Scandinavia and the World
Scandinavia and the World

Comments #9503900:


Be careful what you say 14 7, 9:25am

@real-cool-cat
I never said you're an evil Nazi. I never said you are a Nazi at all. I never said Finland used to be a Nazi state or have a Nazi government. All I said about that subject was that we were allied with Germany which was ruled by Nazis.

Now, what exactly is the practicable difference between an ally and a brother in arm? What is the difference between being allied to Germany and being co-belligerent with them? Alliances are not exactly dependent on ideologies, as capitalist America had no problem allying itself with communist Russia and calling it an ally. One difference is that co-belligerence sounds so much better politically. Being allied with Nazi Germany doesn't sound all that good - you immediately thought I was calling you a Nazi when I said we were allies with the Germans. A brother in arms, however, has a completely different ring to it. It means we can say we were not allied with the Nazis despite doing pretty much everything allies do, but because it's technically not an alliance it is somehow more okay.

Well, I don't really see it that way: if it looks like an alliance, sounds like an alliance and works like an alliance, it might as well be called an alliance. Yes, we took whatever help we could. Yes, we did it to further our own goals. Yes. those goals differed from German goals. No, I don't see that making us not allied with Germany. No, I don't think that was an inherently evil or wrong thing to do considering the circumstances we found ourselves in. And no, I don't think you are an evil Nazi.

Oddly enough both "aseveli" and "erillissota" (co-belligerence) in this meaning seem to be almost uniquely Finnish terms, since you hardly ever see them used in other contexts no matter how well they might fit. It's like they were specifically made up for some kind of a purpose...

We were attacking Russia. As in, we launched an attack on Russia to take back what we had lost to them. To use your example, when you punch someone to take back your stolen wallet, you're still punching someone. That doesn't mean you were wrong to punch them to get your wallet back, but it was still a punch, not a block, dodge or even a counterattack, because they had already taken your wallet ten minutes ago so you had to go to them and punch them to get it back. It's still an attack, just this time it has a good justification, it's initiated to right a wrong and the other side started the whole debacle by their own previous attack.

And no, I still don't think you're a Nazi. I hope that one is clear. (Also, why would I be any less of an axis-ally than you? I'm from Finland , I'm as much a citizen and an inhabitant of a country that fought on the side of the Germans during WW2 as you are).