The history of Latvia in the first half of the 20th century, before its incorporation into the USSR, is usually divided into two strikingly different periods. The first is the period of a parliamentary republic. The second is the years of the fascist dictatorship. These periods are separated by one day - May 15, 1934. More precisely, on the night of May 15-16, when the parliament (Diet) and all political parties disappeared from the political life of Latvia, and Karlis Ulmanis took full and unlimited power into his own hands.
On May 16, in Riga, the aizsargs burned books by progressive writers at the stake and fervently checked the documents. The martial law declared by Ulmanis for six months stretched out to four years. On May 17, a general strike of woodworkers was brutally suppressed. In Liepaja, a concentration camp was set up for representatives of the left-wing forces, with which the Kalnciems convict quarries, entangled with barbed wire, “competed”.
In May 1935, in a circulation of 4,000 copies, the underground printing house "Spartak" issued the appeal "Down with fascism, long live socialism!" “The coup itself,” it said, “Ulmanis carried out with the direct support of Hitler … Latgalian workers and peasants Murin, Bondarenko and Vorslav, who were campaigning against the threat of Hitler’s war, Ulmanis condemned to death, and Hitler’s spies,“Baltic brothers,”1 -6 months of arrest. In Latvia, Hitler's spy organizations Jugendverband and Latvijas vacu savienibae, headed by the "loyal" Rudiger, are allowed to operate.
In June 1935, an Anglo-German naval agreement was signed. Hitler announced the transformation of the Baltic Sea into the "internal sea of Germany". Tallinn, Riga and Vilnius, represented by their rulers, respectfully and restrainedly kept silent - there was no protest note. Already in the early thirties, Great Britain and France spent a lot of effort on the creation of an anti-Soviet “sanitary” cordon - the Baltic Entente within Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. Germany decided to play political solitaire with the same partners, plus Poland and Finland, emphasizing military issues in its own way.
In Valga, at the end of 1934, the first Estonian-Latvian headquarters exercises were held, during which plans of military action against our country were analyzed in detail. In May-June 1938, the armies of Latvia and Estonia conducted field exercises at the headquarters level. The goal is the same.
The press of Ulmanis' Latvia seemed to be drowned in militarism. This can be clearly seen from the articles that were published, and not in special technical publications, but in ordinary periodicals: "Tanks are the striking force of modern war", "Ears of the Army" by Janis Ards - about direction finders and searchlight installations, his essay on artillery, with a comparative analysis of the design of a 75-mm German anti-aircraft gun and a similar system of the British firm "Vickers".
It is characteristic that even four years before the Latvian-German treaty of June 7, 1939, the newspaper Tsinias Biedrs reported: “No demagogy can refute the fact that Latvian fascism was fully involved in preparing the war against the Soviet Union”. Ulmanis's government spending on purely military needs increased from 27 million lats in 1934 to 52 million lats in 1938, 20% of all Latvia's imports were military equipment and equipment. So, in 1936, combat aircraft for the Air Force were ordered in England, and anti-aircraft guns in Sweden in 1939. The military bias of the economy immediately affected the food market. In 1935, the price of 1 kg of sugar on the world market did not exceed 9.5 centimes, while in Latvia the lowest-grade sugar was sold at 67 centimes per kilogram.
A lot of money was spent on organizing various parades. On April 6, 1935, the paramilitary units of the local self-defense (aizsargi) were enlisted in the army, and police functions were transferred to them in the village. On June 17 and 18, 1939, Riga celebrates the 20th anniversary of the Aizsarg organization. And on September 3 and 4 of the same year - the 10th anniversary of the youth patriotic organization with a nationalist bias - Mazpulki. If the organization of the mazpulka involved primarily rural youth, then scouts carried out systematic work among urban schoolchildren. Their head was one of the former active participants in the counter-revolutionary organization Boris Savinkov and the leaders of the Yaroslavl uprising in 1918, Major General of the Kolchak army Karlis Gopper.
If you look at the photographs of the official periodicals of Ulmanis' Latvia, it can be noted that in 1939 alone, at least 15 large portrait photographs of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Nazi Germany Joachim von Ribbentrop were published. Always confident, smiling, imposingly dapper both in uniform and in particular. He is best characterized by another minister of the "millennial" Reich - Dr. Goebbels, responsible for propaganda, who spoke out long before May 1945: "He bought a name for himself … acquired a lot of money through marriage … and made his way to the ministry using fraudulent methods." Goebbels very transparently hints that the prefix "von" Ribbentrop "acquired" from his namesake, "adopted" from him for a certain reward, and got the capital by marrying the daughter of a champagne merchant. Himself "von" Ribbentrop said even more succinctly that, "fulfilling the will of the Fuehrer", he violated more international treaties than anyone in history. But then the reference to Hitler sounded not a safety net, but an allusion to his favor.
