The Latvian Legion () was a formation of the Nazi German Waffen-SS during World War II. Formed in 1943, it consisted primarily of ethnic Latvian men.Gerhard P. Bassler, Alfred Valdmanis and the politics of survival, 2000, p. 150 The legion initially consisted of two divisions of the Waffen-SS: the 15th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (1st Latvian), and the 19th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (2nd Latvian). Later in the war, Arajs Kommando was disbanded and some of its members were transferred to the Latvian Legion.
The 15th Division was administratively subordinated to the VI SS Corps, but operationally it was in reserve or at the disposal of the XXXXIII Army Corps, 16th Army, Army Group North. The 19th Division held out in the Courland Pocket until May 1945, the close of World War II, when it was among the last of Nazi Germany's forces to surrender.Ieva Zake, American Latvians: Politics of a Refugee Community, 2010, p 92
Creation
All-volunteer Latvian Police Battalions were formed in late 1941 for security duties and serving on the Eastern Front under Wehrmacht command; they were also referred to as auxiliary police. The Latvian Legion was formed on the orders of Adolf Hitler following a request by Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS; the 15th Division (1st brigade) was created on 25 February 1943. The 2nd brigade was formed in May 1943 but wasn't designated as the 19th Division until early 1944.
Holocaust perpetrators Arajs Kommando were merged into the Legion,John Hiden. The Slavonic and East European Review, Vol. 85, No. 2 (April 2007), pp. 364–365 in December 1943, with the former Arajs unit placed in charge of the III Battalion.Ezergailis, Andrew. "Holocaust in Latvia." The Historical Institute of Latvia in association with The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 1996. p. 195. They were less than 5 percent of Latvian Legion. Andrew Ezergailis, Latvian Legion: heroes, Nazis, or victims? : a collection of documents from OSS war-crimes investigation files, 1945–1950, 1997, p38Mirdza Kate Baltais, The Latvian Legion in documents, 1999, p14
Under the Rosenberg labor decree of December 1941, the Germans began conscripting Latvians in early 1942, giving them a choice between joining the labor service or the police battalions.Ezergailis, Andrew. "Holocaust in Latvia." The Historical Institute of Latvia in association with The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 1996. p. 315. One month after the unit was founded, German occupation authorities in Latvia started conscripting military-age men specifically for the Legion. Draftees were given a choice between serving in the Wehrmacht-subordinated Waffen-SS Legion, serving as German Wehrmacht auxiliaries, or in the paramilitary State Labour Service (Reichsarbeitsdienst). Unlike in Lithuania, potential recruits in Latvia did not organize an official boycott of conscription. Of the approximately 80,000 Latvians initially called up for "voluntary" service, 85 percent chose to register, a surprisingly high number and on the same level as in the German Reich.
When Nazi Germany began losing the war, conscription was extended to larger and larger numbers of Latvians. The first conscription, in 1943, applied to all Latvian men born from 1919 to 1924. Subsequent conscriptions eventually extended to Latvians born between 1906 and 1928. The division commanders and most of the staff were German SS officers. Individual combat regiments were typically commanded by Latvian officers. Only about 15 percent of those who served did so voluntarily.
After the Red Army broke through German lines at Nevel along the 1st Baltic Front in November 1943, advancing on Latvia, the Latvian Self-Administration took over mobilization from the Germans on November 13. By June 26 there were 7,671 ethnic Russians from Latvia's Latgale, representing ten percent of men from the region, serving in various units of the Latvian Legion. On July 1, 1944, the Latvian Legion had 87,550 men. Another 23,000 Latvians were serving as Wehrmacht "auxiliaries".
Operational history The first Latvian Legion unit was the 2nd Latvian SS Brigade, created in February 1943. It fought its first battle in the Siege of Leningrad, opposite the Pulkovo observatory on 18 March 1943. It continued fighting around Leningrad until the German forces retreated in January 1944.
The 15th Waffen-SS Division was formed and sent to the front in November 1943. Originally, it was sent to the Ostrov and Novosokolniki districts of Pskov Oblast, but after the German Army suffered setbacks there, was moved to positions in the Belebelka district of Novgorod Oblast in January 1944. It retreated from there a month later. At the end of February 1944, both units took defensive positions on the Sorota and Velikaya rivers. At that time, the 2nd Brigade was renamed the 19th Waffen-SS division. Over the next two months, these positions saw intense fighting.
In April 1944, the Legion was replaced by other units and moved to less active positions in Bardovo-Kudever, 50 km east of Opochka. It came under attack there in June 1944 and retreated on July 10, 1944, crossing the Latvian-Russian border on July 17.
In August and September 1944, the 15th Division was moved to Prussia for replenishment with new recruits. It was in training near Danzig until it was ordered into battle on 22 January 1945. At that time, the division consisted of about 15,000 soldiers. It fought near Danzig in January and February, retreating to Pomerania in early March. By early April, the division was reduced to 8,000 men. About 1,000 were sent by sea to replenish the forces in the Courland Pocket, and the rest were lost in the fighting. On April 11, the division was told about plans to transfer the entire division to Courland. Seeing that the war was lost and understanding that being sent to Courland would mean eventually having to surrender to the Soviets, the division decided to surrender to the Western Allies instead, disobeying German orders to the contrary when necessary.
