Thousands of marchers occupied the streets of Riga yesterday to honour their Latvian compatriots who fought as part of a Nazi combat unit during the Second World War.

The move was met with a heavy police presence due to a significant number of protesters who jeered the three thousand strong marchers which did include some of the last remaining members of the “Latvian Legion” which essentially represented the Latvian arm of the Waffen SS.

The matchers sung patriotic songs and waved their flags before placing roses at the foot of the Freedom Monument in central Riga. Despite the incessant protesting from either side of the procession, the event passed peacefully and no violence was said to be reported.

It is estimated that one hundred and fifty thousand Latvians lost their lives during the war and the Baltic states were one of the worst hit of the conflict. Russian occupation in Latvia Estonia and Lithuamia occurred in June 1940 but after a period of intense battle, they were driven out by the Nazis the following year.

Yet that was not the end of the story as when the Nazi war machine was retreating towards the end of the war, the Red Army reclaimed the area and were to amalgamate them into the Soviet Union.

It is thought that around a quarter of a million Latvians fought, either for the Nazis or the Russians during the war and it is this conflict of interest which is of great interest to historians in the present day.

The Baltic regions were where the extremists took hold, and this conflict of interest which was elcited amongst the inhabitants created divisons still present today. Those who opted to fight on the side of Nazi Germany claimed that they were fighting for their freedom which was being threatend by Communist Russia. It was the Red Army who invaded the area first and for many this generated support for the Nazis in a bid to get their county back.

Yet around one third of Latvia’s population during the war were ethnic Russians and claimed that the Soviet army liberated the Baltic states from the tyranny of fascism.

Around eighty thousand Latvian Jews were murdered during the Nazi occupation, mainly within 1941 and 1942 – two years before the formation of the “Latvian Legion”.  Some Latvians use this fact to suggest that their Nazi sympathisers could not therefore have been part of administering the “final solution”. It is however known that numerous Latvian Waffen-SS troops could have been involved in the killing of Jewish inhabitants as part of their role as auxiliary police – well before they were to play any part as a front line unit.

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