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1941-1945 - Nazi Occupation

Latvia was an occupied country during Nazi German rule 1941-1945. There was no sovereign Latvian state authority at that time. The Directors of the so-called Self-Administration of the Land were subject to German civilian authorities in all matters of policy. Under the Hague Convention of 1907, Germans were not allowed to conscript the inhabitants of Latvia to serve in its military forces, but they circumvented the rule.

A declared neutral country during the early phases of World War II, Latvia fell prey to the realpolitik of both Nazi Germany and Communist Soviet Union. They concluded a mutual Non-Aggression Treaty on 23 August 1939, known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. The Pact allowed Germany to invade Poland on 1 September 1939. Among its secret provisions was the establishment of a Soviet Sphere of Influence in Eastern Europe, including Latvia. It allowed the Soviet Union under various pretexts to invade Latvia on 17 June 1940 and annex the country on 5 August 1940. The takeover was never recognized de jure by major Western powers. Nazi Germany, in turn, never recognized Latvian sovereignty but treated Latvia as occupied Soviet territory. The fate of Latvia and the reactions of its population must be viewed in the context of three successive foreign occupations and their cumulative destructive effect on the people: Soviet (1940-41), German (1941-44/45), Soviet (1944/45-91).

The Historians' Commission of Latvia, which was established in 1998, has considerably activated the research into the criminal policies of the German occupation rule in Latvia during the Second World War. Increased research efforts have been focused on the Holocaust and the repression system created by the Nazis; the scope of terror and repressions launched by the Nazis have been established with more accuracy. Historians of Latvia attribute particular attention to the issue of collaboration, emphasising that the collaboration of the Latvian population with the Nazi occupation rule was largely rooted in the first Soviet occupation of 1940-1941 and in the efforts to regain the national independence of Latvia that was lost during this occupation. The majority of the people of Latvia had remained loyal to the de facto annihilated State of Latvia.

The identified documents in the German archives allow detailed disclosure and analysis of the Nazi occupation policies in Latvia in all their nuances. What is of special importance, based on these materials it is also possible to carry out comparative analysis of the Nazi occupation policies in the Baltic as a whole, establishing the common features and differences of these policies in Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. Many documents of German origin try to explain why in Lithuania the mobilisation campaigns failed and the planned formation of SS Legion turned out to be impossible there. Germans blamed both the mentality of the Lithuanian people (Lithuanians were not fit for fighting, they wrote), the negative attitude of the catholic clergy and intellectuals (who first and foremost strove at the restoration of the independence of Lithuania) towards mobilisation as well as the hostile attitudes of the Lithuanian political and military elite towards Germany that had been in the air since mid-1930s due to the issue of Memel (Klaipeda) having come to the forefront in Germany-Lithuania relations.

Germany's archive materials clearly reveal the short-sightedness and lack of co-ordination in the German occupation policies and the differences of opinion among various Nazi institutions on the way or methods of dealing with that or other issue. As an example one could mention the question of whether to grant autonomy to Latvia and Estonia. In the autumn of 1943 some individual high-ranking Nazi officials, such as SS Reichsführer H.Himler spoke of the need to grant Latvia and Estonia national independence. This idea met eager support from the Chief of SS Main Authority G. Berger as well as Commissar General for Latvia O. Dreksler. The Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Provinces even drafted Führer's decree on the national independence of Latvia and Estonia. However, Minister A. Rosenberg gave an order to elaborate plans for the closing down of Reichskommissariat "Ostland". Individual German diplomats on their turn suggested the granting of autonomy to Latvia and Estonia as a reaction to the Conference of Ministers of Foreign Affairs that took place in Moscow in October 1943. Information had come to the notice of German intelligence service that in that Conference the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the United Kingdom and the USA had de facto recognised the incorporation of the Baltic States into the USSR.

On the other hand, the idea of autonomy also met opposition in influential circles. Opposed to the granting of autonomy to Latvia and Estonia were Reichskommissar H. Lose and the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Germany J. von Ribbentropp. Several documents testify that it was Ribbentropp's opinion that to a large extent affected the position of A. Hitler who eventually made a negative decision.

The archives of Germany store many documents that describe the Latvian political figures of "the German period". For example leader of "Perkonkrusts" ("Thundercross") Gustavs Celmins whose activities in the German occupation period have met controversial evaluation in contemporary Latvian historiography. Sources of German origin often mention Director General for Justice of the Latvian self-government A. Valdmanis. Although the German documents contain rather controversial data, on the whole they do not reveal A. Valdmanis as a staunch supporter of the German policies and as a most explicit case of collaboration the way, for instance, historian Haralds Biezais portrays him in his works. Several high-ranking German officials did not trust A. Valdmanis or saw him as a friend of Germans. For example, in November 1943 Minister for Occupied Eastern Provinces A. Rosenberg described him as "the main voice of the Latvians' demands".

How strong and stern was the German occupation rule? Is not the view rather widely spread in historical literature on the omnipotence of the occupation rule just a myth? Was not the established German civilian authority too weak to foster the policies of Berlin? Were or were not the Nazis able to achieve complete implementation of their decisions and unconditional obedience? What would have happened if the self-authority in Latvia did not take part in the formation of the Legion? The Lithuanian example pertaining to the Legion does demonstrate that there were limits to the capacity of the Nazis. Arrests among intellectuals, mass-scale searching, the closing down of Vilnius and Kaunas universities did not made Lithuanians change their attitude. In Latvia and Estonia as well Nazis were not infrequently forced to admit their impotence pertaining to dodging of check-ups and mobilisation in the Legion. For instance in December 1943 Reichskommissar of Ostland H. Lose complained to SS Reichsführer H. Himler that over 4000 Latvians and 2000 Estonians had failed to obey the order to report to the recruitment stations and the police measures had proved inefficient.