23.09.2012 europeonline-magazine.eu
Latvian memorial to Waffen SS sparks tension with Russia
By Alexander Welscher

Riga (dpa) - Almost 70 years after the end of World War II, a controversial monument to local Waffen-SS troops in Latvia has increased tensions between Russia and the Baltic state.

Russia sees the memorial, which was unveiled recently in Bauska, as a glorification of the German Nazis. But Riga honours the fighters, known as Legionnaires, as heroes who fought for Latvia‘s independence.

This is not the first time that the Baltic state has been accused of promoting neo-fascist activities. And the Russian Foreign Ministry is not the only one to get annoyed.

"There have been attempts again and again to glorify former SS soldiers," says Efraim Zuroff, head of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre in Jerusalem, who believes Latvia is trying to disguise the role of its citizens in the Holocaust.

"Not a single collaborator has ever been hunted down or punished," he says.

Latvia is regularly accused in the centre‘s annual report of failing to hold Holocaust perpetrators accountable, primarily due to what it argues is a lack of political will.

Latvia‘s role in World War II has also led to conflict with Russia. Moscow sees Latvians as willing collaborators who cheerfully welcomed the German Wehrmacht into the country after Hitler‘s attack on the Soviet Union, and who took part in the mass murder of Jews.

Historian Karlis Kangeris does not dispute that many people living in the Baltic states were happy when the Wehrmacht drove back the Red Army in 1941 and were also willing to sign up to the military.

"Many Latvians saw Stalin‘s Soviet Union as a greater threat than Nazi Germany," he explains.

This view is shared in neighbouring Estonia, where the removal in 2007 of a Red Army war memorial in the capital, Tallinn, led to protests by the country‘s large Russian minority.

Germany‘s capitulation in 1945 did not mean liberation for the Baltic states, but rather the beginning of what many consider a Soviet occupation that involved the mass resettlement of hundreds of thousands of Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians.

The authorities in Riga argue that the more than 100,000 conscripts in the Latvian Legion, a formation of the Waffen SS, fought only the Soviet Union, which had previously occupied and annexed Latvia. The authorities say the conscripts were not responsible for the Holocaust.

However, the Latvian Auxiliary Police were involved in the mass murder of Jews. Its members included many Latvians who turned Jews into scapegoats for Soviet crimes and later joined the legion.

The traumatic events of World War II for the Baltic states can be studied in the Occupation Museum in Riga, where a copy of the 1939 Hitler-Stalin pact hangs behind glass.

The pact carved up Eastern Europe between the two powers. Its consequences sealed the destiny of the three Baltic states for the next 50 years.

Its aftermath is still felt today in the EU and NATO members Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, where the integration of substantial Russian minorities remains unsolved.

Experts do not see relations between the Baltic states and Russia improving in the foreseeable future.

One reason for this is how history is remembered by both sides in Riga. While former soldiers of the Red Army traditionally march on May 9 to celebrate "Victory Day," Latvian SS veterans parade on "Latvian Legion Day" on March 16. The events never fail to stir controversy.

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