President Karlis Ulmanis appeared no less often in the field of cameras. In one of the pictures in the magazine of those years, he, next to the mayor and the minister of the government cabinet, is preparing to deliver a big festive speech on the anniversary of the coup. "Servants of the people" are overshadowed by a diligent Nazi greeting.
March 1939. In Klaipeda, German sailors unloaded the Krupp howitzers, and for the staff officers - cars. Looking at this, many residents of the city reached out from their homes with trunks, sacks and bags, pushing hand carts rattling on the cobblestones in front of them.
On March 28, 1939, our government decided to warn the governments of Latvia and Estonia against a rash step: it was extremely dangerous to conclude new treaties or agreements with Germany in a rapidly aggravating international situation. However, Ulmanis is on the way of escalation. On June 7, 1939, in Berlin, Munters and Ribbentrop signed a non-aggression pact between Latvia and Germany. Until the well-known Soviet-German non-aggression pact of 23 August 1939, before the handshake of Stalin and Ribbentrop, there are still almost three months. For the Germans, the purpose of the treaty was a desire to prevent the influence of England, France and the USSR on the Baltic states (a similar treaty with Lithuania was signed back in March 1939 after the German ultimatum over Klaipeda and the German annexation of the Klaipeda region). The Baltic countries were to become an obstacle to our country's intervention in the event of a German invasion of Poland.
Thus, the government of Karlis Ulmanis, long before the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, in its foreign state policy, as well as in the economy, took a course of orientation towards Germany.
Out of 9146 companies operating in Latvia in 1939, 3529 belonged to Germany. By the beginning of 1937, its banks controlled the main branches of the Latvian economy, where 268 different German organizations operated legally, closely coordinated by the German embassy. German intelligence worked in the most favored mode, almost not caring about conspiratorial games.
Karlis Ulmanis took an active part in the creation of joint-stock companies, gaining blocks of shares for himself. Turiba, Latvijas Koks, Vairogs, Aldaris, Latvijas Creditbank, Zemnieku
bank (the list is far from complete). With only one percent from the licensing of goods imported into Latvia, he acquired an estate and a house in Berlin in Germany.
Ulmanisovska Latvia willingly took part in various gatherings, gatherings, celebrations and celebrations held by the leadership of the Nazi Party and the Reich government in Germany itself.
In July 1939, General Secretary Kleinhof and Chairman of the Labor Chamber Egle and, as well as a group of Latvian Germans, consisting of 35 people led by V. von Radetzky, attended the 5th Congress of the fascist organization "Kraft durch Freude" in Hamburg, where he was and Hermann Goering. Latvian Germans, like representatives of Germans from other countries, were dressed in fascist uniforms with the letters "SS" on the buckles of their waist belts. They took part in the parade, and, as the Latvian consul in Hamburg reported, "the group behaved militantly."
The constant currying of the Ulmanis government with the authorities of the Third Reich had its specific manifestations. When the Italian fascists attacked Abyssinia, and the League of Nations announced sanctions against Italy, Latvia refused to participate in them, thereby acting on the side of the aggressor. At a banquet in the Italian capital, Latvian Foreign Minister Munters solemnly proclaimed a toast in honor of the "King of Italy and the Emperor of Abyssinia": Latvia was the first to recognize the de facto occupation of Abyssinia by fascist Italy. By signing this pact, Latvia officially joined the Berlin-Rome axis. Ulmanis actually handed over Latvia to a German "protectorate", pledging to lease Latvian ports and other strategic points of Nazi Germany.
The official press gave these facts their own interpretation. The prominent Ulmanisov ideologist J. Lapin wrote in No. 1 of the Seijs magazine for 1936 that if the Baltic peoples had expressed unity and cultural spirit 2,000 years ago, now they would have spoken about the great Baltic empire ruling instead of Soviet Russia. And then he broadcast that Latvia ensures the protection of the progressive and cultural West from the wild chaos that is approaching from the East. And in the collection "New Nationalism" he personally edited, Lapin talked about the unprecedented acuteness of the racial issue at that historical moment and the importance of protecting, the purity of the blood of his race. All the main signs of fascism - terror and restriction of freedoms, the elimination of parliamentary government, the dictatorship of an authoritarian government, social demagogy and unlimited propaganda of nationalism - were fully represented in Latvia.
In the ministries and departments of fascist Latvia, more than a thousand German officials were in the service, and especially a lot in the Ministry of Justice, the prosecutor's office, district courts, and the prison administration. With the permission of the Ulmanis government, Hitler's book "Mein Kampf" and the Fuehrer's speeches were widely distributed in Latvia. The newspaper Magdeburger Zeitung on February 28, 1939, published quite clearly in this regard, which published that German folk groups have lived at the mouth of the Daugava for more than seven centuries, and they settled there, allegedly, even when there was not a single Latvian in this area.
