2018Haaretz

The headline introduces the bias that the Latvian Legion ("Legion") were Nazis and Schutzstaffel (per the photograph caption) members.

1. Legionnaires were not Nazi party members. While Legionnaires (80% conscripted) were compelled to swear an oath to Hitler, any oath given under duress is void. Notably, even with Latvia militarily occupied, there was such outrage over the German SS Nazi loyalty oath that Legionnaires only had to swear to follow orders in combat against the Red Army.
2. Invoking Schutzstaffel (the SS name) together with "Nazi" portrays the Legion as part of one monolithic criminal organization, that is, the paramilitary arm of the Nazi party feared even by the Wehrmacht, and responsible for the murder of some 5.5 to 6.0 million Jews. Regarding the Holocaust:
   1. The German Waffen-SS "military" participated in mass shootings, anti-partisan warfare, in guarding Nazi concentration camps, and committed other war crimes — as opposed to being front line combat units.
   2. Nazi management and execution of the Holocaust was assigned to the Sicherheitsdienst (SD, "Security Service") of the SS, in the Baltics, under the command of Walter Stahlecker. The SD had its own dedicated units. In Latvia, this included the subordinated Arajs Kommando, a unit of 300-500 men during the Holocaust, managed by the Germans, responsible for some 26,000 Jewish lives lost.

      These are separate and distinct from Einsatzgruppe A Einsatzkommando (EK) units EK 1a, EK 1b, EK 2, and EK 3 which operated in the Baltics and drew from multiple groups: Ordnungspolizei, Hilfspolizei, Stapo, Kripo, aforementioned SD, German Waffen-SS, plus administration, drivers, radio operators, and so on.

   3. With the war underway, the Nazis needed more manpower on the Eastern Front and deployed foreign units, both voluntary and conscripted, in combat. Included in these were the Latvian Waffen-SS units, formed in early 1943 from combat battalions already serving at the front. While the Nazis already began conscripting individuals in early 1941, these were mostly volunteers who had originally signed up for a year of service in hopes of avenging the prior year of Soviet occupation which culminated in the first mass deportations a week before the Nazi invasion. The Legion was subsequently enlarged via increasingly wider conscription drives. By 1945, every Latvian male born after 1905 had been pressed into service.

Lastly, the Nazi's denoting of the Legion as freiwillige, voluntary, was German propaganda to avoid being accused of the war crime of illegal conscription.

Der Spiegel photo appears to show a crowd watching Nazis march. This is actually the changing of the guard after the procession has reached the Freedom Monument.

Depicting a solemn procession as a "march" implies some sort of paramilitary gathering, not civilians simply paying their respects. Carefully cropped photographs, as here, of the changing of the guard at the Freedom Monument — with the monument nowhere in view, have even been used to make the commemoration appear to be a crowd gathered to watch goose-stepping Nazis march by. German magazines such as Der Spiegel regularly downplay German management and execution of the Holocaust, focusing instead on local collaborators.

"Under heavy police guard" implies a need to protect the the public from violent Nazis. Certainly not that peaceful civilians need to be kept separate from Kremlin agitators.

Language evoking fluttering banners serves only to embellish Lie #1 that the Legion served as part of the German's members-only genocidal Nazi Party "Security Force", sworn and beholden to the Nazi world-view and cause. Membership requirements? 20/20 vision, no tooth cavities, unmarried, no criminal record, and documentary proof of pure German heritage back to 1800.

The facts are that while the Legion was not part of the Wehrmacht, Legionnaires served under Wehrmacht command, bore Wehrmacht arms1, received Wehrmacht pay, corresponded with family at home via Wehrmacht military post, recuperated in Wehrmacht field hospitals, ... that is, were fully integrated with the Wehrmacht.

No. The commemoration is intended to honor those who hoped to hold off the Russians and eventually drive out the Germans, as Latvians had done only a generation earlier to achieve independence.

