Today’s #stampoftheday honors a “champion of liberty,” who, among others things, was

• a Russian military officer who loved Tsar Nicholas II,
• a spy who met the 13th Dalai Lama,
• the commander of the “White Guard” in Finland’s civil war,
• a statesman who got the US and Great Britain to recognize Finnish independence,
• the leader of the Finnish forces that fought against a Soviet invasion of their country
• the leader of the Finnish forces that, with assistance from Nazi Germany, invaded the Soviet Union
• the recipient of the Iron Cross, the highest military honor given by Nazi Germany
• the president of Finland, and
• the person voted the “greatest Finn of all time” in a poll taken in 2004, 53 years after his death.

And if that isn’t enough, he’s the person speaking with Adolph Hitler in the only known recording of Hitler having a conversation (as opposed to giving a speech).

All this seems implausible and yet it’s all true. In fact, it feels like it would take a scorecard – and a program – to keep track of the many things done by Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim, who was portrayed on 4- and 8-cent stamps issued on October 26, 1960. The stamps were part of a series honoring nine foreign “Champions of Liberty” series issued by the US as part of propaganda efforts against the Soviet Union.

So let’s go through the list. Mannerheim, who was born at a time when Finland was part of the Russian empire, became an officer in the Imperial Russian Army. He apparently played a prominent role in the ceremonies for Tsar Nicholas II’s coronation in 1896 and later had several private meetings with the Tsar. (Mannerheim always kept a portrait of Nicholas in his living room, because, he would explain, “He was my emperor”)

In the early 1900s, Mannerheim, disguised as an ethnographic collector, was sent by the Russians to spy on China, where, among other things he met with the 13th Dalai Lama. He was Russian Lt. General during World War I, but, after the tsar was overthrown in early 1917, he resigned and returned to Finland, which declared its independence in November after the Bolshevik revolution in Russia. The new country was soon became embroiled in civil war and in early 1918, Mannerheim took command of the so-called conservative “White” troops that ultimately defeated the pro-Bolshevik “Reds.”

In 1918, after the fall of the pro-German Finnish monarchy (which was headed by the Kaiser’s brother-in-law), Mannerheim became the country’s regent. In that position, he had played a major role in getting the US and Great Britain to recognize Finnish independence. But he lost a bid to become the country’s president and withdrew from public life.

But in the 1930s, he reemerged on defense issues. In late 1939, after the Soviet Union invaded Finland, Mannerheim, who was 72, again became the nation’s top general, leading Finland’s 346,000-strong army went up against almost three times as many Russians. While the Soviets suffered extensive losses in the first few months of the “Winter War” by February they were starting to steadily gain ground. Not wanting to incur more losses, they instead agreed to end the war after Finland agreed to cede ceded about 11 percent of its land, in a region that had produced about 30 percent of the country’s economic output.

In June 1941, when Nazi Germany attacked the USSR, Finnish troops, with help from the Germans, launched an offensive against the Soviet Union and together they not only retook the land ceded a year earlier but also pressed forward. It’s clear the Nazi’s thought highly of the Finns and Mannerheim, who was given the Iron Cross, Nazi Germany’s highest military honor.
While welcoming the support, Mannerheim also tried to keep the Germans at a distance. As Farah Halime wrote in a piece on OZY, since the “only way to save Finland from Stalin’s tyranny was to ally himself with the Nazis…Mannerheim played a delicate balancing game of keeping his troops strong while cordially courting Hitler’s favor without a formal alliance.”

That didn’t stop the Nazis from seeking more. June 1942, Hitler made a surprise visit to Finland for Mannerheim’s 72nd birthday, which was being celebrated across the country. Since he didn’t want the trip to have the aura of an official state visit, Mannerheim met him in a railroad car parked at a siding in southeastern Finland.

The visit was especially notable because it resulted in the only known recording of Hitler speaking privately. Made by an engineer with the Finnish broadcasting company, the recording only lasted for 11 minutes before Hitler’s SS guards saw the wires and made him stop. But for some reason, they did not the tape, which was kept in a sealed container until 1957.

In the recording, Hitler admits that he underestimated the Soviet Union: “If someone had told me that a country could start with 35,000 tanks, then I’d have said, ‘You are crazy!”” Hitler also conceded that the German army was ill-prepared for the Russian winter, noting: “Our whole armament, you know, is a pure good weather armament….Our weapons were naturally made for the West…and it was the opinion from the earliest of times: you cannot wage war in winter.” And Hitler bemoaned the “weakness of Italy,” which had forced Germany to divert three divisions and some airplanes from the planned invasion to helping Italian troops maintain control of North Africa, Albania, and Greece. Despite all these obstacles, Hitler said he always knew that Germany would go to war against the Soviet Union, which, he believed, also wanted to rule all of Europe. Moreover, he said he had to attack before the Russians captured oil fields in Romania, which Hitler believed would have been a death blow for Nazi Germany.

We don’t know what else the two leaders discussed and what agreements they reached. We do know that Germany and Finland remained allied in some fashion until the summer of 1944, when the tide had turned. In June, the Soviet Union launched attacks on the Finnish forces which fell back but then were able to halt Soviet advance. In August, the Finnish government fell and Mannerheim, who was 77, agreed to became president. A month later, he signed an agreement ending the fighting in which Finland ceded even more territory to the Soviet Union and agreed to other harsh conditions. But it retained its sovereignty, something that Mannerheim and those who succeeded him after he resigned in 1946, were able to protect even as the Soviet Union installed puppet regimes throughout eastern Europe.

By the time he died in 1951, Mannerheim was a national hero, respected for his role in creating Finland and then in keeping it from falling under the control of Hitler or Stalin. That reputation has continued: in a poll taken in 2004, Finns voted him the greatest Finn of all time.

Taken as a whole, it’s a pretty amazing tale, isn’t it?

Be well, stay safe, fight for justice and work for peace.