Thank you ambersun, your comment made me smile. 

I also have enjoyed learning history from personal stories.
I have found its due to the silence (I think of pain in remembering the peaceful times in Latvia) that I have so many questions regarding it. There is no history book that can answer these question, only personal experience and accounts can. I do wish more would tell their stories.
I can now envision my mother as a child playing happily as opposed to what I know of her times during war, and it gives my heart peace.

Oh Mr. L L. If ignorance is bliss then you should be the happiest person on L O L.
I trudged up to my attic and brought down the scout magazine and put the picture of the scouts in 1939 in formation on my website at
http://www.lacplesis.com/scouts.html
Since Photoshop was not around at the time , I figure those are real rifles they are holding.
The law in the 1930’s was that any MALE when reaching the age of 17 was obligated to spend two weeks every summer in military training until the age of 20 when he had to serve two years active duty. If you don’t understand yet, If the student was still in school he was still going to camp. In 1939 Latvia had an army (when everyone was called up) of 180,000 trained soldiers.

I don’t really understand the reason for the rough personal exchanges between some LOL participants since the information that is being provided by everyone is most welcome and invaluable.  The photo of the scouts is terrific!  I was in the U.S. Latvian scouts, a guntina and a gaida, and enjoyed summer scouting camps.  I would love to know more about pre-war Latvian girl scouts and how they compared to the boy scouts.

Oh Mr. L L. If ignorance is bliss then you should be the happiest person on L O L.

I am honored to be diagnosed as “the happiest person” on this forum.  My only recourse seem to be to follow Elizabete’s advice she gave me some time ago: “Shut up and go away”.  There is no reason for me to continue posting my memories and such to this topic just to be interrupted by unsubstantiated droppings by “courlander.”

Mr. L. L.

See more about latvian scouts:  http://www.skauti.lv/
and an older website that has fotos, etc:  http://www.lsgco.bkc.lv/Sk_projekti.htm

To find out about latvian army uniforms, google phrases such as latvijas armijas terps, latvijas armijas uniforma, latvijas armija, latvijas dienests, etc.

I found some interesting sites:
a military magazine:  http://www.sargs.lv/
the war museum:  http://www.karamuzejs.lv/
the Latvian defense ministry:  http://www.mod.gov.lv/

Sveiki!

Just for the record, I’ve never addressed any of Mr. L.L.’s posts, much less commented about him.

By the way, appropos of this thread’s title, there are some superb photographs of the 1920’s at today’s “Diena” at:

http://www.vdiena.lv/lat/politics/latvia90/jaunaa_latvija_treshaa_galerija_veltiita_valsts_neatkariibs_pirmajiem_gadiem

Visu labu,

Elizabete

Mēs skauti nākam un dziesmu sākam.
Par savu dzīvi mēs dziedāsim.
Mēs zēni brīvi, kas mīle dzīvi,
Par latvju skautiem mūs visi sauc.
Mēs esam skauti, kas bēdas nepazīst,
Vai ārā snieg, vai salst, vai lietus līst.

This is the first stanza of a cheerful, spirited Latvian scout song that was one of the originals among the many, many great Latvian scout and guide songs. Here’s a rough translation:

We, scouts are coming and starting a song.
About our way of life we shall sing.
We boys are free who love life,
Latvian scouts we’re called by all,
We are scouts, who know no grief,
Whether outside it snows, or it’s freezing, or pouring rain.

~*~

Since the start of LOL (originally LatBits) in 2000, we have had quite some discussions about Latvian scouting, mostly in Trimda, over the years. I’ve always assumed that the scouts engaged in the same adventures in Latvia as we did in Trimda. The traditions, games, songs, stories, camping, hiking, campfire skits, working with codes and signals, solving problems, learning to live off the land, improvising and doing things together as a team carried over from the first independence days. The scouting tradition was bound to our history: Viesturs, Namējs, strēlnieki, legionāri, etc.

