In the shadow of war

Black-and-white photograph of a street filled with thick smoke. A police officer in a dark uniform is standing in the middle, surrounded by urban buildings.

Military police officer looking at damaged buildings after an aerial bombardment of Vyborg. Unknown photographer. © Lappeenranta Museums.

Black-and-white photograph of damaged wooden buildings. Collapsed roof structures and metal covering are hanging down. An old car is standing on the left.

Destruction in Kouvola during the Winter War. The police station at the corner of Valtakatu and Tunnelikatu was hit by a bomb on 29.2.1940. ©Poikilo Museums.

Black-and-white photograph in which two police officers put sandbags in a pile in front of a window as protection. A third policeman is standing on the left watching them work.

Protecting the windows of a police station in Helsinki, 1.10.1939. © SA-kuva, Finnish Wartime Photograph Archive. Unknown photographer.

Black-and-white photograph of a uniformed police officer with a small child in his arms. Smiling women in the background.

Evacuees in Kotka and Heinola, 1.11.1939. ©SA-kuva, Finnish Wartime Photograph Archive. Unknown photographer.

Black-and-white photograph in which a uniformed police officer is talking with a man outdoors. Both have papers in their hands, and a suitcase is standing on the ground beside the man. There is a car in the background.

Police officer examining identity documents. Helsinki 3.7.1941.© SA-kuva, Finnish Wartime Photograph Archive. Photograph by Partanen.

Police conducting a raid in a cafeteria in Helsinki. ©SA-kuva, Finnish Wartime Photograph Archive. Photograph by Military Official Hedenström.

Black-and-white photograph in which two uniformed police officers inspect the documents of individuals seated at tables. A woman is sitting on the right, a man on the left.

Black-and-white photograph of a street filled with thick smoke. A police officer in a dark uniform is standing in the middle, surrounded by urban buildings.
Black-and-white photograph of damaged wooden buildings. Collapsed roof structures and metal covering are hanging down. An old car is standing on the left.
Black-and-white photograph in which two police officers put sandbags in a pile in front of a window as protection. A third policeman is standing on the left watching them work.
Black-and-white photograph of a uniformed police officer with a small child in his arms. Smiling women in the background.
Black-and-white photograph in which a uniformed police officer is talking with a man outdoors. Both have papers in their hands, and a suitcase is standing on the ground beside the man. There is a car in the background.
Police conducting a raid in a cafeteria in Helsinki. ©SA-kuva, Finnish Wartime Photograph Archive. Photograph by Military Official Hedenström.

During the Second World War, Finland fought three wars: the Winter War from 1939 to 1940, the Continuation War from 1941 to 1944 against the Soviet Union, and the Lapland War from 1944 to 1945 against Germany. Finland had different allies in each of these wars, but the greatest battles on the Karelian Isthmus. More than 90,000 Finnish soldiers died, and a similar number of them were permanently disabled. About a thousand civilians lost their lives as the Soviets bombed Finnish towns and carried out partisan attacks.

During the Winter War, when Turku was declared a war zone, the police in the area were transferred to the Defence Forces. The distinction between the military and civilian police can sometimes be hard to define. The military police included many people with police backgrounds, whose experience in police work was considered particularly valuable. It is worth noting that the military police, on the other hand, operate in peacetime as part of the Finnish Defence Forces and are not part of the wartime discussion.

Police work during the war

In the evening of 12 October 1941, Constable Tauno Kuusaro went on a mission to the Tohmajärvi civil guard. He was accompanied by Extra Constable Vihtori Pajarinen. They had been dispatched because a group of drunk men were causing a disturbance in a café near the civil guard building. When the police arrived, the group had already left, but after a while a few soldiers arrived. One of them wanted to talk to Kuusaro about something that had happened earlier, and they went to the civil guard building to talk.

