Between Giants

by Prit Buttar

  The Estonians were the first to be included in the German military, not least because they were perceived to be the most ‘Aryan’ of the three nations. Many Estonians had joined paramilitary police battalions after the German invasion, though it proved difficult to maintain these battalions at full strength, owing to a mixture of casualties and the fact that the original volunteers had signed up for only one year’s service. In August 1942, Estonians were invited to enrol in the newly created Estonian Legion. About 500 individuals came forward and in October, were sent to the former Polish cavalry barracks in Dębica to commence training. This was intended to be the first combat formation made up of Baltic citizens, and care was taken to ensure that as many men as possible were fluent in German as well as Estonian.

  By November 1942, the contingent in Dębica was sufficiently large to form six rifle companies, a heavy weapons company and an anti-tank company. Hauptsturmführer Georg Eberhardt was appointed as commander of the new battalion, and Obersturmführer Franz Augsberger became commander of the Estonian Legion. Like many others assigned to non-German formations within the SS, Augsberger was an Austrian, with experience of service in the multi-national armies of the Austro-Hungarian Empire; in the eyes of the Germans, such officers were more likely to be suitable to command units from other cultures.

  This first group of individuals slowly grew in number, until there were sufficient to create three battalions. These were given the collective name 1. Estnischen SS-Freiwilligen-Grenadier Regiment (‘1st Estonian SS Volunteer Grenadier Regiment’), and in March 1943, personnel from the regiment were used to form Battailon Narwa. This battalion was sent to the Eastern Front, forming part of SS Panzergrenadier Division Wiking, replacing a Finnish battalion that had been recalled by its government.

  SS-Wiking was originally designated SS-Nordische Division 5, then SS-Division (Mot.) Germania before becoming SS-Division (Mot.) Wiking in early 1941, and was made up largely of one regiment of ethnic Germans, one of Dutch and Flemish volunteers, and one of Scandinavians. Late in 1942, it became a panzergrenadier division, and served with distinction in the southern sector of the Eastern Front. The division had a reputation for adopting a remarkably independent attitude; its first commander, Felix Steiner, rejected the order requiring that all Soviet prisoners suspected of being commissars should be shot out of hand, with the words ‘No rational unit commander could comply with such an order.’11 Nevertheless, many Finnish soldiers in the battalion described in letters to their families how Soviet prisoners were frequently executed summarily. Herbert Otto Gille, who replaced Steiner as division commander, confronted a political indoctrination officer in the division’s artillery regiment and demanded that the man remove his Nazi brown shirt; when the officer refused, Gille threatened to have him forcibly undressed in public.

  When Battailon Narwa arrived in April 1943, the new unit was designated as division reserve and held some distance to the rear. After the abandonment of the German assault on the Kursk salient, SS-Wiking was dispatched to shore up the front line near Izium, about 40 miles south-east of Kharkhov, where the German 46th Infantry Division was in danger of being overrun. The Estonians were deployed in the front line for the first time late on 16 July, and the following morning, were subjected to a heavy artillery bombardment. The shelling was followed by a Soviet armoured attack, and though the Estonian infantrymen fell back at first, the success of their anti-tank company in stopping the Soviet tanks restored their confidence, and they mounted an energetic counter-attack, destroying several tanks in close-quarter fighting. Fighting continued the following day, and again the battalion managed to hold its ground, but by the third day, it began to disintegrate. The individual companies were reduced to isolated strongpoints, and determined counterattacks by the last battalion reserves were needed to maintain a coherent line; Eberhardt, the battalion commander, was killed leading one such counter-attack. The fighting resulted in about two thirds of the battalion being killed or wounded; its personnel claimed to have destroyed 74 Soviet tanks, 27 at close quarters, and to have killed several thousand Soviet troops.12

  By mid-August, the arrival of reinforcements from Dębica had restored the battalion’s fighting strength, and it was once more in the front line. After several days of intense combat, Battailon Narwa had only 157 combat personnel left unhurt; unlike Eberhardt, the new battalion commander appears not to have won the confidence of his men, and some of his criticisms about his men – he apparently expressed unhappiness that one of the rifle companies allowed Soviet tanks to bypass their positions – were particularly badly received.13

  The Estonian battalion continued to be involved in heavy fighting in the Ukraine. During early 1944, SS-Wiking was one of six German divisions encircled to the west of Cherkassy by the Red Army as a result of the Korsun-Shevchenkovsky Operation. The Estonians helped defend the southern flank of the resultant pocket, blocking the advance of the Soviet 5th Guards Cavalry Corps. The battalion earned the grudging respect of its Soviet opponents, though it lost many of its personnel and almost all of its equipment when SS-Wiking succeeded in breaking out of the pocket.14 The remnants of the battalion returned to Estonia in March 1944, where they were formed into a new battalion as part of the new 20th SS Waffen-Grenadier Division (1st Estonian).

