The “Wiesenthal list”

Simon Wiesenthal is among the most recognizable names of all Nazi hunters. By Wiesenthal's own account during the U.S. deportation trial of Vilis Hāzners (a prime target of decades of Soviet disinformation and first alleged "Latvian Nazi" subjected to US deportation proceedings):

We were searching in some displaced persons camps in Germany, because these people in 1944 escaped with the Germans. I sent this list to a German-language American newspaper, Aufbau, and they sent it to the immigration authorities.12

As Soviet forces advanced, Latvians had only two choices for escape: the treacherous voyage across the Baltic Sea to Sweden, or down the Baltic to Nazi-occupied Poland. Latvia was occupied territory in war time, there were no other options. Escaping "with" the Germans was not a "choice." The Latvian Legion either dug in, in Courland, where it desperately held out to the end of the war, or retreated all the way back to Germany, preferring to fight and die rather than surrender to the Russians, there to surrender to the British or Americans if possible. That Latvian refugees including Legionnaires wound up in post-WWII Germany implies no Nazi sympathies. Neither does a Legionnaire uniform. Legionnaires wore a Latvian flag under their uniform — the true symbol of their loyalties.

At the end of the war, Legionnaires were incarcerated in Allied POW camps. There was no convenient "escape." At Zedelgem, Allied guards shot Latvians for live target practice. After all, they wore German uniforms and spoke German.3 Legionnaires were eventually released in 1946, having been properly deemed to have fought not against the Allied cause, but against Soviet reoccupation. Only then were they able to join the Latvian communities already established in various Displaced Persons (DP) camps across West Germany.

Just as the guards who shot POWs, Wiesenthal clearly interpreted the uniform as allegiance. And when Soviet propaganda falsely charged prominent Latvians as Holocaust collaborators, Wiesenthal proclaimed that, for anyone he had also named, it was about time such "germ-carriers of the fascist plague" ("Bazillenträger der faschistischen Pestilenz", below) were brought to justice. Wiesenthal and all who followed in his footsteps all adopted subsequent Soviet lists of accused as their own.

Nazi-hunter Efraim Zuroff has gone so far as to excoriate Swedish authorities for not bringing to justice Latvian collaborators named in publications he submitted and openly acknowledged were Soviet-produced propaganda:

During the fall of 1986, the [Wiesenthal] Center obtained information on twenty-one Latvian and Estonian suspected Nazi war criminals who had escaped to Sweden after World War II and were thought to still be residing in that country. The individuals in question ranged from national leaders who actively collaborated with the Nazis on a variety of key issues including security affairs and/or the murder of the Jews, to local officials who assisted the Nazi regime and participated in measures against the Jewish population in a specific geographic area, to journalists who worked for collaborationist newspapers. Among the most prominent Latvian collaborators were: Aleksanders Plesners [sic.] who headed the Latvian SS-Legion; ...

Unlike the other lists presented to Western governments in the fall of 1986, the Swedish list was based primarily on allegations which appeared in Soviet publications published during the 1960s. ...4

Aleksandrs Plensners, "Plesners" is the incorrect spelling in KGB materials, was a senior officer of the Latvian Waffen-SS/Latvian Legion and uninvolved in the Holocaust. (Plensners began his service in the Legion at its headquarters but was later transferred to the Eastern Front, where he came into conflict with German command, was court martialed and ultimately exonerated.) Whether intentional or not, Zuroff's "Latvian SS-Legion" misnomer also amplifies the "SS" connection. It would be expected that in the eyes of Latvians, Zuroff's willful use of KGB-authored materials taints the moral purity of his mission.

Scholars and activists who believe Latvians were anti-Semites and easily swayed to genocide believe as much as 90% of KGB publications such as Daugavas Vanagi, Who are They? are historically accurate.5 Holocaust scholar Andrew Ezergailis (1935–2022) has reviewed the materials extensively over the years — including discussing Daugavas Vanagi, Who are They? with its KGB-employed author — and concluded the opposite, that 90% is false.

“Witnesses sought, a list of war criminals”

Wiesenthal's initial list of Baltic collaborators was published in the Friday, January 7, 1949 issue of Aufbau. 6 The list contains 34 names. The entry for Vilis Hāzners in Wiesenthal's list is highlighted.

Article in Aufbau, featuring Wiesenthal's list of 34 names