Between Giants
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The Baltic Waffen SS Units (Baltic Legions) are to be considered as separate and distinct in purpose, ideology, activities, and qualifications for membership from the German SS, and therefore the Commission holds them not to be a movement hostile to the Government of the United States.28
The long post-war struggle for independence in the Baltic States is beyond the scope of this book.29 The trauma of the population losses from the fighting, mass executions and deportations scarred the three countries for decades. Despite the influx of large numbers of non-Baltic Soviet citizens, the countries were able to keep their distinctive cultures and languages alive throughout the years of Soviet occupation, and as the Soviet regime began to relax its hold during the era of Glasnost and Perestroika, demands for independence grew. Public acts of defiance began in 1987, and the following year, Estonia published the Suveräänsusdeklaratsioon (‘Declaration of Sovereignty’), stating that Estonian laws superseded Soviet laws and that Estonia’s government, not Moscow, had sole rights to the assets and territory of Estonia. In 1990, Estonia’s government informed its citizens that conscription into the Soviet armed forces was no longer compulsory, and in March, Lithuania issued a Proclamation of Independence. A few weeks later, Latvia followed suit.
At first, the Soviet response was to impose an economic blockade. During 1991, there were attempts to assert Soviet control by force; in January, Soviet military and political units attempted unsuccessfully to establish a ‘Committee of National Salvation’ in Riga, and Soviet tanks advanced on the TV Tower in Vilnius, killing 14 civilians. Attempts by Soviet troops to move against key buildings in Tallinn were blocked by mass demonstrations, and as the short-lived coup attempt against Mikhail Gorbachev in August fell apart, the three states declared their independence. Iceland was the first foreign power to recognise any of them, and a plaque in Tallinn commemorates this event.
The years that followed the restoration of independence saw the three countries move swiftly away from their Soviet past. All three became members of both the European Union and NATO, and their economies flourished. In the second decade of the 21st century, the economic turmoil across the entire Western World has had a marked effect upon the three countries, but whatever financial pressures may face the three nations, it seems that they have firmly become part of the west, something to which they have aspired for nearly a century of struggle, and for which they have suffered so much loss and bloodshed. It seems that the fundamental question about the Baltic States – whether they can have an independent status, or whether they must be part of a larger political entity – has finally been resolved by their incorporation into both NATO and the European Union. Indeed, the vital role of these organisations in safeguarding the independence of much of Europe suggests that most nations have had to compromise the totality of their independence to some extent.
The nations involved in the war for the Baltic States have developed their own distinctive historiographies about the period. Soviet-era accounts are inevitably full of tales of heroic communists fighting the hated fascists, and reflect the doctrine of the period, that the three states had become part of the Soviet Union prior to the German invasion. Before Stalin’s death, there was a deliberate policy of portraying the war – and the final victory – as a predominantly Russian affair, and the suffering and contributions of all other nationalities, including Soviet Jews, were reduced in significance. Much of the general understanding in the Western World of the Holocaust is based upon accounts written by Holocaust survivors in the west, who experienced and survived the horrors of the death camps, and inevitably these accounts make little mention of the mass killings that occurred before the Wannsee Conference in late 1941.
Since the end of the Soviet Union, a small number of Soviet veterans have written their own accounts of the war, and like many memoirs written so long after the events they describe, their accuracy and completeness is open to question. For example, despite widespread evidence of the almost routine rape of women in East Germany, Poland and the Baltic States as the Red Army advanced, almost no Russian-language accounts address this issue. Where authors acknowledge that such events occurred, they stress that their own regiments and divisions did not take part. Despite the acceptance of the independence of the Baltic States by the Russian Federation, there remains a strong point of view within Russia that the three states legitimately were, and perhaps still should be, part of the body of Russia, whether this body is the Czarist Empire, the Soviet Union, or the Russian Federation. Indeed, whilst the official attitude to the Latvian and Estonian Legions during the Soviet era was in keeping with the western viewpoint, that men coerced into joining the SS were not to be regarded in the same way as Germans serving in the SS, the attitude of Moscow today is quite the reverse. Soldiers who fought against the Red Army are frequently portrayed as also being the men responsible for the Baltic Holocaust and the killing of ethnic Russian civilians. Whilst it is true that many men within the legions were indeed guilty of such acts, it would be wrong to suggest that all were involved.
The legality – or otherwise – of the long Soviet presence in the Baltic States is itself a source of continuing controversy. Russian writers have made much of the expediency of Winston Churchill with regard to the borders of the Soviet Union. In March 1942, Churchill wrote to Roosevelt: ‘In view of the increasing burdens of war, I have come to the conclusion that the principles of the Atlantic Charter should not be interpreted in such a way as to deprive Russia of the border that it had when it was attacked by Germany.’30
At the time, unable to offer the Soviet Union any aid by opening a second front in the west, Churchill may have felt the need to offer whatever political support he could to the country that was seen as bearing the brunt of the German war effort. Whilst Roosevelt may have been less willing to allow Stalin a free hand to annex the Baltic States, he ultimately had little choice; the Red Army was indisputably the master of the region, and nothing short of a war seemed likely to change matters. The inability of the Western Powers to dispute Soviet control of the Baltic States after the war, it is maintained, effectively legitimised the Soviet presence in the region, and as this presence was based upon the original Soviet occupation following the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, this in turn was in some way legitimised.
