Lauri Malmberg

Kaarlo Lauri Torvald Malmberg (May 8, 1888 in Helsinki – March 14, 1948 in Helsinki) was a Finnish lieutenant general. He participated in the Jäger Movement and the Finnish Civil War, served briefly as Chief of Defence in 1925, and was Minister of Defense from 1924 to 1925. He is best known as the commander of the White Guard from 1921 to 1944, a position he held during, among other things, the Mäntsälä rebellion, the Winter War and the Continuation War.

Biography

Early life, Jäger Movement and the Civil War Malmberg was the son of and Aino Malmberg, née Perenius. His brothers were Olavi and Erik Malmberg. Malmberg graduated with a degree in electrical engineering from the Polytechnical Institute in 1914 and then worked as an engineer at Strömberg's machine shop in Helsinki. His technical expertise came in handy in the activists' planning of sabotage against bridges, railways and telegraph lines as part of the fight against Russian supremacy.

Malmberg joined the Jäger Movement in 1915 and took part in the Finnish Civil War in 1918. He joined the Finnish Pfadfinder group at the Lockstedt training camp in Germany in March 1915 and served as an artilleryman in the Royal Prussian Jaeger Battalion 27 on the German Eastern Front in the Baltics in 1916–1917, where he rose to the rank of battery commander. He was the only Finnish Jäger in the artillery to reach the rank of major.

Interwar period General Malmberg served as the Commander-in-Chief of the Finnish Civil Guards (a voluntary paramilitary defence organization) from 1921 to 1944, when the organization was abolished as an "anti-Soviet" organization. He also served as the Minister of Defence from 1924 to 1925. He was the Chief of Defence of the Finnish Defence Forces in 1925. At the time there was a power struggle between German-trained and Russian-trained officers in the Defence Forces. His appointment was a good compromise, because on the other hand he represented the White Guards and the German-trained officer faction, but on the other hand his loyalty to the civilian Finnish government was unwavering.

During his almost one-year term as minister, he implemented several important laws and regulations, including the law on educational institutions for officers with associated regulations on the War College, Kadettskolan (Cadet School) and the Reserve Officer School, as well as the law on the establishment of a fleet for coastal defense. In addition, he pushed through the replacement of older officers with Russian service merits with younger Jäger officers in leading positions in the army.