Neo-Nazism began to rise up in the 1990's in eastern Germany. By the start of the 21st century, there were pockets of ne0-Nazis across Europe and the United States. Whatever these extremists say, do, or believe in has is totally unrelated to Latvians commemorating the Legion, which they have done since 1952. There was never a scintilla of accusations of Nazi glorification until Russia launched its global anti-Latvian propaganda campaign.

Google search results for "latvian legion nazis":

• to December 31, 1960 — None.
• to December 31, 1970 — None.
• to December 31, 1980 — The hunt for Latvian Nazis commences, based largely on the Soviet propaganda booklet "Daugavas Vanagi — Who are They?", aimed to discredit Latvian émigré leadership. A number of U.S. deporation cases are launched, the first and most well known being the one against Vilis Hāzners, a leader in the Latvian community and former Latvian Legion/Waffen-SS officer. See [? No::title::(/.osv)], .. There is no mention of Legion commemoration.
• to December 31, 1990 — The Konrads Kalējs case comes to the fore. Arājs had allegedly identified Kalējs as a member of his company. There is no mention of Legion commemoration.
• to December 31, 2000 — 
  • Holocaust scholar Andrew Ezergailis (1935–2022) publishes "The Latvian Legion: Heroes, Nazis, or victims? : A Collection of Documents From OSS War-Crimes Investigation Files, 1945-1950 (1997)
  • The Guardian (2000) publishes the article: "Where Nazis are heroes," focused mainly on the Latvian conviction of Vasily Kononov, a Soviet partisan who killed Latvians in WWII. One of the first references to the annual commemoration appears, implying all Latvian units in "German uniform" were Holocaust collaborators:

    By 1943 there were two Latvian SS divisions and around 100,000 Latvians were in German uniform, either in auxiliary police units or in the SS legion. Unusually, the Nazis dispatched their Latvian collaborators way beyond their native territory, to Byelorussia, Ukraine and Warsaw.

    The SS legionnaires are now feted in Latvia as freedom fighters. This Thursday, March 16, the SS veterans will march to the soaring art deco Freedom and Fatherland monument in central Riga as they have for the past seven years.

• to December 31, 2010 — The annual Latvian Legion commemoration in Latvia is now all over the mainstream media. There appears to be no coverage indicating Latvians are not Nazis.

Some additional history on Latvian involvement in WWII:

The USSR also illegally conscripted 100,000 Latvians into the Red Army. Some historians are so ignorant as to label this the "Latvian civil war" within World War II, contending Latvians chose sides, brother against brother.

No. Latvians, whether serving under the Wehrmacht or Red Army, did not "choose" either: they were compelled by occupying powers. Latvians facing each other on the battlefield refused to engage.

Latvians fought until May 15th after WWII ended in defense of western Latvia. Western Allies ignored petition to restore independence.

Legionnaires fought for another week at the end of the war, refusing to give up Courland. The Red Army had failed to break through in six major offensives over the course of eight months, losing 394,000 dead, wounded, or missing, and approximately 2,600 tanks, 900 artillery pieces, and 1,400 machine guns. Rather than bypassing Courland as non-strategic ("with minimal losses," as indicated in subsequent Soviet historiography), Stalin was intent on conquering Courland. Perhaps he remembered the Soviets had held virtually all of Latvia after WWI and declared an independent Latvian Socialist Soviet Republic — after which Latvia still achieved independence. See [? No::title::(/.osv)], ..

When the end finally came in Courland, the Russians shot, deported, or imprisoned surrendering Latvians, considered citizens of the Latvian SSR and therefore traitors. Officers were tried and executed. Read more at : Aftermath: What happened to the Latvian Legionnaires after the war?

Lie #3 — Even were we to believe that the Legion was blameless in the Holocaust, they nevertheless fought against the Red Army, and therefore fought for Nazi victory and the end of Western civilization.

Efraim Zuroff has even denounced Latvians for not making the "moral choice" to willingly accept the return of brutal Soviet occupation and subjugation.

“The organizers of the march are trying to present the members of the legion as freedom fighters who paved the way for Latvian independence but nothing could be further from the truth,” he said.

