Legion Vs Brothers

 Today (March 16^th) is Remembrance Day of the Latvian Legionnaires (Latvian: Leģionāru piemiņas diena.) While it is not an official Holiday in Latvia there are moves to make it one.

The Latvian Legion were part of the German Waffen-SS and had 87,550 Latvians and 23,000 Auxiliary Members and was created after the German Invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941 and lasted until Germany’s defeat in May 1945 (there were similar units in Estonia, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine and Russia.)

While some claim these Latvians (and Lithuanians, Estonians, Belarussians, Ukrainians and Russians) only joined the Waffen-SS because they were anti-Communist and wanted to defeat the Soviets which occupied their territory (from 1939-1941 and would later reoccupy them from 1944-1991) they could have collaborated with the Germans in the regular German Army, but instead joined the very select SS – mostly because they were anti-Communist and wanted to kill Communists and anti-Semitic and wanted to kill Jews.

These Foreign Nazi Collaborators made it possible for the Germans to not need as many German SS since these Foreign SS Groups guarded the 8 Death Camps (including the Gas Chambers), the 980 Concentration Camps, the 30,000 Labor Camps, the 1,150 Ghettoes and the Mass Execution Sites.

The Latvian SS carried out the Rumbala Massacre in Riga, Latvia where from November 30 – December 8, 1941 they marched 24,000 Latvian Jews from the Riga Ghetto and 1,000 German Jews taken right off the Cattle Cars from Germany to the Rumbala Forrest outside the city where they were stripped naked and shot over open pits.

The Latvian SS also carried out the Liepāja massacres in Liepāja, Latvia where from December 15-17, 1941 they marched 5,000 Latvian Jews and an unknown number of Gypsies and the Disabled to the beach where they were forced to strip naked before being shot.

The Latvian SS also helped in the  liquidation of hundreds of Ghettoes throughout Eastern Europe. The most famous of these was the Große Aktion Warschau (The Great Warsaw Action) where between July 23 and September 21, 1942 the German SS, the Latvian SS, the Estonian SS, the Lithuanian SS, the Belarussian SS, the Ukrainian SS and the Russian SS deported 265,000 Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto and sent them to the Treblinka Death Camp.

After the war the majority of the Latvian Legion fled into Germany and other parts of Europe and hid their Waffen-SS identities. Instead they pretended to be Latvians fleeing the Soviet Communists (who were re-occupying Latvia) and not the War Criminals they were. Only a handful were ever brought to justice.

Today, they are seen by some in Latvia, as Freedom Fighters who tried to liberate Latvia from Soviet control. These Latvian SS are not heroes or Freedom Fighters – they are Nazi War Criminals/

There were real Latvian Freedom Fighters: The Forest Brothers (Latvian: mežabrāļi.) The Forest Brothers were a group of 50,000 Partisans in Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania who waged  guerrilla warfare against the Soviet regime during the Soviet invasion and occupation from 1944-1956 (and were helped by the US, the UK and other anti-Communist countries.)

(The first picture is of Jānis Pīnups sometime before 1944 and the second picture is of him and his Sister turning himself in to a Latvian Police Officer in 1995.)

The last Latvian Freedom Fighter to stop the guerrilla warfare against the occupying Soviets was .Jānis Pīnups in 1995 at the age of 70. He was conscripted into the Soviet Red Army in August 1944 and sent to the front where he deserted and returned to Latvia in October 1944. After the Soviets reoccupied and annexed Latvia the Red Army, the NKVD (later the KGB) and others hunted these defectors down. He fled to the forests and joined the Forest Brothers in 1944. Only his Brother and Sister knew he was alive and fighting in the forests all over Latvia. When Latvia regained its independence in 1991 and the USSR collapsed in December 1991 he continued to hide from the now Russian Military who continued to have troops in Latvia. It was only after the Russian Military completely left Latvia in 1995 that he came out of the forest and turned himself in at a Latvian Police Station. He was recognized for his service to the Latvian Nation. He died in 2007 at the age of 82.