Download or read book The Latvian Legion 1943 1945 written by Edmunds Svencs and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2013-06-14 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Latvian Legion was the largest Latvian military formation that served Nazi Germany from 1943 until the end of World War II. As the most decorated non-German Waffen-SS formation, it fought from the outskirts of Leningrad until the defensive lines of Berlin. However, it also has become a focal point of heated contemporary discussions between historians of Western Europe and the Russian Federation with accusations that the Latvian Legion engaged in war crimes and supported Nazi ideology. The author analyses the development of the Latvian nation, and what influence Russia and Germany have had on it; the creation of the Latvian Legion and what lingering effects it has on today's Latvia.
Download or read book The Latvian Legion According to Independent Observers written by Visvaldis Lācis and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 92 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Latvian Legion written by Andrejs M. Mezmalis and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 80 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Stormtrooper on the Eastern Front written by Mintauts Blosfelds and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2008-09-19 with total page 267 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The memoir of a reluctant soldier coerced into military service by the Nazis and driven from his homeland by the Russians. Following the conquest of his native Latvia by the Nazis, Mintauts Blosfelds was given the stark choice: service in the SS or forced labor in a slave camp. So he “volunteered” to fight for the Nazis. In this memoir he describes his training and how he became an instructor before being sent into Russia. He nearly perished during the terrible winter of 1943–44 after being wounded and finding himself with his friend lying dead on top of him. As the tide turned, the Russians advanced remorselessly through. He would be wounded twice more and awarded the Iron Cross for bravery. With German resistance collapsing, he had to flee for his life—capture by the Russians meant almost certain death. He surrendered to the Americans, but describes the neglect he suffered at their hands. Unable to return to Latvia, which was now occupied by the Russians, he became a Displaced Person, eventually settling in the UK. This book tells his compelling story.
Download or read book Latvian Legion written by Arturs Silgailis and published by R.J. Bender Publishing. This book was released on 1986 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Latvian Legion in Documents written by Mirdza Kate Baltais and published by Amber Printers and Publishers. This book was released on 1999 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Latvian Legionnaires written by Edvīns Brūvelis and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 440 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Case for Latvia written by Jukka Rislakki and published by Rodopi. This book was released on 2008 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What do we know about Latvia and the Latvians? A Baltic (not Balkan) nation that emerged from fifty years under the Soviet Union - interrupted by a brief but brutal Nazi-German occupation and a devastating war - now a member of the European Union and NATO. Yes, but what else? Relentless accusations keep appearing, especially in Russian media, often repeated in the West: "Latvian soldiers single-handedly saved Lenin's revolution in 1917", "Latvians killed Tsar Nikolai II and the Royal family", "Latvia was a thoroughly anti-Semitic country and Latvians started killing Jews even before the Germans arrived in 1941", "Nazi revival is rampant in today's Latvia", "The Russian minority is persecuted in Latvia. . ." True, false or in-between? The Finnish journalist and author Jukka Rislakki examines charges like these and provides an outline of Latvia's recent history while attempting to separate documented historical fact from misinformation and deliberate disinformation. His analysis helps to explain why the Baltic States (population 7 million) consistently top the enemy lists in public opinion polls of Russia (143 million). His knowledge of the Baltic languages allows him to make use of local sources and up-to-date historical research. He is a former Baltic States correspondent for Finland's largest daily newspaper Helsingin Sanomat and the author of several books on Finnish and Latvian history. As a neutral, experienced and often critical observer, Rislakki is uniquely qualified for the task of separating truth from fiction.
Download or read book The Latvian Legion written by and published by . This book was released on 1997 with total page 110 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Bear slayers written by Steven Kiersons and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2011-05-11 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Between Russia and Germany lay contested lands. The domain of the German Lords and the western-most bastion of Imperial Russia, these lands have often been at the centre of European history, but their indigenous peoples have not. With the collapse of the Russian Empire in 1917, newly born nations sought to find a usable past to unite in common struggle. Latvia's national legend, the Bear-Slayer, was at the forefront in a battle to rescue its past from the hands of its oppressors. This book explores how the Bear-Slayer served as a template for the remembrance of two World Wars in Latvia, how the legend was used and abused by foreign occupiers, and how Latvians understand their own personal histories as an act of social memory. Also included: An interview with Latvian Waffen SS Legionnaire Janis Saulitis.
