Merry Christmas !

I know that most of you aren't really celebrating the Solstice*, as you should if you are genuinely interested in Zombie Hunting, so I kept this little friendly note for Christmas. It is, I think, appropriate to celebrate the birthday of the first Shaman having raised zombies AND still being praised for it (when usually it is pretty badly accepted by Society. Slow and painful death usually ensue). He did use his own shamanistic powers on himself when the people of Judea started to feel a bit fed up, and raised successfully after his slow and painful death (Unavoidable, I'm afraid), scaring his fan-chicks to death when moaning out of his grave, but that's another story...

Happy Birthday, Shaman Jesus !

And now some seasonal safety instructions.


*And if you did, I hope you had a nice one ! See, the Mayan Apocalypse was bullshit, Zombies are the true stuff.

The (real) World Wars Z : Finland in WW2 (Part 1, Winter War)

The Civil War is won. Finland is free and independent. Russia isn't an empire anymore, but only a dictatorship (of the proletariat, no worry, it still means good guys, apparently). While Finland enjoys Victory with some Viina and Terva Ice-Cream, big pal Germany isn't in such good mood. Suffering from a post-(lost)war depression that even Xanax cannot cure, the country is getting broody, Blondie, and Nazi. Everybody around is getting annoyed and angry, especially its Arch-nemesis... Russia. Or should I say...

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics !

That's how you jump quickly from 6 of December 1917, Independence Day of Finland (hurray!) to 30th of November 1939 (boooh!). The Day the USSR commit one of its biggest mistakes ever.

They attacked Finland.

IIIII'm dreaaaaaming of a whiiiiiiiite Christmaaaaas !

At the time, the soviets are still allied with The Mustached German In Chief, and think that before they betray him, they should gain some territory, train a bit, you know, prepare. Poland was just being cut in two and shared between Nazis and Soviets, so Joseph Stalin decided that the next great trek should be to another defenseless country they used to oppress in the past. He chose Finland. LÅL. Well before we go through the more unknown part of this story (hint : the one involving ghouls), let's just sum up this fight known as "Winter War", if you don't mind. 

On my left, Finland, 346 500 men big max, 114 aircrafts, and... 32 tanks.

On my right, the USSR, 760 000 men, over 6000 tanks and 3800 aircrafts.

What could go wrong ? Well, look at the casualties :

Finland : 25 904 dead or missing.

USSR : 126 875 dead or missing.

When Finland lost 20 tanks, Soviets lost over 3500 of them. The total casualties are so badass you may want to both piss your pants out of laugh and beg Finland to make you a Finn right here, right now : 70 000  Finnish casualties against 323 000 soviets casualties. Yes. And I only count the victims once here, even those you had to actually kill twice.

The Winter War, by visit-finland.com. Get your own plush now !

Many reasons can explain the epic resistance of Finland against the USSR and the... very extreme... casualties on the Russian side, among them a very hardcore winter, the Finns knowing the field better than the Russians, the use of Molotov Cocktails (by the way, did you know that the name "Molotov Cocktail" was actually invented by the Finns ? They even had a mass-produced model where the bottle came with the match to light it on ! 450 000 ready-to-use Molotov Cocktail (and a good excuse for officers to order some Alko products) Thanks Who ? ALKO, once again !) but above all a very efficient guerrilla tactic, putting to excellent use the amazing marksmanship of the Finns by creating legends in the world of sniping. Big up to Simo Häyhä, aka the White Death. This dude was such a terrorizing sniper they send entire artillery strikes against him. He survived the war. In fewer than 100 days he shot 505 enemies. In the freaking dark Finnish winter : no light, -35°. His secret, according to himself ? "Practice".

He's coming to get you, Barbara !

Practice ? What the Hell are you "practicing" to be THAT good at killing human beings that only show the top of their heads ? If you are not new on this blog, you may already have a good guess. You may find many kill counts for Simo Häyhä that go far beyond the 505, some say it's propaganda because it's obviously far-fetched... but they are indeed accurate. 505 were the living ones. the other, well, they were perhaps dead - but still count !

