In 1943, the Germans started building fortified defence lines in case of a retreat. While Panther, the main Narva defence line, was situated on the shoreline of Narva River, then Tannenberg Line, built from Mummassaare across the Sinimägi Hills to Vaivara, was meant as a backup line. The defence line was built by the German army construction company Organisation Todt. The name Tannenberg was taken from a battleground in Poland, where the Germans definitively beat the Tsar’s army during World War I.
The Tannenberg defence line started in Mummassaare almost right by the shore and ran across the highway to Lastekodumäe Hill. From there on it ran across Sirgala, Puhatu and Gorodenka marsh up to Narva River and Lake Peipus. The ditches were furnished with logs and poles. In the lower places, where full profile ditches were not an option, dirt embankments and stakewalls or palisades were built. Mines, tanks, and wire barriers were set in front of the line. The line was also supported by a railway network in the Vasknarva-Kurtna-Vaivara region. The key elements of the line were the surrounding Sinimägi Hills.
The war action reached the Tannenberg Line in the evening of 26 July 1944 and lasted until mid-September.Today, the defence line is visible up until the Sinimäe junction.

In 1926, Vaivara Manor was readjusted into an orphanage under the direction of the famous Tallinn building company Treubeck. The renovated manor building had 58 high and airy rooms. The upper floor was intended for girl’s rooms and the orphanage director’s office and living quarters, the ground floor for boy’s rooms and educators’ living quarters. The orphanage that was opened in such a grand building impressed the media back then, and it was called the first perfect orphanage in Estonia. The reconstruction was finally completed in 1932.
Vaivara orphanage had it’s own farmstead with 24,56 ha of arable land, 34 ha of haying land and 28 ha of pasture. In 1934, the farm had 6 horses, 18 cows and 40 chickens. Pigs were also kept. The farm also had a few beehives and a greenhouse where in addition to vegetables and flowers grew 8 vinetrees. All the farmwork was done by the orphans. During summers, only children of weaker health remained in the orphanage while others were give into foster homes or worked as shepards in the neighborhing farms.
In August 1941, the children were evacuated from the orphanage to the Uralic Mountains and the retreating Russian army burned down the castle. One can read about the fates of the evacuated children in Russia from Ene Hion’s books Saatust ei valita (1990) and Valged varesed (2014).

In the late 1950s and the early 1960s, nine strategic rocket bases or rocket division campuses were built in Estonia. They were situated in the forest, mostly grouped in pairs. The 304th Soviet Guard rocket regiment was located on Arkna Road in Rakvere in the 1960s and 1970s and it governed two divisions, one in the forests of Kadila and the other in Rohu-Lebavere.
The R-12 medium range missiles, with a flight range of 2000 km, were located Kadila and Rohu. The R-12 had been in mass production in the USSR since 1958; its length was 22.1 m and it weighed 41.7 tonnes when loaded with liquid fuel. The rocket’s nuclear warhead weighed 1.6 tonnes and had the destructive power of 1 mt, the equivalent of miljon tonnes of TNT. The Kadila and Rohu bases had four rocket hangars, each hangar holding two rockets on wheeled stands in a horizontal position.
The Estonian middle range missile base did not have a long life. Most of the rockets and nuclear warheads were taken away already in 1978, due to a treaty between the superpowers to reduce the numbers of strategic nuclear weapons. In 1980, the Kadila rocket base constructions were given over to the Eduard Vilde nominal kolkhoz and the Vinni model sovkhoz technical school. Fertilizers, toxic chemicals and agricultural products were kept in the hangars. Mostly the buildings were demolished and material used for new buildings or scrap iron sold.

Establishing the border between Estonia and Latvia began in June 1917. The areas with a mixed population became a problem when attempting to follow the ethnic border. The first obstacle in the work of the Mixed Commission of the Estonian-Latvian Border entailed the question of ownership of the town of Valga. The commission ceased operations without reaching an agreement.
The issue of the border had to be solved in order to receive international recognition. Thus, an agreement was reached, pursuant to which the ownership of Valga would be decided by a jury comprising an equal number of people from both countries and the chairperson of which would be a representative of a neutral country – Colonel Steven George Tallents, a citizen of the United Kingdom. Both agreed with the condition that Tallents’ decision was to be accepted as the final one.
The plans of dividing Valga leaked into media. Latvian newspapers alarmed the public about Tallents planning to give Valga to the Estonians. Estonian newspapers attacked the Englishman personally by alleging that Tallents had received large compensations in the form of real estate in Riga and married a Latvian woman.
The border was established at the end of July 1920. Tallents complied more with the wishes of Estonians for the town of Valga while the Republic of Latvia gained lands in several mixed-population areas.
The Estonian-Latvian border treaty was confirmed in Riga on 19 October 1920. The border became valid at midnight on 1 April 1927.

