C’mon folks, give the soldiers a break.  They were latvian “boys” (18-22 year olds) doing their obligatory 2 year stint in the latvian army. (Including my father).  Nothing much got you out of it - not college deferrment, not flat feet, etc. 

So there you are, in the army in your latvian uniform.  In comes a foreign power (USSR, German by turns) and the first thing they do to seize power is to seize all the ‘power regulating’ types of departments - the armed forces, the police, the mass media etc.  They don’t shoot them all, they conscript them (all the fellows in the armed forces) into the army of the “Victorious new regime”.  And since soldiers 1) follow orders and 2) don’t want a bullet in the back of the head for NOT following orders, they put on the new uniforms.  3) start trying to learn the language of the new regime

A year later, those same latvian boys, still in the armed forces, go through the same rigamarole with a new “Victorious new regime”.  They STILL don’t want a bullet in the back of the head, you see.  And they start trying to learn another new language.

War is raging all around them, they are in the thick of it.  They can feel if their line is forging ahead or retreating. 

So some of the ‘boys’ (you can hardly call them boys anymore, except for the 16 - year olds enlisting toward the end of the war) decide to go AWOL and become “meza brali” - partisans.  At this time, they realize that a bullet to the back or front of the head is a perfectly legal option to be exercized by the “Victorious new regime”.

Each latvian knew he was caught between a rock and a hard place.  Should he defect from this army & join that one?  Which army has more of a chance of defeating the other - AND THEN - we can turn around and drive out the victors ! 
It happened after WW I, and the soldiers thought it might work again at the end of WWII. 

Too bad it didnt.  This is how my father was in 3 armies during WW II and feared for his life to set foot on Latvian soil until 1991.

Now just try & put yourself in place - a gym teacher at heart & by trade, his leg was shot off & he was evacuated to Germany for a lengthy hospital stay.  At some point in the DP camps, russian officials come to visit and the americans “encourage” latvians to go back home to Latvija with these friendly allies.  Well, some go, most dont.

For years he (and others like him) search for lost (read: deported and murdered) family members.  He pined for the land of his birth, his heart ached and he wept for the atrocities being committed there year after year.  He felt that he had deserted his homeland.  Not by choice, you see, but the army evacuated him....

So now, Ambersun, talk to me about the choice(s) he had and he made.

I for one, thank God - often, that I was born after all of this, and yet I too, carry scars of this awful war.

Oh yeah - “war rules” seem to apply much more to the losers than the winners.

Peteris, you and your realist choir argue so militantly in lock-step-unison to uphold “the facts” that “Latvians put on German uniforms and fought for Germany.” I don’t consider this an “objective” expresion of facts if you at all feel any scholarly interest, much less any “Latvian” obligation, to write a factual and clear Latvian history. 

For example, the aforementioned “facts” leave me wondering about your earlier statements concerning your own family. You wrote, “ My father deserted the Legion in Berlin in the final days of the Reich and fled to Flensburg as a civilian. My mother was evacuated and a d.p. there.” Your “simple” facts leave me questioning what motivated your Latvian (?) father to wear “the German uniform” and “fight for Germany?” How was he able to “desert the Legion” - the Latvian Voluntary Waffen SS Legion (?) - in Berlin?  Why did he flee to Flensburg and not return to Latvia?  Also, just who “evacuated” your mother to “Deutschland uber Alles” (I assume) ?  Why didn’t she just stay in “wrong-choice-Latvia” and wait for “the Red Army Liberation of Latvia?” Are your parents among those Latvians, according to you and your fellow-travelers - just as clear as “your facts” - “who chose to fight on the wrong side for Hitler?”

Finally, your father could have returned to Latvia and you still could have been born - if your mother had chosen to stay in Latvia to be liberated by the Soviet victors (who, as post-Soviets (?), will soon be celebrating The Liberation in Uzvaras Parks in Latvia and thoughout liberated Russia.) That is, unless your parents would have been deported to Siberia after The Liberation.  Although, children were born in Siberia. I guess “deportation day” is coming soon and you’ll be required to raise the flag to remember that which did not happen to you.

Ambersun –

Your post #47 is very well put.

Please accept my respects.

Mr. L. L.

“So now, Ambersun, talk to me about the choice(s) he had and he made,” Ilze writes.

