Plans on establishing Institute of Finland in Berlin during the Continuation War

Authors

• Tomi Mertanen

Abstract

Finland and Nazi-Germany had very close-knit ties during the Second World War. Co-operation between these two countries were particularly intense in culture. Due to this, Finland started planning establishing the Finnish Institute in Berlin in 1940. The aim of this article is to explore how and why this project was started, who were involved in it, what were the motives behind it and what was the outcome. This article is based mainly on archive material and press articles from both the countries. It is obvious that Finland tried to benefit from the good relationship between the countries by establishing the institute because it could have had a positive influence on the political relationship.