Wednesday, June 5, 2013

Alternative pack animals

Since we somewhat at random have started a series on alternate military animals,  Here is another one.

This one comes from an interesting set of new photos from Finland in World War 2.  So the pack reindeer is not a gimmick.

Note that the Finish were first invaded by the Soviet Union, than participated with the Germans in their invasion (or from a Finnish point of view counter-invasion) of the Soviet Union, and than got into a fight with the Germans when they switched sides late in the war.

Finland in World War II  (hat tip: MR)



While the Finish government of the time, was modeled somewhat along a fascist line, with the exception of 8 Jewish refugees handed over to the Germans, they appear to have treated Jewish refugees well, and their own (mostly Swedish speaking) Jewish population fought in the ranks of their armed forces.

2 comments:

PioneerPreppy said...

Ya Finland managed itself pretty well for being in between a rock and a hard place during WWII. Had a friend that lived there for a few years fairly recently and he said the people are actually more strange than they let on. Not sure exactly what he meant but I know he wasn't impressed enough to stay long.

russell1200 said...

Pioneer: Known some latter day hippy types who went there. They seemed to come away with difficult to explain mixed emotions.