“The Nazis had absolutely no intention of granting independence to any of the Baltic countries and it is only because Nazi Germany lost the Second World War could Latvia regain its independence after the fall of the USSR. People who fought for victory of Third Reich should not be glorified as heroes — such a victory would have meant the end of Western civilization,” he said. See [? No::title::(/.osv)], (2016)..

No. Zuroff's denunciation relies on the ahistorical syllogism that Latvians had two, and only two, options: Soviet or Nazi victory over their homeland. In living memory, their own history had taught Latvians there was a third option: a free and independent post-WWII Latvia. Legionnaires wore their "choice" for Latvia's place in the post-WWII order, the Latvian flag, under their uniforms. That Latvians were doomed in their hopes because they had been betrayed before the Legion was even established does not negate their hopes or invalidate their motivation. Following the war, Latvians could not comprehend that the British, who had protected their provisional government after it declared independence following WWI, had given them up to Stalin.2

The valid question has been asked, "Then why did the Legion who were not hemmed in, in Courland, continue to fight against the Red Army as they retreated all the way to Germany, even in the streets of Berlin itself, if they were not fighting for the Nazis?"

First, just as holding out in Courland allowed some 100,000 Latvians to flee the war across and down the Baltic, another 10,000 fled by land behind the front line, protected by the Legionnaires as they retreated.3

Second, surrender to the Red Army was not an option.

The Red Army began to outflank the Latvians from the west, crossing Saarlandstraße [Stressmannstraße to 1935 and after 1947] in places, threatening the Reich Chancellery itself. "Citadel"'s commandant lieutenant colonel Zeiferts was responsible for this sector, and so, having gathered the last reserves —  half a company from the Nordland sapper battalion, an incomplete Latvian

Europahaus Cabaret at night, ca 1939.

Anhalter Banhof, early 1900's. Combat positions on Anhalter Straße would have been 50 to 200 meters away from the train station.

Anhalter Straße from the Battle of Berlin "План г. Берлин", 1945.

(Laiviņš') company, and a Spanish volunteer group — at 15:00 o'clock of April 29th he launched a counter-attack at the block's southwest corner and dislodged the Red Army from the ruins in the Europahaus area. To this very day, legionnaire Jānis Puglis remembers their irresistible attack and his last battle. "Our counter-attack was dramatic. Only after the war did we find out, that on the opposite (south) side of Anhalter Straße's short block were concentrated all three battalions of the 102. Red Army regiment, and they obviously had no shortage of bullets. Our counter-attack succeeded, we beat back the Russians beyond Europahaus, while our neighbors made it to Anhalter Bahnhof, but it cost us dearly. Those only lightly wounded made it there on their own, we, seriously wounded, remained laying under the enemy's intense fire. Having been driven back beyond Anhalter Straße, the Russian soldiers who had lost this battle replenished their ammunition and, having reloaded their weapons, fired hails of bullets. During the attack, one of ours had been mortally wounded, dying, he leaned against the brick wall fence and so he remained standing. The other side concentrated heavy fire on him. After each hit, the dead legionnaire jumped like in some adventure movie, and it seemed, that he kept trying to get up on his feet so he could continue his heroic charge against the enemy bullets... I'm awaiting rescue — in evening twilight, gazing at the fallen legionnaire, slowly bleeding out and losing consciousness...
 — from a Legionnaire's war memoir's account of the Battle for Berlin

Legionnaires were always on the front line. When the Germans received intelligence of an imminent major Soviet assault, they sent in Latvian units and withdraw under cover of the Latvians' fierce resistance. And German artillery nests remained silent rather than provide cover fire and risk discovery and shelling — after all, why risk German lives for Latvian ones?

Legionnaires had three options in battle: desert and be captured and shot by the Germans, be killed by the Red Army, or continue fighting — the Russians gruesomely tortured and killed Latvians they captured. Latvian war diaries record the horrors of encountering the mutilated corpses of their fallen brethren.