As the men entered the building, the soldier opened fire on Kuusaro with a Mauser pistol. During the struggle that followed the first shot, he fired several more times, also trying to shoot Constable Pajari. Kuusaro died of his injuries. He had been a police officer since 1930 and was survived by his wife and three young children.

This incident took place in the middle of the bloodiest war, when Finland was fighting the Soviet Union. A large proportion of the male population was serving in the armed forces, and soldiers were constantly being killed and wounded on the front. Kuusaro’s death is characterised by similar elements to many other police killings in the history of independent Finland. The use of alcohol, an apparently illegal weapon, and an unexpected situation where violence against the police was not expected. The dangers of police work were thus unchanged, even though the nation was in throes of war.

The dangers of war were reflected on police officers and citizens alike.  The basic duty of the police was the same in peacetime as in wartime: to prevent and solve crimes. Wartime introduced a new kind of crime to society, and the police had to adapt to the new environment. The biggest change was the number of young men entering the armed forces and going into combat. The people who committed the most crime in civil society were suddenly posted elsewhere. At the beginning of the Winter War in particular, this was borne out by the crime statistics, as the number of crimes fell sharply. As men came home from the front on leave, a renewed increase in crime followed in their wake.

New tasks during the war

One of the new tasks of the police during the war was to monitor blackouts. Cities were blacked out so that Soviet aircraft could not see them, either to bomb them or to use them as navigational aids. Rationing was introduced. This meant that you could only buy a limited amount of certain products, such as coffee, if it was available. This created a black market, where goods were sold outside the rationing system. The police were kept busy by evacuating the population from cities and sounding the air raid sirens. In addition, the police were responsible for the damage caused by bombings and for determining the cause of death of civilians who died in the bombings. Crimes that were unrelated to the war also occurred, and the police had to find the time to solve them.

During the Winter War, police officers were exempt from service. If a police officer wanted to go to the front, they had to resign without any guarantee of returning to the job after the war. During the Continuation War, it was possible for police officers to return to their old posts after fighting on the front. The ongoing war affected the police’s tasks. For example, the police spent considerable time and effort searching for paratroopers and deserters hiding on the home front. Due to the large number of people arriving on leave, police officers patrolled the roads and trains. Train patrols were dangerous, as many of the men returning from the front had drunk alcohol and often had a knife or other weapon at their disposal. This led to the deaths of several police officers.

Police casualties on the home front

One of the deadliest moments for the Finnish police occurred on 17 February 1940, when the Soviet Union sent 33 bombers to bombard Iisalmi. A firebomb hit a police station, killing five officers: Senior Constable Eino Ollikainen, Junior Constable Taimi Aulis Karhulahti, Junior Constable Oskari Turunen, Extra Constable Aku Laitinen and Reserve Constable Pekka Kokkonen. During the Winter War, Iisalmi was heavily bombed and a total of 42 Finns died there.

The National Archive’s database of the Finnish war dead from 1939 to 1945 contains 141 names with the word police associated with their duties. Of course, this is not a comprehensive list of the police officers who died in the war, but it does give an educated estimate of how many civilian police officers died during the Winter, Continuation and Lapland wars.

During the wars, police officers died on the home front in tasks such as subduing drunks, arresting deserters, and tracking and apprehending paratroopers. On the front, those with a police background died from the same causes as other Finnish soldiers: explosives and shrapnel from artillery and mortars, bullets from rifles and other weapons, and other lethal causes. Some of them were permanently lost, but most of them were brought back to Finland for burial in heroes’ graves.

After the end of the war, it was difficult for many soldiers to return to peacetime life. This would be reflected in the police work in the following years, as alcohol and weapons were plentiful among men returning from the fronts. The fate of Constable Tauno Kuusaro in 1941, killed by a drunk and armed assailant, was sadly not just an isolated incident in the history of the Finnish police. The war took the lives of many people with a police background, but in relation to the huge number of casualties, the police made the same sacrifice as other professions in Finland.