“Very rare video”

I recently found some twenty hours of Finnish war newsreels on the web, and I’m going to write under their pretext some posts on the Finnish life around the Winter War. I expect the help of those readers of Río Wang who understand Finnish/Estonian. While doing background research on the newsreels, I have found the following short film which sheds a striking light on how the great powers considered the geopolitical situation of our region.

Fashion show of Finnish ladies, December 1940

When speaking about Finland, the Winter War is an unavoidable topic. I have been collecting material on this, especially from the point of view that the Western world let down the Finns in November 1939 exactly in the same way as they did to the Poles two months earlier. This is how I have found the following short film which thoroughly startled me.

 

This U.S. film can be viewed on Youtube. In summary, it describes the attack against the Finnish people, some well-known Finnish personalities speak to the Americans, then briefly presents the geographical and other conditions, and finally the former President of U.S. Hoover speaks.

During the presentation of the geographical conditions you can see the following map.

Yes, you see it well. According to this map, which – presumably – presents the situation of December 1939, still exists Austria, occupied in 1938, Czechoslovakia, broken up into a Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia and a pro-Nazi Slovakia, as well as Poland, crushed into the status of a General Government.

And on this same map there exists no Hungary: its place is occupied by a gigantic Yugoslavia. True, there is no Portugal and Albania either. How fortunate that at least in the case of Finland it accurately indicates the boundaries before the Winter War.

 

Among many other reasons, similarly “accurate” maps also played their role in the post-WWI peace treaties whose anniversary has just been in June. And it seems that the job was and has remained relevant: plotting ourselves on the map.