Ilze, am I just a target for anything that’s wrong with the world or have you just not read anything I’ve written?  I’m in total agreement with you and that’s why I’ve been focusing on the issue of “choice.” There wasn’t any real “choice” except for those with 20/20 hindsight.  What do you think I mean when I write to “Latvians-fought-for-Germany"-Peteris and others who insist that Latvians “fought for Hitler, like it or not,” ‘What part of occupation(s) don’t you understand?’ or ‘There is nothing voluntary under occupation!’ ? Sheesh, I give up. Like I don’t know the same Latvian story you do and that most Latvians tell just like you did, except by some contributors here on LOL?  Like my family and relatives didn’t get literally dragged into fighting under either the Soviet monster or the Nazi monster - just like so many others? Most Latvians hoped for survival, they hoped for a better day, they hoped of a free Latvia. That’s far different than accusing Latvians dragged into fighting under occupation that they were, in fact, fighting for their occupiers by choice.

Ilze Kļaviņa - 20 March 2008 11:01 AM

C’mon folks, give the soldiers a break.  They were latvian “boys” (18-22 year olds) doing their obligatory 2 year stint in the latvian army. (Including my father).  Nothing much got you out of it - not college deferrment, not flat feet, etc. 

So there you are, in the army in your latvian uniform.  In comes a foreign power (USSR, German by turns) and the first thing they do to seize power is to seize all the ‘power regulating’ types of departments - the armed forces, the police, the mass media etc.  They don’t shoot them all, they conscript them (all the fellows in the armed forces) into the army of the “Victorious new regime”.  And since soldiers 1) follow orders and 2) don’t want a bullet in the back of the head for NOT following orders, they put on the new uniforms.  3) start trying to learn the language of the new regime

A year later, those same latvian boys, still in the armed forces, go through the same rigamarole with a new “Victorious new regime”.  They STILL don’t want a bullet in the back of the head, you see.  And they start trying to learn another new language.

War is raging all around them, they are in the thick of it.  They can feel if their line is forging ahead or retreating. 

So some of the ‘boys’ (you can hardly call them boys anymore, except for the 16 - year olds enlisting toward the end of the war) decide to go AWOL and become “meza brali” - partisans.  At this time, they realize that a bullet to the back or front of the head is a perfectly legal option to be exercized by the “Victorious new regime”.

Each latvian knew he was caught between a rock and a hard place.  Should he defect from this army & join that one?  Which army has more of a chance of defeating the other - AND THEN - we can turn around and drive out the victors ! 
It happened after WW I, and the soldiers thought it might work again at the end of WWII. 

Too bad it didnt.  This is how my father was in 3 armies during WW II and feared for his life to set foot on Latvian soil until 1991.

Now just try & put yourself in place - a gym teacher at heart & by trade, his leg was shot off & he was evacuated to Germany for a lengthy hospital stay.  At some point in the DP camps, russian officials come to visit and the americans “encourage” latvians to go back home to Latvija with these friendly allies.  Well, some go, most dont.

For years he (and others like him) search for lost (read: deported and murdered) family members.  He pined for the land of his birth, his heart ached and he wept for the atrocities being committed there year after year.  He felt that he had deserted his homeland.  Not by choice, you see, but the army evacuated him....

So now, Ambersun, talk to me about the choice(s) he had and he made.

I for one, thank God - often, that I was born after all of this, and yet I too, carry scars of this awful war.

Oh yeah - “war rules” seem to apply much more to the losers than the winners.

Sveika Ilze!

Thanks!  First decent post I’ve seen here. :)

Jurmalnieks Aleks

Howdy Aleks! 
Still making sweet music?  I seem to have misplaced (loaned out) all my Jurmalnieku CDs so do you still have any left for sale?

Anyway, to Ambersun - I really do try and read your posts.  But after awhile all the italics, bolds, in quotes / not in quotes and irony, and unanswerable strings of questions leave me flummoxed.  Please simplify, if only for the sake of those of us who wear bifocals...!

I completely agree with Ilze. On ambersun. And with the post #46. It was an unfortunate time in the history of our country....

Ilze,
I am a passionate person - especially about Latvia - and for you, I’ll try to gesture less and roll my eyes in disbelief only when absolutely necessary, like when Aleksejs expects me to learn Russian to read his sign.  I jumped to agree with your post without really dwelling on your details because it was a sane and sensitive expression of the Latvian non-choice faced by most Latvians, like my own father, who was able to flee, and my uncle on my mother’s side, who was not.  Both were illegally conscripted into the Legion, and my uncle also was grabbed by the occupying Soviets/Russians.  He was first beaten to within an inch of his life, so that my grandmother (whom I never met) cried in helpless horror and pain.  Then he was taken to be in the Russian Army occupying Latvia.  My mother never saw either of her parents again.  I accompanied my parents when they first felt safe to return to Latvia, about the same time your father did. I’m glad I was present for the extremely emotional reunions. I will never say that my father and uncle “made the wrong choice(s)” when they found themselves serving under either nightmare devil. Both loved Latvia and their families and wanted Latvia to be free, and that’s why they survived for Latvia to the best of their desperately limited circumstances.  Both of them wanted Germany and Russia to leave not liberate Latvia.  Nazi Germany was defeated and victorious Soviet Russia wrote “the rules.”