Finnish snipers are considered as being some of the best having fought during WW2. They were an elite. Who would wonder when knowing that the Finnish army of that time was the direct offspring of the Zombie Hunters of the Jäger Movement ? They just were ready. Because what they faced in the snow of the terrible Winter 1939 was not only the USSR.

No. There was another threat.

(insert dramatic music now)

But let's start with the USSR. Different outbreaks from 1922 to 1937 forced Stalin to stop genocide healthy people in order to kill real enemies of his comrades: crawling hordes of Living Dead. Nowadays, it is still hard to know when he massacred civilians or cleaned infected areas*, since he claimed to the West having done nothing at all. While, of course, saying to his own people "Com'on, I'm not a bad dude, I'm saving you from the zombies ! Trust me, Zombies freeze in Siberia, you will be safe there. I even built fences to protect you". Nevertheless, after several human disasters, people started to question his methods and targets. Time to show them all who's the Boss. When the first cases were reported in the north-west, he understood that he could blame the Finns and invade a another country. To flies with the same stone. The rest is history....

...except that, meanwhile, Finnish Zombie Hunters had actually expelled an outbreak out of their borders. An outbreak that came from the deep, dark, scary forests of Karelia. Rumors spread amongst the Hunters that this time, things were different. Not only did ghouls come out of the woods again, and again, and again, with no explanation, but other... signs... betrayed an unnatural activity. They prepared themselves, they learned to face a new danger that never sleeps. Or when it does, it does for eons.

Customized Finnish helmet from the Winter War. What do you think this represents ?

So when the Soviets arrived, they met their doom unprepared, ignoring totally what Hell they were about to meet in this Land....Thankfully, the Finns did. Hence the slightly unbalanced casualties.

The details of what happened remain unclear... Once the epidemic has been taken care of, a secret meeting occurred where soviets and Finns agreed on keeping the Truth hidden, and a proper Peace Treaty was signed. Some say both nations were desperate to see this end, but in fact, they just shook hands after burying a common threat and congratulated with Viina and Vodka. Because Finns and Russians aren't that different after all. Especially when it comes to drinking.

But shit got real when the Finnish government discovered that the Soviets lied (really ??) and didn't bury the threat in Karelian soil, as they promised they would (when they forced the Finns to cede them Karelia, humhum). In fact, they were doing unholy scientific/occult/mad experiments that could lead to an unprecedented disaster for the entire Human Race. And I'm not exaggerating here. Big deal.

Alko. Protecting Finland since 1932.

Finns started to sharpen their billhooks and drink their Molotov Cocktails (they say it helps... and there is "Alko" written on the box...**), ready to fight alone, again, while all other countries in the World would probably prefer to assist them from far... or not at all... again. But this time one country stood by their side. One Power decided to help them taking care of a this unearthly doom. An old friend gone lunatic, but still a friend, you know...

Germany.

We are the 25 of June 1941, and the alliance of Finns and Germans strikes the Soviet Union in the epic struggle called Continuation War. 

This is not about Bring Karelia Back. It's about Don't Bring What's Buried In Karelia Back.

(Why did the Soviet wanted Karelia so bad ? Why did the Finns want to get it back at all costs ? What dark secret lies in the woods of this northern isthmus ? You will discover it in the next article !)

*To be honest, it's fairly possible he unleashed these outbreaks voluntarily to have an excuse.
** After the war, when Alko stoped producing Molotov Cocktails, they turned to denatured alcohol and windscreen washer. Unfortunately true story.

The (real) World Wars Z : Finland and WW1

No, I will not whine again because of the terrible movie adaptation of the awesome book World War Z. Not that I couldn't, I'm still really upset. But let's face it : against this farce, there's only one cure. Turning back to cool, real zombie history.

I know you hear a lot about WW1 and even more about WW2. You hear so much about it that you probably don't want to hear any more, and think that you already have in mind all that is to know regarding this period. Let us then all cheer in joy : You're mistaken.

So let's catch up with a bit of interesting History.

Maximillian "Boyscout" Bayer. Thanks.

