Latvia — a crucible of conflict

Civilized Latvian history is purported to start with German crusaders invading and launching seven centuries of hegemony, symbolized by the German "founding" of Riga in 1201. In truth, Rīga had already been settled since the second century, and a trading center since the early Middle Ages.

Mēs esam kā starp vārtiem,
Starp vārtiem uzcēluši savas mājas
Kur tautām pāri staigāt.
    We are as if between gates,
    Between gates we have built our homes
    For peoples to trample over.

—Anna Brigadere (1861–1933), Latvian playwright, poet

After Peter the Great completed his invasion of Latvia (then Livonia) in the Great Northern War, he ended what the Latvians still regard a "golden age" under Sweden, in the process massacring every man and beast in his path. Scholars estimate less than 20,000 Latvians remained alive. While this was far from the first Russian aggression, it is this brutal conquest which Russia today points to as Latvia "historically being part of Russia."

To those who did not live through it, the suggestion that the Soviets—Allies in the destruction of Nazism—were worse than the Nazis seems preposterous, even immoral. Yet, for the territories of central Europe and the Baltics, Eastern Europe in the post-WWII Cold War divide, this was indeed the case. Stalin and Hitler both wreaked genocide upon Eastern Europe. Hitler's industrialization of genocide set it apart from all others before or since. That Stalin and Hitler eventually wound up on opposite sides does not ameliorate Stalin's crimes against humanity. And to also accuse Stalin of genocide does not lessen the unique horror Hitler inflicted upon the Jewish nation. (Some prominent Holocaust activists denounce the demand for Stalin's genocide to also be condemned as "false equating," insisting Jews were the only people to suffer genocide in WWII.1)

It was also Stalin who made possible the completeness of Hitler's annihilation of the Jewish nation caught between Germany and Russia. In the Baltics, Stalin's mass deportations only a week before Operation Barbarossa decapitated Jewish civil society—its religious and civic leadership, and merchant middle class killed or swept away to the Gulag. As a percentage of their population (5%), Jews suffered the heaviest losses (12% of those deported) in Stalin's first deportation and were also sent to the harshest conditions.

The conflicts2 recorded along this '''timeline of Latvian history''' reflect only a fraction of the 3,000 to 4,000 years Latvians have lived along the Baltic Sea, let alone the more distant past. The settlement area of the Baltic tribes once spanned much further eastward: for example, "Volga" is a Baltic, not Russian, name. The invading—or retreating in the face of larger Slavic forces—Baltic tribes largely drove out the prior Finno-Ugric settlers — the Livs and today's Finns, Estonians, and Hungarians. Pockets of Livs remained settled in pockets along the Baltic shore. However, the Liv community dwindled in the 20th century, with the last native Livonian speaker passing away in 2013.

Despite the tragic dimensions and horrific toll of life in WWII, neither Stalin nor Hitler were the historically most devastating invader: after Peter the Great's campaign in the Great Northern War, less than 20,000 Latvians were left alive.

7th century

Understanding the motivations of Legionnaires, whether volunteered or conscripted6, requires an awareness of Latvia's path through World War II.

Imagine an occupation so murderous and brutal—culminating in the mass deportation of men, women, children, infants, Latvians, Russians, Jews, and Poles7 that most see the German invasion only a week later as liberation. That was the legacy of just one year under the Bolshevik thumb.

The Latvians soon determined they weren't going to be liberated8, although Berlin did dangle the prospects of restoring autonomy on the eve of the bombing of Dresden.9 For Jews, those Stalin ripped from their homes were the lucky ones: their future prospects were better among the one-third of deportees, overall, who survived the GULAG.