At the end in Germany, Legionnaires surrendered to the Americans and British or fought to the last man rather than be captured by the Russians.

Latvia Without Fascism (LV: Latvija bez nacisma) is the Latvian branch of the Russian GONGO World Without Nazism, the Kremlin's hijacking of the anti-Nazi cause, founded in 2010 and subservient to Vladimir Putin. As the Estonian Security Services already noted in 2011:

The aims of World Without Nazism include turning it into the most influential pro-Kremlin umbrella organisation worldwide.

As has been reported in the Western press, World Without Nazism defames governments in eastern Europe which are opposed to Russian influence as "fascists". Foreign minister Sergei Lavrov made the organization's aims clear in 2012 in his address to the participants and organizers of the “Never again: memory of Holocaust and prevention of crimes against humanity. World without intolerance, racism, extremism, negativism and anti-Semitism” international conference4:

I wholeheartedly welcome the participants and organizers of the Conference arranged by an authoritative International human rights movement World without Nazism. People in Russia attach great significance to preserving the memory of the millions of victims of the WWII, including Holocaust. In summing up the results of this war we must not allow shifts in moral cues. Attempts to rewrite history of the war, equalize the rights of victims and their executioners, liberators and occupants are deeply immoral. ...

Returning to the Estonian Security Services:

According to the organisers, representatives from tens of countries have joined ‘World Without Nazism.’ Most of these representatives, however, belong to either the Russian diaspora or are clearly Kremlin-minded. Many members of the organisation’s management board have previously worked with the pro-Russian (socalled antifascist) organisation ‘Future Without Fascism.’ One of this organisation’s instigators Josef Korens is head of the Latvian Anti-Fascist Committee and now also a member of ‘World Without Nazism’s’ presidium. Other members of ‘World Without Nazism’s’ management board include Modest Kolerov, Editor-in-Chief of the information agency Regnum and former high-ranking official in the Russian Presidential Administration, Efraim Zuroff, director of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre’s Jerusalem Office, Johan Bäckman, leader of the Finnish Anti-Fascist Committee, Tatyana Zhdanoka, Latvian Member of the European Parliament, Giulietto Chiesa, Italian communist and former Member of the European Parliament, Algirdas Paleckis, leader of the Lithuanian Socialist Popular Front and so on.

...

According the organisation’s website, a total of 14 organisations from Estonia (including Nochnoi Dozor, the Arnold Meri Public Union Against New Nazism and National Hatred, Molodoye Slovo, Vmeste, the Russian portal baltija.eu, the Russian-language television channel NTV) have joined ‘World Without Nazism.’

A Kremlin-funded sign in English for the foreign press. See Lie #3, above.

A Kremlin-funded sign in English for the foreign press. See Lie #1, above.

The media give credence to the contention that Latvia is, to quote Efraim Zuroff, the "heartland of fascism" (See [? No::title::(/.osv)].) by linking to articles about actual Nazi sympathizers and worshipers.

The media also point to genuine neo-Nazis, largely foreign, who show up at the annual commemoration, drawn by the media-originated lie that Nazis are being honored. The media have turned what was once a solemn commemoration reverently observed since 1952 by Latvian communities worldwide into a Rīga media circus — thanks in large part to the Kremlin's anti-Latvian campaign whose lies the media, as in this article, feature front and center.

Kremlin lackey Josef Koren

Christopher Hale, in his Hitler's Foreign Executioners: Europe's Dirty Secret, astoundingly refers to Josef Koren as "a former beekeeper and now leader of the LAK, Latvia’s Anti-Fascist Committee", as if Koren were some simple soul of the earth, moved to oppose metastasizing Latvian neo-Nazism. Koren is a Kremlin-funded anti-Latvian agitator, member of Russia's (Putin's) World Without Nazism board.

October 17, 2020, the leaders of the Latvian Anti-Nazism Committee with the support of the Russian Embassy in Latvia organizes its annual so-called "Lake Ķišezers Breakthrough". The undertaking was the same as prior years — the pro-Kremlin activists cross Lake Ķīšezers in boats, imitating the Red Army attack on Rīga in 1944. Photo from lv.sputniknews.ru, per 2020 Latvian State Security report.