German accounts of the war began to appear during the 1950s, as veterans of the Wehrmacht began to compile histories of their regiments and divisions. Like Soviet accounts, these make almost no mention of war crimes; in a few cases, where the subject arises, attempts are made to blame the SS and its associated paramilitary formations. The unit histories instead concentrate on the years of dazzling victories, then the bitter resistance of the closing months of the war. The German soldiers are usually portrayed as patriots who fought to prevent their homelands from being overrun by the Red Army, with little or no discussion of the fact that it was the German invasion of the Soviet Union that ultimately brought the Red Army to Germany. When civilians are mentioned, it is usually in the context of jubilant Lithuanians, Latvians, and Estonians who welcomed the arrival of the Wehrmacht, or fearful refugees who attempted to flee the return of the Red Army. The casualties suffered in the face of the Red Army’s advance are frequently described in German accounts; similar losses inflicted by the Wehrmacht in 1941 are almost completely absent.
The way that Germany has faced up to its past, particularly with regard to the Holocaust, is in many respects a remarkable achievement. Whilst the accounts of war veterans might shy away from the subject, other German writers have tackled the subject with, sometimes, painful honesty. Earlier accounts perhaps tended to be a little two-dimensional, with many of the German perpetrators portrayed as evil sadists; whilst such individuals undoubtedly existed, they were greatly outnumbered by those who appear to have treated their role in the machinery of the Holocaust in the same way that soldiers regarded their role in the fighting in the front line. In the last two decades, German writers have written some of the most detailed and compre
hensive accounts of the crimes committed by the Wehrmacht and SS in the east. This is in stark contrast to the continuing silence of Russian-language writers about atrocities committed by the Red Army and the NKVD.
The nations that have struggled most with their accounts of the war years are, inevitably, the Baltic States themselves. On the one hand, the people of the Baltic States are proud of their resilience and their ability to survive so many occupations and the terrible loss of life that their nations suffered. On the other hand, they have a deeply ambivalent attitude to the events of the Second World War. Forced through circumstances to provide aid for Nazi Germany, they continue to struggle to reconcile their attitude to those they regard as nationalist patriots, with the unwelcome fact that they found themselves fighting for a regime that is generally reviled. Their historiography is further disadvantaged by the fact that, even if they try to address the crimes committed upon their people by the Germans and the Soviets in an even-handed way, they still struggle with the role that their own citizens played in those crimes. Many, though by no means all, of those who fought against Soviet occupation after the war were also extensively involved in fighting on the side of the Germans during the war, and some of those who are regarded as heroes are also implicated in some of the mass killings that occurred during the German occupation. Since 1990, many Latvians have celebrated 16 March as Latvian Legion Day, to commemorate the service of Latvians who fought against the Soviet Union. The date was chosen because it was the first occasion that the two Latvian divisions fought alongside each other against the Red Army, but the fact that the two divisions were part of the SS, and included in their ranks many men who had been part of the police battalions that helped carry out the Baltic Holocaust, has made this commemoration a controversial event. In 1998, the day was given official recognition, triggering protests from Russia, and the Latvian government withdrew the day’s official status in 2000. For several years, the day became a flashpoint for trouble between right-wing and left-wing groups in Latvia, though it should be pointed out that the official organisations representing Latvian veterans have repeatedly distanced themselves from the more extremist bodies that have attempted to exploit the day. After serious trouble in 2005, the Latvian authorities attempted to fence off the Freedom Monument, the focal point of the clashes. This in turn attracted great criticism, highlighting the difficulties faced by Latvia and its neighbours in attempting to deal with their collective past.
The different interpretations of history in the nations involved have caused resentment and difficulties between them. The history of the Freedom Monument in Riga highlights many of these difficulties. The monument was first raised in 1935 to commemorate those who fell in the Latvian war of independence, and after the end of the Second World War, the Soviet authorities proposed the restoration of a statue of Peter the Great, which had been taken down to make room for the monument. It seems that the monument survived partly through a desire to avoid unnecessary provocation of Latvians, and partly because Vera Mukhina, a celebrated Soviet sculptor who was born in Riga, successfully argued that the monument had considerable artistic merits. Instead, attempts were made to reinterpret the nature of the monument; it is topped by a copper statue holding aloft three stars, originally intended to symbolise the three constitutional districts of Latvia (Kurzeme, Latgale and Vidzeme), but the Soviet authorities proclaimed that the statue and the stars represented Mother Russia, holding aloft the stars of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. By the late 1980s, official accounts accepted that the monument commemorated the liberation of Latvia from rule by the Czars and Baltic German barons, but failed to mention that most of the Latvian war of independence had been against the Red Army and its communist Latvian Rifle formations.
