Latvian Soldiers of World War II: Fighting for the Homeland in Nazi and Soviet Service

An estimated 200,000 Latvian soldiers-ten percent of the total prewar population of Latvia- served on the Eastern Front during the Second World War.Since the Republic of Latvia had been occupied and annexed by the Soviet Union in 1940, then occupied by Nazi Germany in 1941, these soldiers did not serve in in the Latvian Army.Instead, they served in Soviet and German uniform, primarily in Latvian national formations in the Soviet Union’s Red Army (in its final form, the 130th Latvian Rifle Corps) and Nazi Germany’s Waffen SS (ultimately, the VI SS Army Corps (Latvian), more colloquially known as the Latvian Legion).After the war, parallel political movements led by front-line veterans emerged: a network of anti-communist Cold War Latvian activists in the West and a National Communist political faction that pushed the boundaries of the post-Stalin thaw in 1950s Soviet Latvia. Latvian Soldiers of World War II: Fighting for the Homeland in Nazi and Soviet Service traces the origins, wartim