Download or read book Latvia in World War II written by Valdis O. Lumans and published by Fordham Univ Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 572 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Valdis Lumans provides an authoritative, balanced, and comprehensive account of one of the most complex, and conflicted, arenas of the Second World War. Struggling against both Germany and the Soviet Union, Latvia emerged as an independent nation state after the First World War. In 1940, the Soviets occupied neutral Latvia, deporting or executing more than 30,000 Latvians before the Nazis invaded in 1941 and installed a puppet regime. The Red Army expelled the Germans in 1944 and reincorporated Latvia as a Soviet Republic. By the end of the war, an estimated 180,000 Latvians fled to the West. The Soviets would deport at least another 100,000. Drawing on a wide range of sources--many brought together here for the first time--Lumans synthesizes political, military, social, economic, diplomatic, and cultural history. He moves carefully through traditional sources, many of them partisan, to scholarship emerging since the end of the Cold War, to confront such issues as political loyalties, military collaboration, resistance, capitulation, the Soviet occupation, anti-Semitism, and the Latvian role in the Holocaust.
Download or read book Blood in the Forest written by Vincent Hunt and published by Helion and Company. This book was released on 2017-05-04 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With original research and interviews with survivors, a journalist reveals the brutal yet forgotten battles in Latvia during the final months of WWII. While the eyes of the world were on Hitler’s bunker, more than half a million men fought six cataclysmic battles in the fields and forests of Western Latvia known as the Courland Pocket. Just an hour from the capital Riga, German forces bolstered by Latvian Legionnaires were trapped with their backs to the Baltic. Forced into uniform by Nazi and Soviet occupiers, Latvian fought Latvian – sometimes brother against brother. Hundreds of thousands of men died for little territorial gain in unimaginable slaughter. When the Germans capitulated, thousands of Latvians continued a war against Soviet rule from the forests for years afterwards. An award-winning documentary journalist, Vincent Hunt travels through the modern landscape gathering eye-witness accounts, piecing together the stories of those who survived. He meets veterans who fought in the Latvian Legion, former partisans and a refugee who fled the Soviet advance to later become President, Vaira Vike-Freiberga. A survivor of the little-known concentration camp at Popervale details his escape from a death march and subsequent survival in the forests with a Soviet partisan group - and a German deserter. With detailed maps and expert contributions alongside rare newspaper archives, photographs from private collections and extracts from diaries translated from Latvian, German and Russian, Hunt assembles a ghastly picture of death and desperation in a nation both gripped by war and at war with itself.
Download or read book The Latvian Legion written by Andrew Ezergailis and published by . This book was released on 1997-07-01 with total page 100 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Latvia in the Wars of the 20th Century written by Visvaldis Mangulis and published by . This book was released on 1983 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book A Small Nation s Struggle for Freedom written by Aleksandrs Plensners and published by . This book was released on 1955 with total page 76 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Linden Tree the Legionnaire written by Diana Mathur and published by . This book was released on 2017-09-09 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Defining Latvia written by Michael Loader and published by Central European University Press. This book was released on 2022-03-08 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In just over a century, Latvia has transitioned from imperial periphery to nation-state, then Soviet republic, and finally following the collapse of the Soviet Union to an independent republic. Defining Latvia brings together the latest research on the multiple social, political, and cultural contexts of Latvia throughout this turbulent period. Its ten chapters are written by leading political scientists, historians, and area studies specialists from across Europe and North America. The volume moves beyond an exclusively political context to incorporate a variety of social and cultural perspectives, ranging from the experiences of Latvian mapmakers in the Russian Empire, to the participation of Latvians in the Wehrmacht and Red Army during World War II, Latvian national communism, and the development of extremist politics following Latvia’s accession to the European Union. Other chapters address developing trends in the fields of history and political science, including the history of antisemitism, memory, language politics, photography, and political extremism. Based on the book’s temporal span from the nineteenth century to the present, the authors and editors of Defining Latvia understand the construction of Latvian identity as a continuous and interconnected process across significant political and ideological ruptures.