroad. The enemy along the route must be annihilated and the Murmansk area captured.”3 Keitel goes on to explain that Hitler feared that a British or Canadian force could establish itself in the Murmansk area and bring in large quantities of war matériel.4
In a very detailed answer on September 25, Mannerheim explained his intentions for the winter. For Finland, the most important goal in the near future was to capture and secure Petrozavodsk. Furthermore the northern flank had to be secured and this could be accomplished best at Medvezhyegorsk. He did not see possibilities for any far-ranging operations before winter but indicated that he should be able to concentrate eight or nine brigades for other operations after the fall of Leningrad. Mannerheim suggested that the attack by these brigades should have as their first objective Belomorsk (obviously from the Maaselkä area) and Kem thereby cutting the railroad between Murmansk and Archangel, completely isolating enemy forces to the north. He goes on to suggest that irrespective of whether the Murmansk Railroad was first reached via Kandalaksha or Loukhi, the troops should facilitate the advances in neighboring sectors by advancing along the railroad.5
This proposal certainly belies Mannerheim’s later claim, above, that he never intended to advance against the Murmansk Railroad from Maaselkä. Mannerheim’s proposal that the operational objective of the Finns should be Belomorsk became the dominating element in future German–Finnish discussions involving the interdiction of the Murmansk Railroad.
Marshal Mannerheim’s proposal of September 25, 1941, for a winter offensive against Belomorsk on the Murmansk Railroad may have been intended to soften the blow of his refusal to continue the offensives over the Svir River and across the border on the Karelian Isthmus. He also proposed that the Finnish and German troops in III Finnish Corps be exchanged and that the advance towards Loukhi and Kandalaksha be continued. The whole proposal was neatly tied to German success at Leningrad by stating that the brigades would be available after that city had been captured.6
Erfurth, who devotes considerable space to Mannerheim’s proposal, writes:
It is greatly to be deplored that the OKW did not adopt the proposal of the Finnish Commander-in-Chief. Now would have been the moment for Mannerheim, at the request of the Germans, to take supreme command within the whole area of Finland’s war operations and thereupon carry his plan to completion. It can be asserted with great probability that the German goal of controlling the whole Murmansk Railway would thus have been achieved and the war in the North would have taken a different course.7
The OKW, as indicated below, showed great interest in Mannerheim’s proposal. However, Erfurth fails to note that its preconditions were that the Germans first capture Leningrad and link up with the Finns along the Svir River. So, what is the meaning of Erfurth “deploring” that OKW did not adopt Mannerheim’s proposal? He was probably referring to the command relationships in Finland. To understand this we have to move forward six weeks to a meeting between Generals Warlimont, Buschenhagen, and Erfurth in Helsinki on November 15 and 16, 1941.8 The idea of offering Mannerheim the overall command in Finland was discussed. This is probably what led Erfurth to bring up the subject in a meeting with Mannerheim on November 20, 1941.
Erfurth writes that Mannerheim maintained at this meeting that the whole front from the Svir River to the arctic should be considered a single front and be under a single commander. Taking advantage of this opening, Erfurth proposed that the logical solution was to place the German Lapland Army (newly renamed from the Army of Norway) under Marshal Mannerheim. According to Erfurth, Mannerheim agreed enthusiastically and underscored that he did not do so from personal ambition but on practical grounds.9
It strikes me as odd that Mannerheim would now “enthusiastically” support a proposal that he had rejected five months earlier on the grounds that he would come too much under the control of the Germans. That situation had not changed. It is particularly surprising that he would do so after Finland had received warnings three weeks earlier from the US—amounting to a virtual ultimatum—to refrain from attacking shipments to the Soviet Union from “territory under Finnish control.” I believe that his decisions to take III Corps from German control, and for removing German units from Finnish commands, were largely influenced by the US note. If he ended up commanding all forces in Finland, including those trying to capture or isolate Murmansk, he could not escape the charge that the attacks were made from Finnish-controlled territory. On the other hand, a German attack on the Murmansk Railroad by forces not under his command would give him a thin fig leaf of protection.
The proposal in Mannerheim’s letter of September 25, 1941 did cause great interest in the OKW since it offered the prospect of restarting offensives against the Murmansk Railroad that had stalled in the Army of Norway sector. The German agreement is reflected in Führer Directive 37 on October 10.10 While the directive ended the Army of Norway summer offensive, it directed General Falkenhorst to prepare a winter offensive against Kandalaksha in conjunction with a Finnish offensive against Belomorsk and possibly Loukhi.
As opposed to the OKW, the Army of Norway was very cool to the idea of a winter offensive. It pointed out that conducting a winter offensive with the regular infantry divisions at its disposal would not be possible. Falkenhorst insisted that he needed at least two German mountain divisions and one or two Finnish brigades. OKW tried to accommodate Falkenhorst by offering him the 5th and 7th Mountain Divisions. One of these divisions was in Crete and the other was still being organized in Germany. OKW requested two brigades from Mannerheim. Finally, Falkenhorst was directed to begin training his existing units in winter warfare.
The perennial transportation problems that plagued the war in Finland soon made themselves felt and it became impossible to carry out the plan. The problems with the Finnish railroads ruled out bringing in more than one of the two mountain divisions and it would not be in place before the end of March 1942. Since March 1 was considered the latest starting date for the offensive in order to avoid the spring thaw, Falkenhorst concluded that the operation could not be carried out.