Finland wasn't involved in WW1, far away, small province of Russia, poor... No slaughtering interest. Yet, Finland prepared to the eventuality of war, since nobody really knew how bad things would turn or not. And you know the Finns : They always prepare for the really big bad shit. Your history books probably say that a group of 200 young men went to Germany (Aka Reich II, The Return) early 1915 in order to be trained like badasses by some of the best soldiers of their time : German troops. These books will also tell you that even if not used in the world war, their new acquired skills were still  put to good use during the quick to follow Civil War in Finland, giving the Whites a pretty good advantage (called proper training) over the Reds, allowing the good guys to win and preventing a Soviet People's Democratic Republic of Finland to happen (at least, that's probably how the book presents it).

Well, that's a big lie. A cover-up. And the CIA has nothing to do with it. The truth is slightly different. Finns didn't get trained by Germans... Germans got trained by Finns. Shocking truth, I know, but let me explain. 

Hunter Battalion 27's flag. Not to be mistaken......

January 1915. The western front in Europe just started to fix into what would become the first position war, using trenches and stupid waves of mass-killing, inefficient attacks. You know, the civilized way of screwing your youth instead of getting them proper education. At the time, diseases started to get more rampage as the soldiers had to keep in the mud, under the rain, in poor hygienic trenches full of bodies and with scattered supplies. It was called "modern warfare". Some reports started to arrive to the Kaiser Headquarters regarding some strange fever that seemed to kill people... and bring them back to hunger-frenzy-life. Fortunately for the Western World and probably the entire world, it happened to be a German officer, major Maximillian Bayer, boyscout in chief in Germany, that had a Finnish boyscout friend who used to invite him every summer to his Mökki, not far from Tampere. He remembered the folk stories of his friend and the strange hobby he pretend to take part in, and said to his Kaiser "I know the man." Two days later, his friend came to Berlin for a 5 minutes talk with Kaiser Wilhelm. A week later, 200 Zombie Hunters from all over Finland arrived in Holstein near Lockstedt to educate German soldiers in the fine art of hunting and eliminating ghouls like bosses. As the epidemic increased on the front, the training camp grew to over 1000 people.  Their nickname ? The Finnish Hunters (Finnishe Jäger) . Some volunteers became the Preussischer Jägerbattalion Nr 27, meaning the Prussian Hunter Battalion, and participated in eliminating the Verdun outbreak in 1916. 

..... with this. Even if it's true.

So even if History books try to cover up who they were, their name gives a fair hint on why they were here, don't you think ? 

It's not so sure what created the outbreak, most historians blame the Gas shells and chemical weaponry. But the invention of tanks (every side in the war started to beware random ghouls and sheltered), of flame-throwers by the Germans - ideal to check if the people are walking-dead or running-in-pain-but-still-alive - as well as shrapnel shells - to increase the chances of reaching the brain - and the training provided by some of the finest Zombie Hunters of Finland helped Germany to cope with the outbreak and continue the pointless killing. And then lose the war.

Flamethrower. A good idea to kill zombies. But only in movies.

Finns got back home with cool uniforms and kicked to Reds during the Civil War. That is true. But this was only part one. A few decades later, something bad happened, and this time at the very heart of the Motherland. As Europe prepared for a second World War, full of pain, death, misery, ready to rip itself apart with still no point in sight, Finland faced an ancient and very evil threat in the hard cold winter....

Russia ?

Well... yes, also. But not only.

Ghouls. Lots of Ghouls. In Lapland.

(to be continued...)


Food for thoughts : Maximillian Bayer was shot by a sniper and it took 6 months to identify the body... Meaning probably ugly headshot with possible "double-tap" on the skull ( explaining the unrecognizable face). So...Take a wild guess on what really happened there.

Food for thoughts : If you consider that the 27th Jäger was the core of Finnish army during/after the civil war, and that it was composed of some of the best Zombie Hunters of Finland, was does that make the Finnish army then ?

The answer to that question may explain why "The Finnish military engineer NCOs have a billhook as the part of their personal gear instead of field shovel. It also duplicates as a sidearm. Officers have a field axe." (see Wikipedia's page for Billhook)