Sources:
Raid, T. 2000. Eesti-Läti piiri taastamine. Master’s thesis
Raid, T. 2005. Sir S. G. Tallents ja Eesti lõunapiiri teke. Valga ja militaaria

A former German prison camp is located by the hiking route. There were less than 100 prisoners at the camp, most of whom were Russians captured on the front. The prisoners were brought to live in the sauna of a Latvian farm in 1941 and lived there until they built a barrack for themselves. The prisoners’ barrack was built alongside the road located there at the time, however, the barrack was not visible from the road. The building was made of wood and half-way dug into the ground, light came from narrow windows. A guards’ house was built about 20 metres north of the barrack. Both buildings were surrounded by double barbed wire that was supposed to prevent prisoners from escaping.
The camp was established among the primeval forests of Soomaa in order to use the prisoners as workforce for logging. The cut trees were drawn out by horse by the farmers; some of the prisoners were also employed at the farms.
It is known that two prisoners were shot either during escaping or after as punishment and that they were buried at a spot near the camp where a large alder and spruce grew side by side. The trees are no longer there so the gravesite remains unknown. The prison camp stopped operating in 1944. Both guards and prisoners were taken away.
The same area was home to the lumber mill of a forest base after the war. They made shingles, runners for children’s sleds, wheel spokes and hubs, runners for sleighs, horse collars, box boards and many other things.

Sources:
RMK Cultural Heritage Database
Väre, H. 2002. Soomaa metsad varjavad sõjasaladusi ja aardeid. Sakala 15.08

“Nothing has changed on the outside, but the heart is heavy… The first two verses of the national anthem are sung with a stony face, gaze on the blue, black and white national flag and then the flag is lowered. Very quietly, as is suitable for a great prayer, the last verse of the anthem is sung: May God watch over you… And tears fall from almost everyone’s eyes, of the eyes of both the courageous young and the hardy older pilots. In that moment, I can feel so painfully and clearly in my heart how connected the land, the people, the freedom, my personal life and the lowering national flag really are. I was born, raised and educated in a free Estonia. As a young pilot, I was proud of my arm of the service and gave an oath to fulfil the ultimate duty in protecting the freedom of my people. However at that time, I did not know about the way our politicians thought or about their secret treaties. It seemed only that we had been foully and without a fight stripped of all that was meant to be sacred and untouchable…”

Remi Milk reminisces about the line-up of the third air force division on the evening of 21 June 1940.
The officers of the Estonian Air Force fled from the Jägala Airfield into the forests in Kõrvemaa upon the arrival of the Soviet regime. Loksa border guard organised a massive raid for them on 13 July 1941. During an exchange of fire by the Järvi Lakes, the Estonian Air Force Captains Oskar Aksel, Juhan Kalmet, Arnold Streimann, Lieutenant Martin Terts and the airplane mechanic Sergeant Major Herman Tombah were killed. The plaque installed onto the memorial stone in 1942 was hidden during the occupation and as it was subsequently lost, the new plaque is from 1994. The memorial stone was reopened by Remi Milk, one of the members of the air force who escaped into the Kõnnu forests when the war erupted.

Sources: 
Elstrok, H. 1995. Kõrvemaast põhjarannani: Kuusalu kihelkonna kirjanduslik-kodulooline antoloogia.

There were 30 farms in Northern-Kõrvemaa before the establishment of the polygon. People were told to move out of their homes in relation to construction of a 33,304-hectare soviet army training polygon. People began abandoning their farms as early as in 1947 but moved out in masses on 1 May 1953.
The military polygon was not spoken about, as it was officially known as the Pavlov forest management as well as the Pavlov and Primorsky Forest District of the USSR Ministry of Defence. The roadside signs in Russian and Latvian forbade entry. Põhja-Kõrvemaa was described only briefly in the book “Kas tunned maad” (“Do You Know the Country?”) published in 1965. In addition, it was said that “one needs a permit from the forest management in Aegviidu in order to visit the area in question”.
The Vahtriku farmstead is located by the part of the hiking route that can be travelled by bicycle. Ferdinand Petersen, an Estonian engineer and politician was born in this farmstead in 1887 as the son of a forester. Petersen belonged to both the I and the II temporary composition of the government and was part of the Estonian Constituent Assembly, helping to establish and ensure an independent Estonia.
When it became clear in 1944 that a new soviet occupation laid ahead, Ferdinand Petersen (Estonianised into Peterson) escaped to the west – first to Germany and later to the USA. Ferdinand Petersen died at the age of 92 and is buried on the Mount Pleasant Cemetery in Toronto.

