Operation Stella Polaris

Overview

In the fall of 1944, four ships sailed out of Finnish ports and headed west. On board were not only the core group of Finnish intelligence, but also hundreds of boxes of top-secret material on the Soviet military, as well as technical equipment for advanced signals intelligence. The intention was to seek sanctuary in Sweden for continued intelligence service. Several of the people involved in Operation Stella Polaris are still alive. One of them is Stig Axelsson, Swedish liaison specialist, occasionally active in Finland, in Finnish uniform. Now he and others tell about the strange turns of the operation, which ended with the secret boxes being burned at the Löfsta waste station in December 1960.