Operation Stella Polaris

[1] The purpose was to enable the signals intelligence activities against the advancing Russians to continue in Sweden and to prevent the equipment falling into the hands of the Soviet Union.

[3] After the Soviet Union was ceded parts of Karelia and Salla from Finland on 19 September 1944, in accord with the Moscow Armistice, the majority of the Finnish personnel and their families returned home, except those hired by Sweden's National Defence Radio Establishment (FRA).

Large parts of the material were then stored by Carl C:son Bonde at Hörningsholm Castle, and twenty-nine boxes by Svante Påhlson [sv] at Rottneros Manor from 20 March 1945.

In the early 1960s, the secret documents from Operation Stella Polaris were burned at Lövsta garbage dump in Stockholm on the instruction of the then Director-General of FRA, Gustaf Tham, and the now-retired general Carl Ehrensvärd.

The Finnish military intelligence chief Aladár Paasonen, who together with Reino Hallamaa had the main responsibility for the operation, worked with the American forces in Germany in the mid-1950s [7] and later lived until the 1970s in the United States.