The Pohjois-Haaga mass grave is a grave in Lassila, Helsinki, Finland, near the Pohjois-Haaga railway station that dates to the time of the Finnish Civil War in 1918. 28 men of the Red Guards or civilians thought to have been affiliated with them executed by the German Baltic Sea Division soldiers are buried at the site. History During the Battle of Helsinki, on 12 April 1918, advancing German troops executed ca. 40–50 men they had apprehended, who mostly belonged to the Red Guards. The executions took place around 8 p.m. at a bog that located halfway between the Vihdintie Roundabout and Riistavuori. When the locals had fetched from the pile of bodies their family members, the rest, people from out of town, were transported to a pit in an uninhabited location near-by. The grave was located along an artillery lane close to Base no. XXIV of the Krepost Sveaborg, a fortification that was built to shield Helsinki in the event of war. The events leading up to the executions or the identities of all those executed are not known for certain. According to one version, the Germans found ca. 150 persons in a cellar at 12 Vanha Viertotie, people belonging most to the Reds. The Reds had flown a white flag to signal that they would surrender, but someone had opened fire killing two German soldiers. After this, the Germans ordered all the men in a line along the road and selected every third to be executed. Another version has it that the executions were a reprisal for the German commander, General Rüdiger von der Goltz’s car having been shot at. On the other hand, it was said that the local White Guards had played a part in the events. This is said because many of those executed belonged to the local Red Guards or were leaders of the working class. It is also said that people slated for execution were taken from their homes and brought to the site. According to a traditional view, Estonian Deputy Prime Minister Jüri Vilms and his companions Arnold Jürgens and Johannes Peistik as well as their guide Aleksei Rünk, executed on 12 or 13 April on the grounds of the Töölö Sugar Factory, had also been buried in the same mass grave. Estonian investigators exhumed in December 1920 four bodies that they identified as Vilms, Jürgens, Peistik, and Rünk on the basis of