- Kurt Martti Wallenius
Kurt Martti Wallenius (born
July 25 1893 inKuopio - diedMay 3 1984 inHelsinki ) was a FinnishMajor General .Wallenius was a member of the
Finnish Jäger troops trained inGermany prior to Finnish independence. In 1915 Wallenius travelled toGermany where he enrolled in the Royal Prussian 27th Jäger Battalion. He took part in the battles on theMisse River .After returning to Finland Wallenius took part in the
Finnish Civil War of 1918 on the side of the anti-Communist Whites. He commanded aplatoon inTervola andTornio . In Lapland Wallenius met reindeer herderAleksis Hihnavaara , with whom he travelled around Lapland and became good friends. He was later appointed the commander of the troops aroundKuolajärvi andKuusamo . Here he was given the command of the northern group in the failedViena expedition in March 1918 which tried to annex parts ofEast Karelia to Finland.After the Civil War Wallenius commanded the troops in North-Western Finland, the Salla Regiment and the 1st Border Guard Regiment of Lapland. In the 1920s he was briefly made a military attaché in
Berlin . In 1930 Wallenius was promoted to the rank ofMajor General . However, he was forced to retire in that year when he was implicated in the kidnapping of the former President of the Republic Kaarlo Ståhlberg, though he finally was acquitted of all charges.In the 1930s Wallenius became involved in right-wing activities, becoming the secretary-general of the
Lapua movement . In this capacity he was involved in the so-calledMäntsälä rebellion . Wallenius was imprisoned twice for a total of over one year.In the
Winter War Wallenius commanded the Finnish troops in Lapland. When theWinter War began, theCommander-in-Chief of Finnish troops Mannerheim appointed Wallenius as the commander of theLapland Group . The troops under his command, though outnumbered, repulsed Soviet troops atSalla andPetsamo . Once the front in Lapland had stabilized, Wallenius handed the command over to Swedish volunteers underLieutenant General Ernst Linder in February 1940. Wallenius and most of his troops were sent to the southermost point of the front to western shore of the Bay of Viipuri, where theRed Army had crossed the frozen gulf. Wallenius protested this new assignment, thinking he was being punished for his past sins. The situation was critical and terrain totally different from what Wallenius and his men were used to. Wallenius failed to prevent theRed Army from gaining a foothold from the western shore of the bay, and there were reports that he was drinking heavily. Wallenius was dishonorably discharged in early March 1940, only after three days in command, and replaced byLieutenant General Karl Lennart Oesch . Wallenius was removed from the Defence Forces officer lists.Once the
Continuation War began in June 1941, Wallenius failed to get a command. He lived in retirement inRovaniemen maalaiskunta writing books and articles.
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