A. Hitler decided the fate and life of the Baltic peoples with just one phrase. During the meeting of the Baltic barons, held in Königsberg in 1939, the German Reich Chancellor rebuked them for the fact that during the period of their seven hundred years of domination in the Baltic States, they "did not destroy the Latvians and Estonians as a nation." The Fuehrer urged not to make such mistakes in the future”.
The Latvian economy was bursting at all seams. In 1934-1939. in Latvia the prices for meat, butter, clothes, footwear, firewood have increased, the rent has increased. From 1935 to 1939, more than 26 thousand peasant farms were sold under the hammer. In 1939, the government of Karlis Ulmanis promulgated the “law on the provision of work and the distribution of labor”. Without the permission of "Latvijas darba centralle", the employee could not choose a place of work and get a job at it. In accordance with this law, enterprises in Riga, Ventspils, Jelgava, Daugavpils and Liepaja were not allowed to employ people who had not lived in these cities for the last five years (i.e., from the date of the coup d'état in May 1934).
"Latvijas darba centralle" sent workers forcibly to forest and peat cultivation, to kulak farms. A beggarly salary (1-2 lats per day) allowed to exist, but not to live. Suicide rates have increased among workers. So, after receiving a direction for seasonal work, a worker of the Meteor factory, Robert Zilgalvis, committed suicide, and an employee of Rigastekstils, Emma Brivman, was poisoned. In March 1940, the Latvian government introduced a new municipal tax for citizens. Peasant taxes were in 1938-1939. 70% of government revenue. Government members and business leaders hastily transferred their gold reserves to banks abroad. Such enterprises as “Kurzemes Manufactory”, “Juglas Manufactory”, “Feldhun”, “Latvijas Berzs”, “Latvijas Kokvilna”, Mikelson's plywood factory and others have repeatedly stopped. The crisis was coming.
And the head of the Baltic department of the German Foreign Ministry, Grundherr, informed Ribbentrop in his memorandum on June 16, 1940 that over the past six months, on the basis of a secret agreement, all three Baltic states annually send 70% of their exports to Germany, worth about 200 million marks.
On June 17, 1940, units of the Red Army entered Latvia. And just a year later, on June 22, 1941, Latvia entered the Great Patriotic War as part of the USSR.
The Nazis entered Liepaja, hiding behind the shields of guns, pressing against the walls of houses, hurling hand grenades into the windows. Their guide was Gustav Celmin, who received the title of Sonderführer after graduating from the Königsberg Special School. The ominously famous Stieglitz, the head of the secret agents of the Latvian political department and the deputy head of the political department of Friedrichson under Ulmanis, became the prefect of Riga.
On July 8, 1941, Stieglitz informed the Chief of Police of the Latvian SD, Kraus, that in just one day, 291 communists were arrested and 560 apartments were searched. In total, 36,000 Latvian nationalists joined the fascist punitive organizations (including police battalions) until September 1, 1943. The number of German punitive and administrative organizations in Latvia (without the Wehrmacht), at the end of 1943, amounted to 15,000 people. On the territory of Latvia, 46 prisons, 23 concentration camps and 18 ghettos were organized. During the war years, the German invaders and their by no means small number of local accomplices killed about 315,000 civilians and more than 330,000 Soviet prisoners of war in Latvia. During the occupation, 85,000 Jewish citizens of the Latvian SSR were exterminated. While setting up a ghetto in the Moscow district of Riga, the punishers simply entangled several streets with barbed wire. On July 11, 1941, a large meeting of Latvian reactionary bourgeois nationalists took place, with the participation of the former Minister of the Ulmanis government A. Valdmanis, G. Celmin, Shilde, the editor of the fascist leaflet "Tevia" A. Kroder, a member of the Riga merchants society Skujevica, former colonels of Skaistlauk, Kreishmanis, pastor E. Berg and others. They sent a telegram to Hitler in which they expressed gratitude "from the entire Latvian people" for the "liberation" of Latvia, expressing their readiness, on behalf of the citizens of Latvia, to serve "the great cause of building a new Europe."
The result of the activities of the new authorities was the burnt down Riga City Library (founded in 1524), turned into a barracks of the State Conservatory. Exported to Germany from Latvia for forced labor 279,615 people, most of them died in camps and during the construction of fortifications in East Prussia. The Riga University Clinic has become the "central scientific institution" of the Baltic States for sterilization. Women who were in "mixed marriages" were subjected to immediate and compulsory sterilization under duress. In Jelgava, Daugavpils and Riga, all the mentally ill were shot. Following the racist "theory", men and children were also castrated and sterilized. All these "delights of the civilized world" continued until the expulsion of the Germans from the territory of Latvia by Soviet troops in the autumn of 1944.