Labrīt, Ilze, Ambersun, et al.!

Nowhere do I blame boys—conscription is not a choice, by definition. With the leadership, it’s a different matter; the Legion was formed due to a single vote—

Pirms atšķetinām saikni ar 16. martu un valsts nodevību 1939. gadā, aplūkosim, cik dažādas pieejas bijušas katrai Baltijas valstij attiecībā uz nacistiskās Vācijas okupācijas politiku un tās sekām. Lietuvas pašpārvalde noraidīja Hitlera pavēli pakļaut savus vīriešus mobilizācijai. Bija tikai brīvprātīgie, tāpat kā Dānijā, Norvēģijā, Nīderlandē, Beļģijā, Krievijā utt.

Šodien Lietuvai, tāpat kā pārējām minētajām valstīm, nav 16. marta. Latvijas un Igaunijas vācu ieceltās pārvaldes pakļāvās Berlīnei. Vai te varēja nospēlēt tāds faktors, ka mums un igauņiem trūka senas valsts pašapziņas un tās tradīcijas spēks, kāds bija Lietuvai?

Varbūt nē, jo Latvijas gadījumā jautājumu par pakļaušanos vai nepakļaušanos, ja varam ticēt mūsu pētniekiem, izšķīra tikai viena balss; pusei pašpārvaldes bija drosme nostāties pret pavēli. Izšķirošā balss piederēja pašpārvaldes vadītājam ģenerālim Oskaram Dankeram, kas varēja būt vācu slepenpolicijas aģents. Viņa dēļ pilnīgi bezjēdzīgā nāvē aizgāja bojā divas neatkarīgās Latvijas vīriešu paaudzes. Sekas jūtam joprojām.

Atis Lejiņš: “16. marts un 1939. gads”

Lejiņš goes on to contrast the Estonian position (avoiding an “SS march”; something Latvia was able to do when worried about NATO, but isn’t able to do when it comes to Latvia’s interests).

He makes two more salient points—Atzīmējot 16. martu, mēs faktiski nostājamies Berlīnes pusē pret pašpārvaldi; 16 March marks a battle in Russia. The “self-administration” had insisted that the Legion should fight only in Latvia.

Ilze talks about the hope that one could turn fighting for the one force into fighting for Latvia. In this context, Lejiņš brings up the Kurelis group:

Zinot visu šo, kāpēc atjaunotā neatkarīgā Latvija nav oficiāli pateikusi savu vārdu par to, kā balsoja pašpārvalde? Un kāpēc nenoliekam ziedus tai dienā, kad vācieši nošāva kureliešus?

Vai kurelieši nebija tie, par kuriem gribēja būt piespiedu kārtā mobilizētie latviešu vīri un vēl ļaunāk — nepilngadīgie zēni? Atšķirībā no 16. marta, kas bija Hitlera ģenerāļu diktēta diena lielajā karā ar neskaitāmām kaujām, okupācijas asiņainā reakcija uz kureliešu pāraugšanu par objektīvi nacionālu spēku ir mūsu spēka apliecinājums un pilnībā atbilst mūsu nacionālajām interesēm.

Kauja ar vāciešiem būtu notikusi Rīgā, ja 19. divīzijai būtu ļauts atkāpties no Vidzemes caur Rīgu uz Kurzemi. Divīzija būtu palikusi Rīgā un sagaidījusi Sarkano armiju, un tas arī nozīmētu nepaklausīt vācu virspavēlniecību. Kaut vai uz dažām dienām leģions pārtaptu par neatkarīgās Latvijas armiju. Bija tāds plāns. Vācieši to izjauca. Ja plānotais būtu īstenots, vai šodien kāds gribētu atzīmēt 16. martu?

Ibid.

Ambersun, I assume that your questions are rhetorical? Again, I don’t see how they connect to what I’ve been saying… but, then, it seems that some here are compelled to misread what I write and/or twist it.

Again—I don’t blame the boys for putting on German uniforms, and never have. I made that perfectly clear, repeatedly. I said I honor the Legionnaires.

Lejiņš: Taču laikā, kad pasaule gatavojas ceturtajam pasaules karam, vai varam atļauties turpināt karot Otro pasaules karu?

I think the answer is a very clear ”nē.”

Vysu lobu,
/P

I don’t expect you to learn anything in Russian, ambersun. Other than out of your own curiosity. The sign read: ambersun spelled phonetically in Cyrillic is all.