  When the Wehrmacht reached Latvia, it found anti-Soviet guerrilla bands operating in many areas. Some of these were small and ineffective, while others, particularly those swelled by deserters from the Red Army, were substantial. One of the largest and most effective groups, commanded by Karlis Aperats, included the bulk of the signal battalion of the Soviet 24th Rifle Corps, which had been a primarily Latvian formation. It operated in and around Alūksne, in north-east Latvia, and made repeated attacks on retreating Red Army units, though much of its activity concentrated on protecting the local population. Some guerrilla bands took advantage of the chaos to attack those deemed to be pro-Soviet sympathisers, but Aperats appears to have maintained a high level of discipline in his band.

  As was the case in Lithuania, the Germans sought to use Latvian units in their policy of exterminating Jews. Perhaps the most infamous Latvian formation involved was Sonderkommando Arājs, often referred to as the Arājs Kommando. On arrival in Riga, the SD sought out an experienced leader who would be prepared to organise and lead a Latvian unit that could be used in attacks against Jews and communists. The first person they approached was Leonīds Brombergs, but he declined the invitation; in his place, Viktors Arājs was appointed. Arājs was the son of a Latvian blacksmith and the daughter of a Baltic German family; after partly completing a law degree in Riga, he had joined the Latvian police. Composed entirely of volunteers, Arājs’ new unit was active from the first days of the arrival of German forces in Latvia. After Stahlecker’s initial failure to incite a ‘spontaneous’ local anti-Jewish pogrom, the Pērkonkrusts-dominated Arājs Kommando initiated attacks on Jewish shops and homes in Riga. On 4 July, the Arājs Kommando attacked the Great Choral Synagogue in Riga, setting fire to the building and throwing in hand grenades; it is estimated that 300 Jews died in the fire. Other synagogues were also attacked, with substantial loss of life. Herberts Cukurs, who had achieved fame as an aviator before the war, was a notable participant in the killings: ‘Eyewitnesses heard the people who were locked inside screaming for help and saw them breaking the synagogue’s windows from inside and trying, like living torches, to get outside. Cukurs shot them with his revolver.’15

  Worse was to come. The Arājs Kommando was extensively involved in mass shootings of Jews in the months that followed, particularly whenever Jews were taken from the Riga ghetto for execution. Arājs and his men were also involved in the killings of several thousand German Jews at Rumbula on 30 November and 8 December. It is estimated that the Kommando, which never numbered more than 500 men, killed at least 26,000 Jews, Gypsies and others deemed ‘undesirable’.

  Within the ranks of the former Latvian army, the general Latvian dislike of Germany was perhaps less pr
onounced than in other parts of Latvian society. The conduct of the Red Army, both during Latvia’s war of independence after the First World War and during the recent occupation, had left almost the entire nation with a deep dislike of Bolshevism, and many Latvian officers regarded military cooperation with Germany as a stepping stone towards establishing independence. As the Pērkonkrusts leader Gustavs Celmiņš discovered during his visit to Berlin, however, Himmler was not inclined to support the establishment of a large Latvian force. Nevertheless, using the formula suggested by Berger regarding the creation of police battalions within ‘legions’, several of the units created in the wake of the Red Army’s withdrawal were designated Hilfspolizei, Schutzmannschaft (‘defence’) and eventually police battalions. One of the first was the 16th Battalion, which was dispatched from Riga to Staraya Russa on 22 October 1941. The 21st Battalion was sent to the Leningrad theatre in April 1942, where it saw extensive front-line service, as is described below. Perhaps as a consequence of the Soviet occupation, the personnel of these battalions proved enthusiastic participants in shootings of suspected communists in the occupied areas of Russia. It should be noted that many of the inhabitants of these rural parts of north Russia, where anti-Semitic sentiments had existed for generations, willingly helped the Latvians in these killings.16 Other battalions were implicated in the Holocaust, guarding the Warsaw ghetto or escorting trains carrying Jews to the extermination camp at Treblinka.17

