There’s a respectable amount of literature in Latvian on the Latvian Central Council and on the Kurelis group, but I would like to be able to direct people who don’t know a word of Latvian to a reliable survey of these topics. So far I have found precious little in Western languages in general and in English in particular. Have I missed something (always possible)? If not, would someone please write up a survey and post it somewhere? A good Wikipedia article would serve. (I’m too far from useful library collections to do it.)

Stephen

If you Google for Kurelis group, 84 items will pop up.
Some are blank , some have info.

http://books.google.com/books?id=IPv1gjLhtZ4C&pg=PA367&lpg=PA367&dq=kurelis+group&source=web&ots=J9jwpJcqR2&sig=H2shZrkiICMBvz7QyOJOD6-Trw0#PPA368,M1

Thanks, Peter B. This looks useful; I have requested an interlibrary loan.

Stephen

Steven~
Here’s a link to Jaekelns account of Kurelian Group’s elimination.
This is in latvian.
Aren’t there any latvians living around Potrland?
Perhaps, the intellectuals have have gone south...........
to Coos Bay...................

Sorry for the delay in giving some response

My original source was the English version of the Daugava Vanags movie “The Truth About The Latvian Legion”. The son of Captain Kristaps Upelnieks (who was shot in Liepaja) telling of Kurelis group (around 3000 strong) being arrested for disobeying orders and harboring deserters from the 15th who refused to go to Germany ,led to a field where several mortar shells were fired at them, Killing 6 and then 1360 men were sent to Stutthof and Buchenwald. In Stutthof 814 died. The movie did not clarify that Kurelis was to leave for Germany, leaving his command behind to be arrested.
According to the movie, and other sources, Kurelis group were in contact with Allied Command and was trying to help form a free government in Latvia.
Because of this, Lieutenant Robert Rubens and his command for 25 days fought the Germans with only 120 casualties (according to the film). They were also facing Arajs Command which when ordered by the Germans, shot captured Latvians. I guess the whole action was one incident actually caused by the arrest order and disarmament by the Germans and firing upon the soldiers.
The movie does not mention the Latvian Sarkana Bulta (communist) partisans but where you say the partisans stopped the attack, in the document:
In short version English states that on Dec. 8th Rubens group broke out of the encirclement with great losses, reached the partisans, and gave the Germans a wallop from the rear. It further states that about 70 to 90 members were still with the partisans in 1945.
The tales of the other dissenters in Latvia against Germany and Russia are few for many perished for their stand and only now people are writing about that time, but about 100 men were given the opportunity to leave the concentration camp and join the Latvian Legion in late 1944.
The Latvian version is at:

http://www.historia.lv/alfabets/K/ku/kurela_grupa/kurela_grupa.htm

According to other sources the fate of the Kureliesi :

All the officers were tried in Liepaja, 8 shot and the rest perished in concentration camps.
The first shipment to Stutthof was 454 men
- 89 ex-soldiers sent immediately to the 15th division
- 365 were tried by a Latvian/German SS court
Of those 365
- 244 were sent to the legion
- 87 were sent to work battalions
-34 (communists, deserters from punishment battalions, politically unreliable) remained in Stutthof

The second shipment to Stutthof
-270 sent to the legion
- 28 to refugee camps

210 were shipped to Gothafen, of which 75 were transferred to the 2nd construction regiment (of the remaining 135 were presumably shot or perished in concentration camps)
Some 400 (former Aizsargi and police) were sent to front line units, mainly 19th division.
Which does not square at all with 810 perishing in Stutthof ... interesting discrepency ..

There is a book about the camp “Latviesi Stuthofas Koncentracijas Nometne 1942-1945: Latvians in the Stutthof Concentration Camp 1942-1945
by Leonids Silins (9984643468 9984-643-46) “ If you can find it that could help.
Also to go further in this thread we can use the document “German 16th Army counterintelligence Section Chief account about combat action against Kurela Group, Rubena Battalion.
Transcript from 1944, 28. Dec. Korueck 584 group situation report” dated 31.12.1944.
It states that in retaliation for losing 3 officers and 17 soldiers in this operation, the Germans burned 14 homes in the area with the occupants inside and the village of Dizkiros put 7 or 8 adults and 1 child in a barn and burned it.

Happy reading