German Forces

Liberators in Riga.

Unknown author.

Citizens welcome German troops to Riga, , Latvia, summer 1941. In common with Estonia and Lithuania, Latvia had enjoyed a brief period of independence (following WW1) followed by a much briefer period of Soviet rule following Stalin's move west (based in the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact) in 1939. This brief period of Soviet occupation was characterized by mass executions and, even more disruptively, large mass deportations of Balts to the Soviet far eastern Gulag. In the circumstances, it is hardly surprising that the Latvians welcomed the Germans as liberators, hoping for the re-establishment of a Latvian state with a degree of autonomy (at least) within the new German Reich. These hopes proved unfounded, and the arrival of the Germans in the Baltic states proved to be particularly bad news for Jewish citizens, who were subjected to a savage programme of extermination assisted - in particularly, in Latvia and Estonia - by local police auxiliaries. In the end, the native Latvian and Estonian populations suffered substantial male conscription to the Wehrmacht (mainly Waffen SS), and were forced to fight, again, against the return of the Soviets in German uniform against impossible odds. When Soviet control was re-established, executions and deportations (perhaps a bit more modest than before) were re-established. Best regards, JR.