1938	August 13 — effective August 20th — With tensions in Europe on the rise, Latvia declares neutrality.
1939	Summer — In ongoing security negotiations with the USSR, Great Britain and France consign Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania to the Soviet "sphere of influence". Accounts that negotiations ultimately failed because the West refused to capitulate over the preservation of Baltic sovereignty — a long-cherished belief in the post-war Latvian émigré community — are mistaken.
1939	August 23 — Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact is signed between the Soviet Union (USSR) and Nazi Germany September 1, WWII begins — Hitler invades Poland with Soviet assistance (radio signals to guide the Luftwaffe) and encouragement (congratulatory telegram to Berlin before Warsaw actually fell). Hitler and Stalin split Poland, with the majority of its territory going to Stalin. October 5, ratified October 11 — Under threat of invasion, Latvia capitulates and signs Soviet–Latvian Mutual Assistance Treaty. Finland refuses a similar offer; a spurned USSR invades in November.
1940	June 16 — An ultimatum is presented by the USSR to Latvia. June 17 — While the world focuses on the fall of Paris (June 14, 1940), the USSR stages "provocations" and invades and occupies Latvia. Arrests, murders, and mass deportation ensue — Baigais gads ("Year of terror")
1941	June 22 — Hitler invades the USSR, blaming Stalin, listing the Soviet invasion of the Baltics as the first among numerous provocations against Germany's security. ... In the Autumn of 1939 and Spring of 1940 the first results [of Sir Stafford Cripps sent as Ambassador to Moscow "to resume relations between the English and Soviet Russia and develop them in a pro-British direction"] actually made themselves felt. As Russia undertook to subjugate by armed force not only Finland but also the Baltic States she suddenly motivated this action by the assertion, as ridiculous as it was false, that she must protect these countries from an outside menace or forestall it. This could only be meant to apply to Germany, for no other power could even gain entrance into the Baltic area, let alone go to war there. Still I had to be silent. However, those in power in the Kremlin immediately went further. Whereas in the Spring of 1940 Germany, in accordance with the so-called pact of friendship, withdrew her forces from the Far Eastern frontier and, in fact, for the most part cleared these areas entirely of German troops, a concentration of Russian forces at that time was already beginning in a measure which could only be regarded as a deliberate threat to Germany. According to a statement that Molotoff [Soviet Foreign Minister and then Premier Vyacheslav Molotov] personally made at that time, there were twenty-two Russian divisions in the Baltic States alone already in the Spring of 1940. Since the Russian Government itself always claimed it was called in by the local population, the purpose of their presence there could only be a demonstration against Germany. ...10
1941	July 1 — German forces occupy Rīga, the capital, on July 1st, as Red Army are still fleeing the suburbs. The Nazis establish and publish the Latvian-language Nazi-controlled newspaper, Tēvija (Fatherland) the same day, and shut down the Latvian broadsheet, Brīvā Zeme (Free Nation) after publishing its only issue. The rest of Latvia's territory is under full Nazi control within a week. June–December — The Nazi Holocaust sweeps through in six months, over by the end of 1941. Arājs Kommando, 300-500 strong, are the principle engine of Latvian collaboration in the Nazi-engineered genocide. They, and all Latvian collaborators, act under close German supervision — and on terms dictated by the Nazis. The Nazis are ultimately responsible for the murders of 70,000 Jews. Germans document the carnage as "Germanless," staging scenes to create the illusion of popular support and smuggling falsified "news" to the West through collaborators in Sweden. Meanwhile, reports to Berlin complain of Latvian "passivity" in response to anti-Semitic incitement.
1942	March — Churchill and Roosevelt agree to recognize the bogus post-Soviet occupation elections of 1940 as expressing the will of the people.11 This enables the USSR to annex Latvia without violating the terms of the Atlantic Charter, affirmed in the Declaration by United Nations of January 1, 1942. Thereby, the United Nations is ultimately — knowingly, with malice aforethought —  founded on the post-war ashes of Baltic independence.
1943	January 23 — Hitler "allows and orders" establishing the Latvian Legion. Its initial ranks are consolidated from battalions of Latvians already serving under Wehrmacht command on the Eastern Front. Within a month, the first wave of Latvians is conscripted for the Legion. When volunteers for the Eastern Front to pursue the retreating Red Army waned, the Nazis already began (illegal) conscriptions for combat duty at the start of 1942 following a "labor" decree of December, 1941.
1944	“Might it not be thought rather cynical if it seemed we had disposed of these issues so fateful to millions of people, in such an offhand manner? Let us burn the paper.”  — Churchill, October 1944} July 17 — The Red Army's 1st Baltic Front, 2nd Baltic Front, and 3rd Baltic Front reach the border of Latvia. The second Soviet occupation subsequently replaces the Nazi occupation in Vidzeme and Latgale. October–May, 1945 — Latvians and the Army Group Courland hold out in Courland to the end of the war. The Red Army suffers 390,000 wounded, killed, and missing, and the loss of more than 2,000 tanks attempting to wrest Courland from the Latvians. Stalin is aware (concerned?) Latvians gained their independence against the Bolsheviks after World War I having held none of Latvian territory. He has also been promising to FDR and Churchill that the stamping-out of remaining "Nazi" resistance is imminent.
1945	May 7 — Germany surrenders, WWII ends. Legionnaires are still ensconced in Courland along with the German Army Group Courland. Those who retreated into Germany seek out and surrender to the British and Americans. May 15 — After another week of fighting, Latvians are forced to surrender Courland. Legionnaires are deported to the Gulag or shot as traitors. Hundreds escape and continue a partisan resistance for another twenty years. Jānis Pīnups is the last Latvian partisan to come out of hiding—in 1995, after the USSR disintegrates. June 26 — United Nations charter signed October 24 — United Nations charter enters into force. The Soviet-occupied Baltic States de facto disappear off the world stage. The Baltic states' delegated sovereign authority continues to function in exile.
1946	March 5 — Churchill (in)famously delivers his iconic "Iron Curtain" speech and bemoans the post-war order he created with Stalin. From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an "iron curtain" has descended across the continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia; all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject, in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and in some cases increasing measure of control from Moscow. Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania are the only countries that disappear after WWII.

• List of years in Latvia
• Timeline of Riga
• Plakans, Andrejs. Historical Dictionary of Latvia, Scarecrow Press.
• Political Chronology of Europe, Europa Publications.
• Latvia Profile: Timeline. LINK