Came here to say this. Also, the Red Army liberated the northernmost part of Norway (Which, incidentally, also is the easternmost - the town of Kirkenes lies t

Came here to say this. Also, the Red Army liberated the northernmost part of Norway (Which, incidentally, also is the easternmost - the town of Kirkenes lies to the east of Istanbul) in the autumn of 1944; they quietly left in the autumn of 1945. From what I've been told by my grandmother, who along with a lot of other locals had dodged the forced evacuation ordered by the retreating Germans and hid for weeks in mines outside the town, cooperation with the Red Army was excellent, with very little friction - to the extent that when rebuilding of Finnmark started (the retreating Germans having blown up everything they couldn't burn!), some construction materials were shipped in from the Soviet Union, which presumably had enough rebuilding to do on their own turf...