  One of the strangest episodes of Baltic cooperation with German operations, indeed of the entire war, relates to Ilya Galperin, who was a child of five in the Belarusian village of Dzerzhinsk. The Kurzeme Battalion of Latvian police, led by Kārlis Lobe, was sent to the area in late 1941, and on 21 October a Lithuanian unit led by Antanas Gecevicius entered the village and killed the largely Jewish population. Galperin had been told by his mother to flee the previous evening, and wandered in the nearby forests until he ran into Lobe’s battalion. When he was about to be executed, he suddenly demanded that he be given something to eat. The soldiers had a remarkable change of heart, and adopted him as a sort of mascot. Only a very small number knew of his Jewish identity, and ensured that he kept it secret. Galperin appeared in German propaganda photos, wearing a miniature Wehrmacht uniform, and was adopted by a Latvian family. His name was changed, and he spent his adult life living as Alex Kurzem, before his son discovered his true story many years after the end of the war.18

  There was considerable friction between the Latvians and Germans, for several reasons. Firstly, the Germans assigned liaison officers to all Latvian battalions. Although these officers were intended to act purely as advisers and to help with communications, many regarded themselves as being in a supervisory role, and acted accordingly. Inevitably, this was interpreted by the Latvians as unwelcome interference. Secondly, there was a serious disagreement between Obergruppenführer Friedrich Jeckeln, the German officer with overall authority for police units throughout the Baltic States, and Captain Gustavs Praudinš, commander of one of the battalions. Jeckeln had Praudinš arrested and charged with treason, allegedly for showing hostility towards Germany. Although he was convicted and sentenced to death, the Latvian civil administration succeeded in preventing his execution. Praudinš was reduced to the rank of private, though he later rose to Sturmbannführer and earned several medals; the main consequence of the affair was a further deterioration between the Latvians and the Germans. A third cause of friction and suspicion was the sudden death of the Latvian Colonel Rudolfs Kandis in Krasnoye Selo in May 1942. The official German report stated that Kandis committed suicide after an argument with a German officer, but many Latvians suspected that the German officer shot him during the argument.19

  The first Latvian police battalion to enter the front line on the Eastern Front was deployed near Krasnoye Selo in June 1942. It found itself involved in heavy fighting the following month, and despite being equipped with a variety of weapons captured from the Czech, Soviet and French armies, it acquitted itself well. Unfortunately, this did little to improve relations. Towards the end of the year, when it became known that Germany was creating an Estonian Legion, the Latvians became further disenchanted, feeling that they were being treated as inferiors. The Latvians remained determined to try to create combat formations that would be under their own control, so that they could defend Latvia if and when the Red Army returned. To this end, Alfreds Valdmanis, the Director of Justice in the civil administration, submitted a memorandum in November 1942. He described the historical relationship between Latvia and Germany, Latvia’s success in achieving independence, and the dashing of Latvian hopes that the Germans would help restore independence after they had expelled the Soviets. He went on to argue that Latvia needed to have a political goal if it was to join the Germans wholeheartedly in the war against the Soviet Union, and that the only way that this could be achieved was by granting Latvia independence, even if this was of a limited nature. The precedent for such an act was the status of Slovakia. In return, Latvia would raise an army of 100,000, though these troops would only be used in the defence of Latvia. The memorandum was returned by the local German authorities within days. They advised Valdmanis that they did not feel able to submit the memorandum to higher authorities in its current form; the Latvian duly amended and resubmitted it.

  The memorandum was then passed to Obergruppenführer Gottlob Berger, the head of the SS-Führungshauptamt, the Berlin-based headquarters of the non-combat elements of the SS. Berger advised Himmler that the memorandum represented political manoeuvring by the Latvians, but Himmler decided to visit the Leningrad front personally to assess the anti-Bolshevik fighting spirit of the Latvians who were already in the front line. He found that the Latvian battalions had continued to be involved in heavy fighting, earning repeated commendations in official reports, and in January 1943 – with Hitler’s approval – announced the creation of a Latvian Legion, thus removing the resentment that Latvians were being treated less favourably than Estonians. He also held discussions with Rosenberg about the possibility of granting at least some degree of autonomy to the Baltic States, but although they collaborated to produce a document recommending such an arrangement, it was rejected by Hitler.20

