Risto Heikki Ryti

Risto Heikki Ryti (Huittinen, 1889- Helsinki, 1956), was a Finnish politician, fifth president of the Republic of Finland (1940-1944), with a law degree, who governed his homeland for the crucial years of World War II.

Career

Ryti studied law at the University of Helsinki in 1906 and after graduation three years later established himself as a lawyer for large companies, specializing in commercial and financial matters. In 1914 Ryti continued his studies in Oxford, Great Britain, having to hastily return to his country before the start of the First World War. During the proclamation of Finnish independence in 1917 and the subsequent Finnish civil war, Ryti was away from politics but this changed when in 1919, at the end of the war, the academic Kaarlo Juho Ståhlberg was elected President of Finland and he summoned Ryti to participate in the administration.

Ryti was a member of the Finnish parliament several times between 1919 and 1929, and was soon noted for proposing liberal policies, advocating reduced state involvement in the economy. Ryti served as Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Bank of Finland and had an international reputation as a monetary politician, holding to principles based on the experiences of Great Britain and the United States. During the Great Depression of the 1930s, Ryti proposed policies of social support for the entire population, shaping the welfare state, but maintaining great distrust of the economic principles of socialism. Ryti's liberal ideas, as well as his personal experiences with the "Russification of Finland"; and then with the Finnish civil war, they gave a strong anti-Soviet content to his policies, although he also felt a strong rejection of fascism that was beginning to manifest itself as a political current throughout Europe.

When Finland's Winter War against the Soviet Union began on November 30, 1939, Ryti was part of the Finnish government as prime minister, allying himself with the Social Democratic Party of Finland, with Kyösti Kallio being president. When Kallio resigned for health reasons, Ryti was elected President of Finland on December 19, 1940.

World War II

President Ryti was entrusted with a difficult period in Finnish history, when, on June 25, 1941, the Continuation War began, again pitting Finland against the Soviet Union. Ryti was ideologically in favor of capitalist democracies such as Great Britain or the United States, and did not feel sympathy for an alliance with the Third Reich, but the delicate situation of the country and the political realism of Marshal Carl Mannerheim moved him to accept a military aid pact. with Nazi Germany, although taking care that the Third Reich does not try to influence the internal politics of Finland. As a result, Finland became a transit area for Wehrmacht forces during Operation Barbarossa, allowing the installation of a few German bases in the country, while the Finnish armed forces participated in operations against the Red Army.

In the last phase of the war, in June 1944, the Red Army had launched a massive offensive on the northern end of the Eastern Front, which came close to breaking the Finnish defense in accordance with Operation Bagration. Faced with this situation, Ryti made a personal commitment, through a letter addressed to the German foreign minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop, that Finland would maintain its war alliance with Germany and that it would not start peace negotiations without the consent of the Nazi government. Under this compromise, called in Finland the "Ryti-Ribbentrop Agreement", Germany sent military aid to Finland, which helped counter the Soviet offensive on the Karelian Isthmus.

In Finland, however, it was alleged that Ryti had given the undertaking in his own name and in an unauthenticated letter, without the consent of the Finnish parliament, and had thus exceeded the use of his constitutional powers. When the Soviet offensives resumed and the total German defeat in the Baltic Offensive became evident, President Ryti resigned on August 1, 1944. The new regime, headed by Marshal Mannerheim himself, declared that Ryti's promise could not commit Finland, and therefore the country had been released from the military alliance with Germany. Finland thus began the peace negotiations and the military actions against the Soviets ceased in September 1944, to immediately begin the Lapland War, where the Red Army crossed Finnish territory to attack the German forces located in northern Norway.

Last years

After the war, the Soviet Union managed to get Finland to renounce all claim to Karelia and pay a huge war indemnity, plus the Soviet government demanded that the "Finnish war culprits" were judged. At trials held in 1946, Ryti was sentenced to 10 years in prison. However, according to popular opinion in Finland such processes were "imposed justice" by the victors and, when the so-called "years of danger" had passed, when a new invasion from the USSR was feared, Ryti was pardoned in 1949 by the new president, Juho Paasikivi.

During the cold war, which in Finland resulted in some self-censorship (see finnishization), the figure of Ryti was forgotten, while Ryti himself refused to participate in politics again, dedicating himself to academic life until his death in October 1956. Since the end of the 20th century his political figure has been rehabilitated and Ryti has been considered one of the politicians who saved Finland from Soviet occupation, for which he had to pay a high personal price.