The following appeared this morning on my “Latvia” google alert.  Why an ignorant blog by Donald H., the author, gets through on google as a valid alert about Latvian news is not merely annoying but infuriating since anyone who subscribes to a “Latvia” or “Baltics” google alert received this news about Latvia this morning along with me.  Donald H. follows his disinformation/defamation by adding an equally disgusting article about March 16 from RIA NOVOSTI, the Russian news agency.  How do you like this for “the facts?”

Waffen SS Veterans March In Riga
by Donald H.
March 18, 2008 12:17 PM EDT

During WW-2 the people of the Baltic nations of Lithuania, Latvia & Estonia looked upon the German nazis as their saviors. Teh Nazis liberated thjem from the Communist Russians & gave them bacjk their independence as nations. Many men from these nations joined the Werhrmacht & the Waffen SS. In the years since the collapse of the Soviet Union, these WW2 vets have organized & marched before. it is not something that other European nations are comfortable with but then again the other nations did not have the Red Russian Boot in their necks under Comrade Josef Stalin either. Right or wrong these men served the side that they thought was right & they did so in most cases with honor. I would attend nor would I feel comfortable attending suc ha parade but I recognize the right of these vets to commemorate their service.

Waffen SS Veterans March In Riga
16/03/2008 16:40 RIGA, March 16 (RIA Novosti) - Hundreds of Latvians marched through the capital on Sunday under tight police security to commemorate countrymen who fought for the Nazis during WWII.

The march involved over 200 Latvian Legion veterans and their supporters.

A Latvian Legion march in 2005 through Riga resulted in dozens of arrests after clashes with Russian activists. The march involved WWII SS veterans and young nationalists.

Relations between Russia, Latvia and Estonia have been marred in the past few years by what Moscow calls the unequal treatment of ethnic Russians, the alleged persecution of Soviet WWII veterans, and the apparent revival of nationalism and fascism in the Baltic States.

Latvia has been criticized by Amnesty International for its treatment of its 400,000 Russian-speaking population who continue to live in the country without citizenship (my emphasis).

Are these the real facts about your family’s Latvian Legion experience?  Are these the real facts about the Latvia you know?

Aleksejs,
My post mentioning you and your sign was expressed with attempted tongue-in-cheek humor ( :7), which clearly failed.  I’m glad I didn’t add - that if Russian is as difficult to learn as Latvian, you’ll have to wait at least 17 years before I can be expected to read your Russian sign - since you probably would not have found that amusing either. 

PS Thanks, but I don’t need help with the Cyrillic.

Maybe I’m just being self-obsessed, but I can’t help but feel that I’m being provoked by Ambersun with all this talk of “the facts”, given our recent exchange re Ulmanis.

First of all, although the piece you’ve posted above can hardly be described as the most comprehensive or error-less description of Latvia’s world war 2 situation, it doesn’t seem as bad as you seem to think -in fairness to the writer he says, for example, that the Baltic Nations had the ”Red Russian Boot in their necks under Comrade Josef Stalin”, that the men served ”in most cases with honor” and ”I recognize the right of these vets to commemorate their service”.

Just to give a brief opinion about the legion that isn’t really any different to what has already been written on the forum: There are multiple, accurate facts about the legion. One fact is that it was exploited as cannon-fodder for the aims of a despicable regime. Another concurrent fact is that the legionnaires had no affection for the despicable regime that was exploiting them and were motivated by a love of Latvia. I think that the legionnaires are worthy of the utmost respect and admiration.

The following appeared this morning on my “Latvia” google alert.

I bet if you subscribed to a Google Alert on “Earth,” you’d get some stuff on “intelligent design.” But I still don’t understand what you’re saying—the best way to deflect prop is by churning out more/worse prop, perhaps? We’ve been through this before, and I tried to draw your attention to the size of the mills and the consumers of the flour. All you seem to be saying is that people use bad history to lay into Letts—do you really think that the answer to that is another form of bad history? One that is stuck in a rut that has little to do with history at all?

Vysu lobu,
/P

JKS, so did I understand you correctly, that the following facts describe your family’s WW II experience?

“During WW-2 the people of the Baltic nations of Lithuania, Latvia & Estonia looked upon the German nazis as their saviors. Teh (sic) Nazis liberated thjem (sic) from the Communist Russians & gave them bacjk (sic) their independence as nations. Many men from these nations joined the Werhrmacht & the Waffen SS.”
(From Donald H. on the google alert to anyone interested in knowing current Latvian news.)

Alright then: JKS and his Latvian family looked upon the “nazis as saviors.” Furthermore, JKS feels that “the Nazis liberated” him and the other Latvians and gave “them back their independence as nations.” Some of JKS family members “joined the Wehrmacht & the Waffen SS.”

JKS: Do you think Ezergailis is just wrong?  http://latviansonline.com/index.php/forum/viewthread/32664/