Latvia caught in 'historical minefield' over SS past

By Ben Nimmo Mar 16, 2007, 19:44 GMT

Riga - Sixty-two years after the guns of World War II fell silent in Latvia, the country is still bitterly divided over the implications of its bloody and chaotic past.

On March 16, Latvians commemorate the Latvian Legion - a Waffen-SS unit formed by the Nazis in 1943. Some in the Baltic state view its soldiers as patriotic heroes, but others see them as criminals.

'The whole concept of the Legion is a historical minefield. It's far easier to say what it wasn't than what it was,' Matthew Kott, an expert on non-German SS units, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

'It wasn't a Latvian national army, but equally, it wasn't a unit formed primarily to further German racial war aims,' he added.

Latvia's history during WWII is both complex and tragic. The country was occupied by the Soviets in 1940, invaded and occupied by the Nazis in 1941 and re-occupied by the Soviets in 1944.

During the first Soviet occupation, over 15,000 Latvians were deported or executed. As a result, many Latvians viewed the Nazi invasion of 1941 as a liberation, and saw the Legion as a way of fighting back against a worse enemy.

'I volunteered to join the Legion. My family was destroyed by the communists - they shot my father and uncle because they wanted to fight for Latvia,' said former legionary Imants Gravitis.

The Legion was formed in 1943 and served as a combat unit on the Eastern Front. During its two-year existence, over 100,000 Latvians fought in its ranks in Russia, Latvia and Germany.

Many of them were conscripts, a fact acknowledged by the Nuremberg tribunal and the US government, which ruled that the Legion as a whole could not be viewed as an ideologically-based unit.

But within the Legion, a significant number of soldiers were draughted from earlier, volunteer formations. Many of these had been directly involved in massacres across the Eastern Front.

'Not all in the Legion were involved in atrocities, but the Legion came to include those who had been,' Kott said.

For that reason, many observers both in Latvia and abroad view any attempt to honour the Legion as a whitewashing of SS crimes.

'It's hardly likely that anyone today would dare to say that there are only conscripts among the bouquet-carrying old men,' journalist Viktor Matiushenok wrote in Russian-language paper Chas.

'The Latvian-SS Legion should not be glorified nor should its members be considered Latvian heroes. If anything, many of them were criminals who, prior to joining the Legion, committed the crimes of the Holocaust,' added Dr. Ephraim Zuroff, director of the Nazi-hunting Simon Wiesenthal Center.

But the debate over the Legion's historical role is no longer confined to the historical arena. In the past few years, Latvian far-right groups have regularly demonstrated on March 16 to promote their view of Latvia as a mono-ethnic state.

These ultra-nationalists are numbered in the dozens and have never won more than 1.5 per cent of votes in national elections.

But each year, Russian commentators in both Riga and Moscow say that the events of March 16 show that Latvia is quietly encouraging a 'rebirth of fascism.'

'Six decades after the defeat and condemnation of Nazism, there is every reason to speak of a rebirth of its ideology in an EU member state,' Matiushenok wrote.

The Latvian government has tried in vain to distance itself from events. Last March 16, it ordered that the Freedom Monument be closed to the public, banned all commemorative events and sent over 1,000 police into central Riga to keep order.

The ban was condemned in the constitutional court soon after. This year, the authorities have been reduced to pleading with the public not to become involved.

'I ask Latvian society to evaluate carefully the radical and extremist organizations' real motives, and (their) events, which could be used to divide society, provoke ethnic hatred and damage Latvia's image,' Foreign Minister Artis Pabriks said on Wednesday.

But given the strength of the emotions which the Legion still provokes, not all are willing to heed his call.

'The problem is that there are so many perspectives, and each has its grain of truth... Now (the Legion's history) is being used to heat up social and political tension,' Kott said.