A Finnish general at the boundary of war and diplomacy
In midsummer 1941 Mannerheim entrusted Finland's largest-ever field force, the 100,000-strong Army of Karelia, to Heinrichs for the advance toward the Svir River and Lake Onega.
Erik Heinrichs was a Finnish military commander who worked closely with Mannerheim across battlefield command and general-staff planning. After directing the defence of the Karelian Isthmus in the Winter War, he helped coordinate military cooperation with Germany in 1941 and then led the Army of Karelia in Finland’s offensive. The Weapons Cache Case ended his postwar command career, but he remained active as a military expert, taking part in the 1948 Moscow negotiations and writing a major two-volume biography of Mannerheim.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1915–1918Trained in Germany as a Finnish Jäger and fought on the Eastern Front
- 1918Commanded the 7th Jäger Battalion in the Finnish Civil War
- 1931–1938Commander of the 1st Division
- 1939–1940Commanded III Corps and the Army of the Karelian Isthmus in the Winter War
- 1940–1941Chief of the General Staff and participant in military talks with Germany in 1941
- 1941–1942Commander of the Army of Karelia during the offensive in East Karelia
- 1942–1944Chief of the General Staff, overseeing wartime coordination with German forces
- 1945Commander-in-Chief of the Finnish Defence Forces, resigning after the Weapons Cache Case
Related historical events
- 1914–1918First World WarFinnish Jäger who fought on the Eastern FrontFrom 1915 to 1918, he trained in Germany and fought on the Eastern Front.
- 1939.11–1940.03The Winter WarCommander of the Army of KareliaTook part in the Salzburg and Berlin staff talks that coordinated Operation Barbarossa with Finnish operations.
Commander-in-Chief in 1945 and the Weapons Cache Case
In January 1945 Mannerheim appointed Heinrichs as his successor as commander of the armed forces, an office he held from 31 December 1944 to 30 June 1945. The new commander faced the Lapland War, demobilisation, mine clearance and the military rearrangement of the borders. The Weapons Cache Case, which came to light in spring 1945, was added to that list and ended his military career that summer.
The cache was a secret operation to store weapons in scattered hiding places across the country so that guerrilla warfare would be possible if the Soviet Union occupied Finland. Its official name was dispersed storage, and the press coined the term weapons cache. It was carried out on the orders and under the direction of the high command by officers in the 37 civil guard districts; stores were ultimately laid for roughly 35,000 soldiers, against an original plan of about 8,000. The case broke open in spring 1945 when Lauri Kumpulainen, a left-wing soldier who had taken part in the storage, was caught in Oulu, and on 3 June the Allied Control Commission sent the Finnish government a sharply worded letter demanding a rapid investigation.
Prime Minister Juho Kusti Paasikivi and the ministers of the communist-led Finnish People's Democratic League, Mauno Pekkala and Yrjö Leino, held that Heinrichs had to resign. President Mannerheim also recommended resignation while promising support if Heinrichs decided to stay in office. Heinrichs sent Mannerheim a letter asking to resign; he was 55 at the time.
On the Control Commission's demand the civil guard organisation had already been dissolved in November 1944 as a fascist body, and for the cache a retroactive special law was introduced in August 1946 and passed by parliament on 14 January 1947 by 118 votes to 68. Trials began with the high command branch on 28 March 1947 and closed on 9 April 1948, almost two years after the storage was uncovered. Higher officers held in Helsinki's Sörnäinen prison were jokingly called the "Sörnäinen general staff", and the most senior officer detained, Lieutenant General A. F. Airo, was held for two years and eight months without sentence. The Supreme Court raised the sentences of 698 people on 15 March 1950, and 1,488 people were punished in the case in all.