The 19th Division continued to fight in Latvia. In October 1944, Soviet advances in Lithuania cut off all units in the Courland Pocket from the rest of the German forces. It was part of the six battles between Soviet and German armies in the Courland Pocket in 1944 and 1945. During the third battle in December 1944, the opposing Soviet units included two Latvian divisions, the 43rd and the 308th, formed from recruits drafted in Soviet-occupied Eastern Latvia. When Latvian units from both sides of the front faced one another, they were quite unwilling and occasionally disengaged without firing a shot. The Soviet command transferred the Latvian divisions elsewhere after a few days. Together with other units in the Courland Pocket, the 19th division surrendered to the Soviets at the end of the war on May 9, 1945. Subsequently, almost 50,000 Latvian soldiers became Soviet prisoners of war in filtration or gulag camps. Some of the Legion soldiers continued fighting the Soviets as Forest Brothers for up to ten years after the end of the war.
Motivation of Latvian Legionnaires Oberführer Adolf Ax, commander of the 15th Division, reported on 27 January 1945: "They are first and foremost Latvians. They want a sustainable Latvian nation state. Forced to choose between Germany and Russia, they have chosen Germany, because they seek co-operation with western civilization. The rule of the Germans seems to them to be the lesser of two evils." This perspective resulted in part from the Soviet occupation between 1940 and 1941, called "The Year of Terror" () during which tens of thousands of Latvian families were executed or deported to Siberia with men separated from the women and children to break down resistance.Wingfield, N., Bucur, M. Gender and war in twentieth-century Eastern Europe. Indiana University Press, 2006
Legion command emphasized that the Latvians were fighting against Soviet re-occupation. Conscripts promised in the name of God to be subservient to the German military and its commander Adolf Hitler, to be courageous and to be prepared to give up their life "in the fight against Bolshevism"."Dieva vārdā es svinīgi apsolos cīņā pret boļševismu vācu bruņoto spēku virspavēlniekam Ādolfam Hitleram bezierunu paklausību un kā drošsirdīgs karavīrs būšu vienmēr gatavs par šo zvērestu atdot savu dzīvību." per Bangerskis R. Mana mūža atmiņas, vol. 3., Imanta, Copenhagen. 1959. p. 107. Legionnaires hoped to fight off the Red Army until it was no longer a threat to Latvia and then turn against Nazi Germany, as a repeat of the Latvian War of Independence of 1918–1920, when Latvian forces expelled both Bolshevik and German forces. Legionnaires carried Latvian flags under their uniforms as a symbol of that hope.Ezergailis, A. Latvian Legion: Heroes, Nazis, or Victims?: A Collection of Documents From OSS War-Crimes Investigation Files, 1945–1950. Historical Institute of Latvia, 1997. This sentiment was also reflected in one of the most popular Legion songs with the lines: "We'll beat those lice-infested ones – again, again. After that we'll trounce those blue-grays – again, again"Mēs sitīsim tos utainos – arvien, arvien, Pēc tam tos zili pelēkos — arvien, arvien (with euphemisms for Bolsheviks and Germans). The Allies confirmed this as early as 1943, when a British investigative mission found Latvians stood against both their Soviet and German occupiers.Strods, Heinrihs. Zem melnbrūnā zobena. Riga, 1994. page 96, fact finding mission of July 5, 1843.
Latvians, as did the Estonians and to lesser degree Lithuanians, believed that the Western powers, especially Britain, would come to their aid as they had in 1918–1920. These hopes were bolstered by Allied communications received in November 1944 in which British command instructed them to hold Courland until a joint British-American fleet entered the Baltic.Indulis Ķēniņš, Kam un ko zvērēja latviešu leģionāri? , Crimes Against Humanity, Latvian site, retrieved 12-June-2012.
After World War II
In 1946, the Nuremberg Tribunal declared the Waffen-SS to be a criminal organization, making an exception of people who had been forcibly conscripted. The Nuremberg tribunal ruled that those who had served in the Baltic Legions were conscripts, not volunteers.Richard Rashke, Useful Enemies: America's Open-Door Policy for Nazi War Criminals, Open Road Media (2013), p. 26
In 1946 former Schutzstaffel servicemen from the Baltic states were granted an amnesty by the Soviet government, an unprecedented decision in relation to Soviet citizens who collaborated with the Nazi government.
Subsequently, on 13 April 1950, a message from the Allied High Commission (HICOG), signed by John J. McCloy to the Secretary of State, clarified the US position on the Baltic Legions: "they were not to be seen as 'movements', 'volunteer', or 'SS'. In short, they had not been given the training, indoctrination, and induction normally given to SS members".Mirdza Kate Baltais, The Latvian Legion in documents, Amber Printers & Publishers (1999), p104
With the full support of Nuremberg and Allied High Commission, the US Displaced Persons Commission declared in September 1950 that: "The Baltic Waffen SS Units (Baltic Legions) are to be considered as separate and distinct in purpose, ideology, activities, and qualifications for membership from the German SS, and therefore the Commission holds them not to be a movement hostile to the government of the United States."Richard Rashke, Useful Enemies: America's Open-Door Policy for Nazi War Criminals, Open Road Media (2013), p27
Even before this decision, around 1,000 former Latvian Legion soldiers had served as guards at the Nuremberg trials, guarding Nazi war criminals. Afterwards, during the Berlin Blockade, they took part in securing Allied facilities involved in the Berlin Airlift and later also were guarding US Army headquarters.