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DEFEAT IN SALLA
By Nino Oktorino
Hitler’s Northern Trouble Spot and Brigadier General Hjalmar Siilasvuo, the Finnish hero
When he launched his campaign in Russia,Hitler had worried of Soumussalmi. Feige’s objective was to capture Salla—
about the northernmost flank of that front stretched from now held by a 20,000-man Soviet garrison—then drive on
Arctic Norway across Finland to the northern reaches of to Kandalaksha, 90 miles beyond, and cut the Murmansk
Russia, an area known to cartographers as Lapland. He railroad. Siilasvuo, meanwhile, would cover Feige’s southern
feared that the British would attack this place and joined flank while leading a Finnish advance on the railroad at
with the Russian from Murmansk to severing German Loukhi, 70 miles inside Soviet territory. Feige had 40,600
lines with northern Finland and captured Petsamo and German troops for his part of the operations, including an
the Swedish iron mines just east of Narvik. To prevent it, elite SS-Kampfgruppe ‘Nord’. He also commanded 12,000
Hitler called for operation that would stop the Murmansk men of the Finnish 6th Division. Siilasvuo commanded the
railroad to become a dangerous spot for his position. Finnish III Corps, numbering another 12,000 men.
The German High Command created two operations General Feige planned a four-pronged assault on Salla.
to sever the Murmansk railroad. One of them dubbed as One of his German regiments was to advance along the
Polar Fox. According this plan, two division launched from Kandalaksha-Salla road for a direct attack on the garrison
the town of Rovaniemi in central Finland would strike the there; two more regiments would swing around Salla to hit
Soviet strong point at Salla, then advance on the railhead it from the north, and Kampfgruppe ‘Nord’ would attack
at Kandalaksha, 220 miles south of Murmansk. As part of from the south. Meanwhile, the Finnish 6th Division would
the same operation, another two divisions—both of them cross the Russian front 45 miles south of Salla and try to
Finnish—would simultaneously cross the border to the take the enemy from the rear.
south, one to help in the attack on Salla, and the other to The undertaking got off to a poor start. The only one
cut the railroad at Loukhi. of Fiege’s groups that made any progress at all was the
The operation command was given to Generalleutenant northern group, which advanced through the forest and got
Hans Feige, a career officer with four decades’ experience, about three miles into Soviet territory. The frontal attack
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