(Mirror.)

Within the camp, first barrack foundation is located next to the entrance. The foundation consists of c. 20 cm high and 1 meter wide bank of fine sand (Figure 6) and is the size of prefabricated barracks that the Finnish woodcraft enterprises sold [to Axis] troops in great quantities […] (Figure 7) (Westerlund 2008b, 133; Kallatsa 2009, 21).

A concrete slab that served as a base for a stove is identifiable within this foundation. Remains of some more lightweight structure were documented opposite to the barrack. Deeper into the camp, a kitchen and mess hall (with cooking area reinforced with concrete), and an animal shelter with a turf foundation (and a manure pile behind it) stood on the riverside terrace. A rubbish pit filled with German tins was documented between the barrack foundation and the kitchen (S1; see Seitsonen and Herva 2011, Figure 10.7) in 2006 and excavated in 2009.

One of our informants had visited the mess hall as a young boy on a cloudberry-picking trip, possibly in 1943, and his recollections indicated that there had been structures in the camp that have not left any visible traces on the ground. He reminisced, for instance, that near the kitchen and the animal shelter had stood lightly built tent-like structures, some of which had been covered with turf for insulation, including a sauna for delousing the soldiers.

These lightweight structures were probably ‘yurt’-shaped cardboard and plywood tents, an important wartime product of the Finnish woodcraft industry (Figure 7). There are several vague stone and concrete features that may derive from the foundations of stoves used in lightweight tents.

[…]

Artefacts related to everyday economic and household activities form over two-thirds of the catalogued finds, as might be expected in a base inhabited for nearly four years (Table 1). Sherds of porcelain and glass, cutlery and empty ration tins were most common in this category. The food economy seems to have relied largely on [Wehrmacht]-issued canned meat and fish, some produced in the occupied Denmark and Norway (Figure 10(i)–(j)).

Many of the tins and tin tops have indented manufacturer stamps on them, but as far as we know, there are no guides at the moment for decoding the canning plant identities; descriptions of the tins’ contents were marked on the storing cardboard boxes or crates (Nash n.d.).

Nearly 500 sherds of porcelain were catalogued and show an interesting variety: at least one-third are of a Finnish origin, mostly products of the Arabia factories with various flowery and gilded designs, whereas the rest comprise [Wehrmacht]-issued ware. Two sherds of the latter are products of Johann Haviland, Bavaria and one sherd has the stamp ‘Fl.U.V., 1942, Bohemia’ (Flieger Unterkunft Verwaltung, Flight Barracks Administration; Figure 10(d)–(g)).

Some of the Arabia sherds have manufacturing dates on them which show that they were made in the late 1920s and the 1930s. Some could also be refitted and turned out to be from an Arabia Pääsky jug (Figure 10(b)). The presence of Finnish wares is interesting in the view that there was a large German supply depot in Kaamanen, some 20 km away from Peltojoki, where large quantities of military-issued porcelain was stored: when it was exploded in 1944, the surroundings were sprinkled with porcelain sherds. Why, then, such a prominent presence of Finnish civilian wares in a [Wehrmacht] camp?

Also one piece of cutlery found at Peltojoki, a small spoon with flower ornamentation, is a civilian item, whereas another spoon is a Finnish military issue, with the stamps Puolustuslaitos, Sorsakoski (Finnish Defence Forces, Finnish manufacturer), and the Finnish swastika emblem (the symbol of the Finnish Defence Forces since 1918, and unrelated to the [Fascist] swastika).

The rest of the cutlery finds are standard [Wehrmacht] issue, all stamped Fl.U.V. (Figure 10(j), (s)–(t)). Pieces of bottle glass were found primarily in the glass dump on the upper terrace (S31) and indicate that alcohol was abundantly available. A couple of bottle tops shows that at least French Delbeck wine or cognac and products of Swedish state-owned Aktiebolaget Vin & Spritcentralen were consumed at Peltojoki (Figure 10(v)–(w)).

[…]

Documentary sources and memoirs show that the [Wehrmacht], including the battle-hardened élite Gebirgsjäger, were poorly prepared to, and overwhelmed by the unfamiliar Arctic environment, which effectively stalled their advance so quickly in 1941 (Pipping [1947] 2008, 10; Jokisipilä 2005). […] The [Wehrmacht’s] performance improved over time, however, as manuals were prepared (e.g. Halter 1942; Wehrmacht [1943] 2006; Merkblatt 18a, 17 1943; Merkblatt 18a, 26 1944) and active training programs assisted by Finnish specialists implemented (Alftan 2005, 189; Airio 2014, 238–240).

[…]

A tabulation of the recovered finds by the origin illustrates the place of Peltojoki in a wider network of [Axis] military logistics and movements of things (Table 2, Figure 11). For instance, canned food was imported from Denmark and Norway, and alcohol from Sweden and Central Europe, whereas porcelain finds included Central European as well as Finnish products; as an extreme example, at a nearby WWII site fish tins originating from Brazil were uncovered in a German dump.

The presence of products from numerous countries and factories echoes also the commercial importance of war efforts for diverse entrepreneurs in the occupied countries, as well as in [the Third Reich], Finland and even the ostensibly neutral Sweden. The [Axis] presence instigated a major economic boost in Lapland (e.g. Björklund 1981; Westerlund 2008a), which was not without ethical implications, given that PoWs were quite liberally used as a cheap workforce by various companies in different countries (e.g. Westerlund 2008a, 2008b; Suhonen 2011).

(Emphasis added.)

Some anticommunists may not see what the ‘big deal’ is with Fascists benefitting an economy, but that is only because somebody conditioned them to believe that ‘economic prosperity’ should trump everything else… including war crimes. I once had a conversation with an anticommunist who explicitly defended the phenomenon of overproduction because it was necessary to ‘keep inflation down’. The obvious wastefulness of the process was irrelevant to him!