Судебные процессы о военной ответственности финских лидеров 1945–1946 гг.

1945 46 trial of Finnish leaders responsible for the Continuation War

The war responsibility trials in Finland (, Krigsansvarighetsprocessen) were trials of the Finnish wartime leaders held responsible for "definitely influencing Finland in getting into a war with the Soviet Union and United Kingdom in 1941 or preventing peace" during the Continuation War, the Finnish term for their participation in the Second World War from 1941–1944. Unlike other World War II war responsibility trials, the Finnish trials were not international. The trials were conducted from November 1945 through February 1946 by a special court consisting of the presidents of the Supreme Court of Finland, the Supreme Administrative Court of Finland, a professor from the University of Helsinki and twelve MPs appointed by the Parliament of Finland. The accused were convicted and were imprisoned until they were eventually paroled and then pardoned.

The trials were conducted in Finland under Finnish (retroactive) law with Finnish judges. The law limited criminal liability to the highest leadership; only politicians and the Finnish war time ambassador in Berlin, Toivo Mikael Kivimäki, were prosecuted. The consolidated trial started on November 15, 1945. The Allied Control Commission, which monitored the implementation of the armistice on behalf of the Allies, set up a committee to observe the trials and interfered on numerous occasions before the trials ended in February 1946.

Most Finns rejected the legitimacy of the trial, because ex post facto law was against the Finnish Constitution, and because only Finnish leaders, and not the Soviet leaders who had ordered the invasion of Finland in 1939, were held accountable for the charge of aggressive war. The lack of public support for the proceedings led to the Finnish government paroling and pardoning each of the defendants who was sentenced to imprisonment. The question as to whether Finnish officials had known about the extermination of the Jews, in the course of their collaboration with Nazi Germany, was not raised in the trial. 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.

After the Paris Peace treaty was ratified in the Soviet Union August 29, 1947, the Allied Control Commission left Finland on September 26, 1947. President Paasikivi paroled Kukkonen and Reinikka in October and Ramsay in December when they had served five sixths of their sentences. The rest were granted parole in accordance with Finnish criminal law when they had served half of their sentences. On May 19, 1949 Paasikivi pardoned Ryti, who was hospitalized (his health collapsed during the imprisonment and he remained an invalid until his death in 1956). He also pardoned Rangell, Tanner, Linkomies, and Kivimäki, who were still on parole. That day, Paasikivi wrote in his diary: "[It was] the most noble deed, I have participated in, in the last five years."