Sources: 
Karofeld, E. 1997. Tuhkatriinu Põhja-Kõrvemaalt. Eesti Loodus no. 5
Petersen, F. 2001. Mälestusi ja tähelepanekuid.

The polygon was used to train by using firearms, cannons and missile devices in a battle situation, for tank exercises and bombing from airplanes and helicopters. The military activities were mainly focused in the area between the Soodla Reservoir and Koitjärve Bog, the so-called Jussi Hills west of the Jussi Lake District, the western part of the Kõnnu Suursoo Mire and the Pala tankodrome on the eastern bank of the Valgejõgi River.
The Jussi heath is a kame field created by the edge of a glacier from the ice age that stopped here for a longer while and melted. There are both level kame fields with steep hillsides as well as smaller and more sloped kame fields. This area was left partially bare by the extensive logging in the 1920s.
A unique heather heath that is more reminiscent of a northern tundra than our homely landscape was formed as an aftermath of the logging that continued in the 1960s and the fires caused by recurring shootings. In addition to the purplish heathers, you can also find here the dark green clusters of bearberries, the greyish patches of lichen from the Cladina and Cladonia genera, the leaf rosettes of hawkweeds and the incredibly soft blossoms and seed pouches of the prairie crocus. Today, the heath tends to overgrow and it is maintained by clearing the overgrowth.

Sources: 
Karofeld, E. 1997. Tuhkatriinu Põhja-Kõrvemaalt. Eesti Loodus no. 5

The Soviet forces had ruled over Estonia for a year by the summer of 1941. Stalin declared the implementation of the scorched-earth tactics – meaning everything had to be destroyed on the land left to the enemy – on 3 July after the German attack on the USSR. In Estonia, the task was left for the destroyer battalions.
The people in the region hid in the forests, as they feared the ensuing destruction. Rumours that the Erna group, formed in Finland, had arrived in the Kautla area played a part in the decision-making as well.
A thousand strong soviet military units were directed to Ardu as well as to the Viljandi and Tallinn destroyer battalions in Paunküla and Voose by 31 July. The raid began in the morning between 8 and 9 o’clock. A forest ranger and his wife were burnt alive in the Sae forest ranger’s hut a few kilometres before Kautla.
The destroyer battalion reached Kautla unexpectedly. The battle began, the Erna fighters and the Forest Brothers covered for the retreating civilians. Both sides had losses. Seven people were murdered in Kautla, some of whom were thrown into the fire alive. The destroyer battalion burnt down most of the farms in the area on 5–6 August.
This was a rather trivial episode in light of the war, but the events of war are never measured only by the number of the fallen. The men of the Erna group were among the first in Estonia to step up against the soviet forces, arms in hands. They are definitely worthy of this memorial that has now been restored several times.

Sources: 
Liim, J. 2006. Kautla lahingud. Kultuur ja Elu no. 4

The red army’s onslaught during the Estonian War of Independence had begun in March 1919. The head of the armoured train division Anton Irv received the command to force the enemies into retreating over the Mustjõgi River and to free Mõniste. The Saera Battle on 20 March 1919 had an important part in the completion of this task.
One of the companies of the 15th Latvian platoon had stopped at the Saera forest manager’s house at Ähijärve Village during the onslaught of the enemy. The Estonian Defence League had set sentries on the most important roads in order to notify the army of the enemy’s movements. The news of the red army’ stop was delivered to Antsla, where the third wide-gauge armoured train stood at the time.
The armoured train’s 55-man landing troop drove out of Antsla on sleighs; 15 men from the Defence League joined them in Saera. They went into battle as soon as they reached Saera. The enemy was attacked by the Second Lieutenant Oldekop’s platoon from one side and by the troops of Lieutenant Peeter Asmus from the other side. The constant machine gun fire from the house the reds were in made the situation for our troops critical. The situation was solved by Lieutenant Asmus who threw a hand grenade in through the window when storming the building. The machine gun fire stopped.
There were about 80 men from the communist side in Saera, 29 of whom died and 16 of whom were imprisoned. We lost 2 men and 5 were wounded. The machine gun became the spoils of war. The platoon commander taken to interrogation in Valka provided important information about the placement and composition of the red army.

Sources: 
Koemets, U. 2015. Saera lahingust Vabadussõjas. Oma Maa no. 187