2020Monica Lowenberg

There is no "march" of neo-Nazis. It's unlikely there are any former Legionnaires left alive — someone who turned 19 in 1941 would be 102 now. The oldest draftees, born in 1906, would be 118.

Latvians did not fight for the success of either Hitler or Stalin. Legionnaire song spoke of driving out the Russians and Germans as had been done only a generation earlier to achieve independence. Astoundingly, some describe WWII as featuring a Latvian "civil war" where Latvians "chose" to fight "on the side" of either the Nazis or Soviets!

Indeed, after WWI, a defeated Germany was backed by the Great Powers to counter the Bolshevik invasion coming from the east. A generation earlier, Russia had been the greatest evil and Germany a temporary ally to the Latvians. Baltic German plans for the United Baltic Duchy were thwarted.

Russia had been a mortal enemy for four centuries, ever since Ivan the Terrible invaded in 1558 and waged a war that lasted an entire generation. [need invasion and only 17000? latvians left alive, no living creature, etc.]

The Legion was formed from combat units already serving under the Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front. While the Nazis began conscripting Latvians already at the start of 1942, these could still be characterized as largely volunteer-based. However, these Latvian battalions had no role in the Holocaust. These were also the battalions initially incorporated in the Latvian Legion.

At least in the Eichmann trial judgement, there is no mention of Latvians or Waffen SS. There was testimony at the trial that "The purpose of the Einsatzgruppen was to murder Jews and deprive them of their property." This has never been in doubt.

Who did and did not collaborate with the Nazis in murdering Jews is a matter of organization.

Notwithstanding the standing military invasion order to eliminate Jews, which also applied to the Wehrmacht, the overarching agency responsible for execution of the Holocaust in the invaded Soviet-held territories was the Sicherheitsdienst (SD), more fully Sicherheitspolizei und des SD (SS security forces SIPO and SD).

Walter Stahlecker commanded these forces for the Reichskommissariat Ostland (Baltic states and part of today's Belarus) during the Nazi invasion until being killed in action in March, 1942 — by which time he had completed the Holocaust in Latvia.

Primarily tasked with the elimination of Jews, Roma, the handicapped, captures Soviet commissars, Polish leadership,... were the Einsatzgruppen. Reporting to Stahlecker were:

• Einsatzgruppe A, which was divided into Einsatzkommandos 1a, 1b, 2, and 3, the majority of which were elite Nazi Waffen-SS, 340 out of 990 total.
• the German SD command structure: offices in Rīga (headquarters), Daugavpils, Liepāja, Jelgava, and Valmiera, with another three dozen branch offices scattered across Latvia
• under "Spies and Agents", SD-subordinated Latvian Sonderkommando units:
  • Arājs Sonderkommando, the only SD collaborator unit to last through the war — It was organized by Rudolf Lange, who reported to Stahlecker. In November 1943 it was divided into the 3rd and 4th SD Police battalions. 4th Battalion was led by Arājs. 3rd by Major Kārlis Ozols.
  • Latvian Political Police led by Herberts Teidemanis

  Other SD-subordinated units the Nazis created at the beginning of the occupation to assist in the initial killings were soon disbanded. During the execution of the Holocaust, the entire number of Latvians in SD units totaled no more than 500.

Without getting into details of renamings and reorganizations, from the Nazi perspective, (our emphasis)

there were three different types of military and police organizations in Latvia. First were the SD units and their adjuncts who together totaled about 1,200 members at peak in 1943. They came into existence on July 1941 and were heavily involved in the killing of the Jews. The second group were the Schutzmannschaften, a name that was attached to all Latvian police precincts and until mid-1942 to the police battalions. The last was the Latvian SS Legion, which was organized in 1943 and consisted mainly of draftees. For many commentators on Latvia under the German occupation these three different types of units converged into one unitary whole, all of them designated as collaborationist and Nazi. The three types of Latvian formations have been most unambiguously represented as one SS whole in Soviet writings, but in reality the differences among the three are greater than the similarities. The SD units consisted purely of volunteers, the Schutzmannschaften in part of volunteers, and the Latvian Legion mostly of draftees. The work of the Schutzmannschaften was varied, from being "cops on the beat," to partisan-sweeps, service in the trenches, and isolated participation in the atrocities. The Latvian Legion were nothing but soldiers at the front.1

The March 19, 1943 Nazi draft notice appearing in Tēvija (Rīga), summoning all men born in 1919 through 1924, that is, ages 18 to 24.

The implication is that pursuit of Latvian collaborators had to somehow wait for Latvian independence — recall, the expectation was the Soviet Union would still be with us, and that Latvia has done nothing since.

As we noted earlier in our review, after evading authorities for years, Arājs was finally caught, tried, and convicted in 1979. The Soviet Union tried over 300 of Arājs's unit, as well as Friedrich Jeckeln — and many more.

[Latvians] point out that the Soviets tried and punished thousands of alleged Nazi war criminals after taking over Latvia again in 1944. A Latvian review of 30,000 cases after the Soviets lost power showed that 2,000 convictions were justified.2

There were also the Soviet show trials of the 1965. The U.S. brought cases against a number of Latvians, not all successfully, having been mostly brought to trial based on Soviet propaganda. Latvia requested Konrads Kalējs's extradition after at least a decade of legal machinations unrelated to Latvia.

Latvia established a historians' commission to investigate occupational crimes from 1940 to 1956 in November 1998. Assuming at least four years to develop evidence, by then, the age of servicemen would be 78 to 97. When Lowenberg made her complaint in 2012, 87 to 106. In 2020, as noted above, 95 to 114. It is disingenuous to suggest there is anyone left.

