War-responsibility trials in Finland

[1] The Moscow Armistice, signed September 19, 1944, contained the following Article 13: Finland undertakes to collaborate with the Allied powers in the apprehension of persons accused of war crimes and in their trial.

The law limited criminal liability to the highest leadership; only politicians and the Finnish war-time ambassador in Berlin, Toivo Mikael Kivimäki, were prosecuted.

In his private notes Zhdanov wrote: "If Tanner is removed, the Social Democratic Party will shatter..." thus opening the road to Communist control of the left.

While Finland managed to prevent the deportation and murder of almost all of its Jews during the war, the question as to whether the Finnish state knew about the Holocaust continues to be controversial inside the country.

President Paasikivi complained to his aide that the convictions handed down in the Trials were one of the biggest stumbling blocks to improving relations between Finland and the Soviet Union.

[6] After the Paris Peace treaty was ratified in the Soviet Union August 29, 1947, the Allied Control Commission left Finland on September 26, 1947.