Sulo Elias Suorttanen (13 February 1921,

Valkeala Valkeala is a former municipality of Finland. It is located in the province of Southern Finland, and is a neighborhood of city of Kouvola, and it was a part of the Kymenlaakso region. The municipality had a population of 11,238 (2003) and ...

- 24 September 2005) was a Finnish lawyer, civil servant and politician. He served as

Minister of Defence A defence minister or minister of defence is a cabinet official position in charge of a ministry of defense, which regulates the armed forces in sovereign states. The role of a defence minister varies considerably from country to country; in som ...

and at the same time Deputy Minister of the Interior from 27 May 1966 to 14 May 1970. He was a member of the

Parliament of Finland The Parliament of Finland ( ; ) is the unicameral and supreme legislature of Finland, founded on 9 May 1906. In accordance with the Constitution of Finland, sovereignty belongs to the people, and that power is vested in the Parliament. Th ...

from 1962 to 1970 and again from 1972 to 1975, representing the Agrarian League (which changed its name to ''Centre Party'' in 1965). He was a graduate of the

University of Helsinki The University of Helsinki ( fi, Helsingin yliopisto, sv, Helsingfors universitet, abbreviated UH) is a public research university located in Helsinki, Finland since 1829, but founded in the city of Turku (in Swedish ''Åbo'') in 1640 as the ...

. During the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

Suorttanen served

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

in the

Finnish Volunteer Battalion of the Waffen-SS From 1941 to 1943, 1,408 Finns volunteered for service on the Eastern Front of World War II in the ''Waffen-SS'', in units of the SS Division Wiking. Most of these volunteers served as motorized infantry in the Finnish Volunteer Battalion ...

as an SS-Untersturmführer.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Suorttanen, Sulo 1921 births 2005 deaths People from Valkeala Centre Party (Finland) politicians Ministers of Defence of Finland Members of the Parliament of Finland (1962–66) Members of the Parliament of Finland (1966–70) Members of the Parliament of Finland (1972–75) University of Helsinki alumni Finnish Waffen-SS personnel SS-Untersturmführer