Germany commenced operating its commission to investigate Nazi-committed war crimes in the occupied territories in 1959. Germany has a massive amount of war records. While not all Latvians who were members of SD-subordinated units committed war crimes, that list of names has been known for decades. It was Germany's responsibility to track down their Nazi and Nazi-enlisted collaborator war criminals. There was no guarantee Latvia would ever regain independence to launch its own investigations.

But even before Germany launched that dedicated search for Nazi war criminals, it issued amnesty in 1951, benefiting 792,176 individuals, including about 3,000 SS, SA, et al. members who dragged victims off to camps and prisons, and some 20,000 convicted for "deeds against life" — we assume murder.

This feel-good Latvia-bashing serves no constructive purpose.

As explained above, the units which initially formed the Latvian Legion were not involved in the Holocaust.

As discussed earlier in our review, the men of Arājs's unit were deployed into the Latvian Legion late in the war. Legionnaires despised them as cowards who did everything they could to escape combat.

Latvians commemorating the Latvian Legion no more glorify these criminals than Americans, on Vietnam Veterans' Day, glorify the Mỹ Lai massacre, or the British, on Remembrance Sunday, glorify the deaths of 26,000 women and children in British concentration camps during the Second Boer War (1899-1902). Men complicit in those deaths who served in South Africa surely also served later in WWI.

"Recruitment" is the process of soliciting volunteers. The Latvian Legion was conscripted. Indeed, Latvia was the only country the Nazis occupied in WWII where the local population was forcibly enlisted into the German military. By the time the war was over, every adult Latvian male born from 1906 onward had been pressed into service.

While the Nazis mobilized as many as 140,000 Latvians in total, more were in sapper units, construction units, etc. than in combat units. The Legion itself numbered 52,000-56,000 depending on whose numbers are used.

The Wehrmacht commanded the Latvian divisions. The Wehrmacht paid combat pay to Latvian division members. The German government paid pensions to the Latvian division members, as with the Wehrmacht. When Latvians fought bravely to keep the Soviet Union from reoccupying their homeland, the Wehrmacht recognized their valor — not to be mistaken for support for the Nazi cause, which German officers complained was universally absent among the Latvians. Instead of disparaging the Legion, she ought to commend their bravery by their count of Iron Crosses.

We will simply repeat what we stated in an earlier portion of our review:

...Latvian war diaries describe the brutal combat overlooking the garden where Hitler once took his German Shepherd Blondi for walks. This had nothing to do with being among the last "Nazi" hold-outs, just as the Legion in Courland were not "Nazi" hold-outs. At the close of the war, it was simply a struggle for survival against overwhelming Russian forces. The "battle" was never for Nazism, Germany, or the German people. It was against the Russians, the mortal enemies of the Latvian people ever since Ivan the Terrible first invaded the Latvian homeland in the 16th century and waged a war that lasted 25 years.

If possible, retreating Latvians surrendered to the Americans and British, whereas Latvians besieged by the Russians were embroiled in an existential battle that had endured four centuries — preferring to fight to the last man rather than be captured, tortured, and likely executed. Hitler was immaterial.

There appears to be some confusion on Lowenberg's part about what was established when. The Nazis informed the Latvians on January 27, 1943 that they had formed the Latvian Legion. The first conscription notices were issued in March (see above).

March 16-18, 1944 marked the battle annually commemorated, the only time both Latvian Legion divisions served together, and under a Latvian commander. The vast majority of Legionnaires were conscripts, not volunteers.

"To fight for the Nazis" — that is the issue here. The Latvian Legion wore German uniforms, operated under German command, swore an oath to follow orders in combat against the USSR. They did not swear a single word that they would fight for the Nazi cause, for Nazi goals. They wore the symbol of the cause they fought for, a Latvian flag, underneath their uniforms.

It is quite simple.

If you believe the only option was Nazi or Soviet subjugation, that Nazi victory meant the end of Western civilization — and the Nazis were going to deport the Latvians and import and settle Germans anyway, thus the only "moral" choice was to "choose" a return of Soviet brutality then you ignore history. Latvians declared independence holding not a speck of their homeland, then drove out both Russians and Germans. There was a third option to Nazi or Soviet subjugation: that was to leave the Latvians alone, and independent. Indeed, Latvians held out in Courland to the very end, where Stalin lost 394,000 dead/wounded/missing and more than 2,000 tanks destroyed trying to eradicate them. All those lives that could have been saved, and Hitler defeated sooner, if the Red Army had just ignored Latvia.

On the other hand, if you believe the truth that the Latvian Legion regardless of conscripts or volunteers fought to see their homeland independent after the war, then commemoration cannot be anything but a positive act.

There is absolutely no basis whatsoever to describe the Latvian Legion as pro-Nazi. This is an overt, propagandist lie, plain and simple. No amount of indignation makes a lie true.

Let us be clear. This is all about politics, and wholly unrelated to any sort of historical truth. Bluntly, a Europe dependent on Russia for energy cannot afford to antagonize Russia, which can turn the tap off any time it wants. Indeed, only a year later after this particular condemnation, Europe was shivering in the cold as gas deliveries via Ukraine were disrupted over disputes.

The Latvian Legion had nothing to do with "Nazism."

There is nothing improper that the Latvian government names the Latvian Legion for what they were and provides some sort of benefits to the few former Legionnaires remaining. What "contrast" Lowenberg refers to is unknown.