Having gone the full route from an 8-year old scout to dižskauts, rovers, skautu vadītājs I never specifically encountered stories linking scouting to military training per se. Yes, the fact that we roughed it, camping during the winters in the snow and summers kur priežu meži šalc, prepared us for the military by default. We climbed mountains, swam across lakes and rivers, dived off 40 foot cliffs, were abandoned on an island to fend for ourselves, practiced marksmanship and archery, cooked our own meals, applied first aid skills, pulled guard duty at night, communicated in semaphore, morse and smoke signals, made campfires by rubbing sticks together, learned about leadership hands on … when I went into the military I was more than prepared thanks to scouting. After all that the military was a piece of cake.

We also learned to be forthright about our convictions and not to cower in some corner when confronted with differences in ideology or religion. If there was something to say the scouts were atklāti (open) and avoided engaging in rumours on the sidelines.

What I do recall hearing is that scouting ceased to get the support of the Latvian government when Kārlis Ulmanis came to power in 1934. The Latvian scouts, while not interfered with, were left to fend for themselves as Ulmanis favored the agrarian minded “mazpulki,” part of the 4-H Clubs. Of course, we know that General Kārlis Goppers, the founder of Latvian Boy scouts, was a military man who did not favor the coup by Ulmanis that took away democracy. Hence the two were not on friendly terms as Goppers chose not to be in Ulmanis camp. During the first occupation by the Soviets, Kārlis Goppers was tortured and executed by the Soviet occupiers. Latvian scouting went underground and continued to exist in Latvia and thrive in Trimda.

To Ilze’s various links I would like to add the Mazpulki web site. It is a very beneficial organization in its own right - http://www.mazpulki.lv/

I’m short on time …

Esat modri, Ivars

“They (the Baltic peoples) were led to neglect the historic, geographic and political realities, and to base their existence on the functioning of the League of Nations and its English-French Controllers . . .”

And, according to the D Z 0,

“it appeared in the year 1940 that the victory of 1919/20 had only been a delusion . . .”

“The German Volkszugehörigen, in view of their all belonging to the “leaders,” are naturally paid their salaries at quite a different rate than the “natives.” While a working Latvian, irrespective of whether workman, clerk, etc., has to be content with a monthly salary of between RM. 100 to 200, the German Volksugehorigen are paid three to four times as much. So as to give them a special position in regard to wages and foodstuffs’ supply, they have been entered in a special category of the so-called Wehrmachtselbstversorger (self-suppliers of the “Wehrmacht” i.e. the Army) . Letters received from Lithuania, for example, mention the fact that the salaries payable to German girl typists reach up to RM. 1,200 per month, while Lithuanian officials in very high positions must work for RM. 250. The Hitlerjungen are often heard rapturously speak of the “marvelous” life now enjoyed by them in the Baltic countries, never have they had such an abundance of money in their hands .. .
These quotes are from the book “Latvia Under German Occupation 1941-1943” which I have put on my website.
This thread is mainly about before the war but I thought since there are many books about the Russian occupation and few about the German occupation , I thought it would be appropriate to show that Latvia was not liberated by Germany but just another occupation and under what conditions they lived under.
In 1939 when the currency exchange stopped at the start of war, the German Reichmark was 2.5 RM to $1 or 11.5 RM to 1 British Pound.

http://www.lacplesis.com/German_Occupation_Latvia_Under_under_German_Occupation_1943.html

Happy reading.

courlander et al.,

What one got paid did not mean much because everything was rationed. The germans assigned the rations(books) according to the contribution to the war effort and had a number of categories.  In general, germans at the top, latvians(natives) in the middle, and jews at the bottom.

Visu labu,

One of the pictures in the photogallery referenced by post 36 (steamship Mitau at Bulduri) prompted this posting:
http://boreograph.blogspot.com/2008/03/upriver.html

Before the war, I guess Kārlis Ulmanis, one of the fathers of Latvian independence, took power by a bloodless coup may be around 1934 followed by faster economic growth.
After three or four years followed a Russian occupation and then by the Nazis.
Are you looking for this?