Aleksejs Šaripovs is a co-head of the Latvian Anti-Nazism Committe (LV: Latvijas Antinacistiskā komiteja, LAK).

LAK is a satellite of the Latvian Russian Union political party, with Josef Koren, Eduards Gončarovs, and Alexejs Šaripovs as its leaders. Active since 2005, registered since 2007, its leadership participated in the founding of World Without Nazism.

LAK holds "anti-fascist" rallies, organizes conferences, and attends annual meetings of legitimate European anti-fascist organizations. Unsurprisingly, LAK has an extensive article about it in Russian Wikipedia. See Латвийский антифашистский комитет.

There is a reason all the "Latvian" anti-Nazi organizations are Russian: propaganda. There are no Latvian-originated anti-Nazi organizations not because all Latvians are Nazis, but because Nazism is not a major issue afflicting Latvian society.

Lie #4 — The Legion was involved in war crimes and the Holocaust.

No. Even Efraim Zuroff declared — on Latvian television in 2012 — that the Legion was not involved in the Holocaust.

The Kremlin, however, accuses Legionnaires of burning 32 soldiers of the 1st Tadeusz Kościuszko Infantry Division alive in the Polish village of Podgaje. This propaganda has been circulated for years to defame the Legion. A massacre did take place in Podgaje. Units of the 15th Legion division and the 48th Dutch SS Grenadier regiment, as well as several groups of German SS units were stationed at Podgaje. However, it is the Dutch and German SS units who were responsible for the execution of some 200 prisoners. The "32 burned alive" were corpses in a shed which burned down. The Kremlin is the sole source of this false accusation against the Legion. Just as anti-Legion Soviet propaganda made itself believable by naming specific incidents and names, so the Kremlin attempts to attach the Podgaje massacre to the Legion.

That is not the only attempt to falsely to associate the Legion with the Holocaust or war crimes.

A common conception is that all "police battalions" were Holocaust collaborators. This is false. The vast majority of Latvian battalions served on the Eastern Front in combat or in other actions which were not related to the Holocaust. There were also battalions which were intimately involved in murdering Jews. The accusation is made that the Legion was originally composed of such Holocaust collaborators. This is also false. The battalions incorporated into the Legion at its inception were combat "reserves" on paper but in practice were front-line troops integrated into the Wehrmacht with Wehrmacht ranks.

The war crimes of Arājs Kommando are also used to tar the Legion. Arājs men, originally subordinated to the SS Sicherheitsdienst, were transferred into the Legion late in the war. No one in service in the Legion, nor those collaborators joined late in the war while in service in the Legion, has ever been accused of a war crime, let alone tried or convicted.

See Lie #1.

March 16 is, of course, Latvian Legion Commemoration Day. It was established as a Latvian national holiday in 1998. Notably, that official holiday was a day of remembrance for all Latvians who served and died in the militaries of both Nazi Germany and Soviet Union — 250,000, with 150,000 dead, a 60% casualty rate. (Meanwhile, just over a third of the German military died.) The Legion was not named in the legislation. See [? No::title::(/.osv)], .. However, the Kremlin took umbrage at a national holiday which included honoring those who fought against the Soviet Union, and so it launched a massive propaganda campaign against "Latvian Nazis" which continues to this day.

One or another of the more nationalist parties propose reestablishing a national holiday if only to irk the Kremlin.

After Latvian restored independence, May 9th was designated a day of remembrance for the victims of WWII. Subsequently, May 8th was designated the national holiday for thanks for the victory over Nazism. Russians celebrate Victory Day on May 9th (the date in Moscow), which those with roots to pre-WWII Latvia mark as the the return of an occupation which lasted half a century.

As of this analysis, the Latvian parliament plans to designate May 9th additionally as a Day of Commemoration of Victims of War in Ukraine.