  The Germans had actually drawn up plans for conscription of Latvians in December 1942, outlining a requirement for 90,000 men, who would serve variously as helpers for the Wehrmacht, soldiers in the Latvian Legion, further reinforcements for police battalions, and labourers for the war effort. Such conscription of the nationals of an occupied country was illegal, and as a consequence, attempts were made to show that the men were actually volunteers. The civil administration protested strongly about anything that looked like compulsory service, and demanded that the commander of the Latvian Legion should be a Latvian. The Legion was to be trained in Latvia, and deployed exclusively in the northern part of the Eastern Front. Food, pay and all other conditions for members of the Legion were to be the same as for Germans in the Wehrmacht. Hinrich Lohse, Reichskommissar for Ostland, rejected these demands, but faced with the threat of complete Latvian non-cooperation with the creation of a legion, he had to accede. The main sticking point remained the issue of command. At first, the Germans appeared to agree that the Legion would be commanded by General Rūdolfs Bangerskis, but later announced that this had been a misunderstanding. The commander of the new Latvian division within the Legion would be a German, but his second-in-command would be Latvian. Bangerskis would instead become Inspector General of the Latvian Legion. The exact nature of his duties was never specified, something that he was able to use to his own advantage.21

  The signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in Moscow on 28 September 1939. Ribbentrop is signing the document; Molotov is standing behind him, next to Stalin.

  Georg von Küchler, the commander of 18th Army, at the beginning of Barbarossa (second from right), with Army Group North commander Leeb (left), photographed in September 1941.

  Rosenberg helped formulate German policy for the occ
upied territories on the Eastern Front. The failure to implement his policies was partly due to their impracticability, and partly due to internal Nazi Party rivalries.

  Ernst Busch, the commander of 16th Army, photographed here at the beginning of Barbarossa, in the summer of 1944.

  Leeb (centre) in discussions with the commander of his army group’s armoured forces, Erich Hoepner (second from right), photographed shortly after the beginning of Barbarossa.

  XLI Panzer Corps’ commander (second from left) being briefed by Walter Krüger (second from right) in July 1941, shortly after the latter had assumed command of 1st Panzer Division.

  Two leading personalities of LVI Panzer Corps: Erich Brandenburger (left foreground) briefing his corps commander, Erich von Manstein (right foreground) in July 1941.

  The Panzergraf photographed in early 1944.

  One of the leading Tiger ‘aces’, Carius became a pharmacist after the war.

  A former Latvian Army officer, Veiss was an early enthusiast for using the German occupation as an opportunity to drive pro-Soviet supporters from Latvia.

  After commanding Army Group Narva earlier in 1944, Friessner took command of Army Group North in the summer.

  The two Latvian police battalions near Leningrad were serving as part of the 2nd Motorised SS Infantry Brigade, alongside Dutch and Flemish soldiers. The brigade served with distinction both during the Soviet Operation Iskra (‘Spark’), which succeeded in establishing a land corridor into Leningrad, and the attacks to draw away the Germans from critical parts of the front. The Latvians were particularly heavily involved in the fighting around Siniavino. With the intention of converting the brigade into an entirely Latvian formation, Himmler ordered the Dutch and Flemish battalions transferred elsewhere, and eventually in May 1943, the unit was renamed the 2. Lettische SS-Freiwilligen Brigade (‘2nd Latvian SS Volunteer Brigade’). Earlier, the two Latvian police battalions were pulled out of the front line at the same time as the Dutch and Flemish troops were transferred out, and in conjunction with a third battalion commenced training as the first formal units of the Latvian Legion, under the overall command of Brigadeführer Fritz von Scholtz. They were in action in March 1943 to the south-west of Leningrad, near Verkneye-Koirovo, their first battle as part of the Legion, though shortly afterwards they were once more pulled out of the front line and given new uniforms and ranks, to reflect their new designation as a regiment of the SS. A large draft of reinforcements arrived from Latvia to bring them up to strength; contrary to the agreement between Lohse and the Latvian civil administration, these men had received only a minimal amount of training before being sent to the front, and when the brigade returned to the front line along the River Volkhov in May, it was barely ready for combat. Fortunately – perhaps as a result of the trackless marshes, which earned this sector the nickname ‘The End of the World’, there was little fighting in the sector through the summer. In September, the brigade went into action to contest a hill on the southern end of its sector, and finally prevailed, after suffering heavy casualties.22