Many Russian writers, including those who have been active after the fall of the Soviet Union, have criticised what they see as Baltic ‘ideology’ or ‘dogma’, for example in connection with the Soviet deportations during 1941 and after the war.31 Starting from the point of view that the Soviet occupation of the Baltic States was a legal event, Russian historians often regard the actions of the Soviet regime in safeguarding its rule as entirely legitimate. The deportations are seen as being no different in principle to the internment of civilians from Axis nations in Britain and the United States during the war.32 Similarly, the widespread point of view throughout the Baltic States that those who fought against the Soviets, both during and after the war, were patriotic freedom fighters, is criticised as overlooking the crimes that some of those involved committed during the war, particularly when serving in auxiliary police units prior to the creation of Estonian and Latvian divisions.33 It is felt in Russia that the growth in articles and publications about the ‘Forest Brothers’ began in the 1980s in Lithuania, largely due to the influence of Lithuanians living in the west, and then spread to Latvia and Estonia in the following years. Many of those fighting against Soviet authorities, it is suggested, were not doing so solely – or even primarily – for patriotic reasons. Some were deserters or were involved in plain criminal activities, but are now grouped together with other ‘partisans’ to give, from the Russian point of view, a misleading idea of the scale of the partisan movement.34
Another example of the tensions brought about by different interpretations of history is the case of Vassili Makarovich Kononov, who was a member of the pro-Soviet partisans operating in Latvia as part of the 1st Latvian Partisan Battalion; he was parachuted into Latvia in June 1943 as an explosives expert. In February 1944, a dozen partisans sought shelter in the village of Mazie Bati, and were allowed to stay in a barn. Early the following morning, German troops entered the village and set the barn ablaze, and any who attempted to escape were gunned down. Amongst the dead were the leader of the partisan group, Major Chugunov, his wife, and their child. Kononov was not present at the time, but after his battalion had held a field tribunal, without any of the villagers present at the proceedings, he was ordered to enter the village and seize nine villagers who were accused of collaborating with the Germans.35 Kononov and several other partisans entered Mazie Bati dressed in Wehrmacht uniforms and killed the nine villagers, including three women, one of whom was pregnant. Kononov was charged with murder in 1998, and the following year, he was convicted and sentenced to six years’ imprisonment.
In 2000, while he was appealing against his conviction, Vladimir Putin, President of the Russian Federation, offered Kononov Russian citizenship, which he accepted; shortly afterwards, the Latvian Criminal Affairs Division overturned his conviction, after Kononov’s lawyers successfully argued that it was not clear whether the partisans were operating in occupied territory, and that the combatant status of both his partisans and the villagers – many of whom had been armed by the Germans – was also uncertain; consequently, the rules that applied to the conduct of soldiers and civilians in warfare could not be interpreted with any degree of confidence. The prosecution chose to continue proceedings against Kononov, pressing charges relating only to the killing of the three women, and in 2004, Kononov was once more imprisoned.
Four years later, the European Court of Human Rights ruled on Kononov’s conviction. The court found that Kononov had only acted against the villagers after finding weapons provided by the Germans in their houses, and that it was not possible to argue unequivocally that the victims of Kononov’s operation were civilians. When it came to the deaths of the three women, the court concluded that there were two possible explanations. The first was that the women had kept watch over Major Chugunov’s group while the six male villagers travelled to a neighbouring village to alert the Germans, and had thus in effect become part of the anti-partisan and pro-German group; the second was that they were killed because Kononov’s men exceeded their orders. In this latter case, it was argued, no evidence had been presented that Kononov had either directly taken part in their killings, or that he had ordered anyone else to kill them. As any prosecution under Latvian law as it existed in 1944 would have had to take place within te
n years, Kononov could not be convicted by a prosecution in 1998. If the conviction was under the terms of the Latvian law relating to murder that was passed in 1961, the court ruled that the conviction was in contravention of Article Seven of the European Convention of Human Rights, which prohibits the retrospective criminalisation of activities.36
The Latvian government appealed against this judgement, and in 2010, a final judgement was issued. It was concluded that regardless of their status, the villagers of Mazie Bati could not legally be murdered or ill-treated under existing laws in 1944. The use of Wehrmacht uniforms by Kononov and his group was ruled to be in breach of Article 23b of the Hague Convention, which states that it is forbidden ‘To kill or wound treacherously individuals belonging to the hostile nation or army’.37 The limitation under Latvian law that prosecution should have taken place within ten years was felt to be irrelevant, in that Kononov was deemed to have broken international laws, not Latvian laws, and as these international laws had been in force at the time of the killings, Article Seven had not been breached.38
Kononov died in 2011, aged 88, a controversial figure to the end, still attempting to overturn the ruling of the European Court. Throughout his legal process, the Russian Federation had provided legal, financial and moral support for his position. After his death, President Dmitri Medvedev of the Russian Federation declared: ‘Vassili Kononov selflessly fought the Nazi invaders throughout the years of the Great Patriotic War. He remained loyal to the common bonds forged in battle and defended the truth about the events of those years throughout his entire life.’39