"German" army uniforms; Finnish Civil War photo

[apple]

Apologies to the moderators for the cross post. I am also posting this photo in the Eastern Front thread. If you want to merge them/ I'm breaking the rules, I understand.

The caption for the photo, in the book this comes from, labels the soldiers in this photo as "German soldiers". This is not beyond the realms of possibility as there were German soldiers in the vicinity of these girls when they were captured.

Finnish White guards, who had no set uniform, would be the other option.

I'm not an expert on late war, this photo is from approx. 1/5/1918, German uniforms. Further complicating matters would be that it would be (theoretically) possible that Finnish White Guards would be wearing German uniforms.

But yes, are any of the 3 soldiers in the photo wearing German uniforms?

[MartH]

Hi Apple, could you place the image at a higher resolution on photo sharing site, I would like to look at the armbands, it might be the Suojeluskunta. It certainly looks like Finland, where was the picture taken please, and which book? I plan to look at my collection of Finnish Civil War books, including the 6 volume Official History. As you no doubt might be aware the people in the "German" army uniforms might be Finnish Jaegers.

Or PM me.

Regards

Mart

[AOK4]

Hello,

The two soldiers with the helmet and the guy on the left with the peaked cap are Germans. I see the picture is taken at Hauho? There were German troops there (some have been killed in the fighting and are buried there, IIRC).

The guy on the right with the white armband and the cap is a Finnish soldier of the White army.

Regards,

Jan

[AOK4]

Hello,

The ladies were from a women company of Valkeakoski Red Guard. Quite a few were killed on May 1, 1918 near Hauho. There's a mass grave and a memorial there: http://www.hamewiki.fi/wiki/Valkeakosken_naiskomppanian_hauta

I checked again and there are no Germans buried in Hauho. They were definitely engaged in the area though (Hämeenlinna, Syrjäntaka etc.)

Kind regards,

Jan

[apple]

Hi Apple, could you place the image at a higher resolution on photo sharing site, I would like to look at the armbands, it might be the Suojeluskunta. It certainly looks like Finland, where was the picture taken please, and which book? I plan to look at my collection of Finnish Civil War books, including the 6 volume Official History. As you no doubt might be aware the people in the "German" army uniforms might be Finnish Jaegers.

Or PM me.

Regards

Hello,

The two soldiers with the helmet and the guy on the left with the peaked cap are Germans. I see the picture is taken at Hauho? There were German troops there (some have been killed in the fighting and are buried there, IIRC).

The guy on the right with the white armband and the cap is a Finnish soldier of the White army.

Regards,

Jan

________________________________________________

Mart,

Sorry. MartH, I had a great deal of trouble trying to paste that photo here. So, I'm not going to try to do it again. I can be found at

https://tampub.uta.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/80678/gradu04132.pdf?sequence=1

As part of Ms. Varpu Anttonen Master's Thesis. The photo is on p.64. The book is in Finnish. The photo was apparently taken in a place called Syrjäntaka.

___________________

Jan,

Yes, Hauho, Tuulos and Syrjäntaka are all very close to each other and the battle passed through there very quickly.

Antony

P.S. Edited to add. There were German soldiers killed in that area at that time. If you'd like, I could try and find where/ when.

[AOK4]

There was very heavy fighting in and near Syrjäntaka where German troops (the Saxon Karabinier-Regiment) were greatly outnumbered by the Finnish Red Guard.

[bob lembke]

The photo was strangely moving to me, despite not knowing the background, when I came across it in the other post, in the "Eastern Front" section, and not seeing the material in this thread, I briefly posted a question about the background of the picture. When I realized that they were captured Red Guard women soldiers, I realized that they were in a very bad place, and when I read the posted Finnish Wikipedia article I realized that some or all of them were to be killed. My father fought thru the Great War in Turkey and then France, and often told me that it was the best years of his life (despite being wounded four times and contracting malaria in Turkey, and other indignities), but he fought in the civil war in Berlin in 1919 and did not like it at all. He and others shot 26 Red sailors who had come to Berlin to forward the Revolution, out of a group of 300 prisoners. Among other things they had come to Berlin to try to capture and kill my grand-father's commander, General von Beseler.

 

Civil wars are not fun, generally.

[apple]

2 hours ago, bob lembke said:

The photo was strangely moving to me, despite not knowing the background, when I came across it in the other post, in the "Eastern Front" section, and not seeing the material in this thread, I briefly posted a question about the background of the picture. When I realized that they were captured Red Guard women soldiers, I realized that they were in a very bad place, and when I read the posted Finnish Wikipedia article I realized that some or all of them were to be killed. My father fought thru the Great War in Turkey and then France, and often told me that it was the best years of his life (despite being wounded four times and contracting malaria in Turkey, and other indignities), but he fought in the civil war in Berlin in 1919 and did not like it at all. He and others shot 26 Red sailors who had come to Berlin to forward the Revolution, out of a group of 300 prisoners. Among other things they had come to Berlin to try to capture and kill my grand-father's commander, General von Beseler.

 

Civil wars are not fun, generally.

 

If Jan, and the book the photo was taken from, are correct (which I have no reason to doubt) those 15 to 23 year old "women" were the Sääksmäki (/Valkeakoski) Red Guard's Womens Company.

 

Can't get multi-quote to work on this computer, but if MartH is still reading this, theoretically the Suojeluskunta hadn't formed by May 1918. So, it's not really an accurate term to use. Also, the White Guard had Jääkäri Brigades, during the Civil War. Only a minority of the personel of those brigades were, German trained, jääkäri. So, that's also a bit of a problematic term that you might want to be a bit more specific about when you use it.

 

Only really started this thread as suspected the author of the book may have just decided that the soldiers in the photo were German due to them having uniforms. As Mart was infering uniforms weren't uncommon for the Finnish White Guards and the photo provides some evidence that, at least some, of the Red Guards had (Russian) uniforms too.

 

Presume the photo taken purely for that reason i.e. Red Guard women wearing Russian uniforms, as well as, trousers.

[bob lembke]

This posting is to bring this thread to the fore, I found it seven pages back. Unfortunately no photo here, seemingly the photo was in the Eastern Front sub-forum.