Thunder cross
Donnerkreuz ( Latvian Pērkonkrusts ) was a radical nationalist Latvian political party of the 1930s.
The Thunder Cross was the successor organization to the fascist movement “ Fire Cross ” ( Ugunskrusts ) founded by Gustavs Celmiņš in 1932 , which had been banned by the Latvian government .
ideology
With its motto “Latvia for the Latvians”, the Donnerkreuz demanded that the entire political and economic control of their country should only be exercised by native Latvians and that the constitutionally enshrined cultural independence of national minorities should be abolished. In its glorification of Latvia and its national and ethnic ideology of purity, the Thunder Cross even proposed the introduction of a Latvian religion of its own . Despite its agrarian orientation, the party received the greatest support in urban areas, especially from students. The Perkonkrusts propaganda directed against both social groups, which the hostile takeover of the Latvian economy was assumed, and against the politicians in the Latvian Parliament , all of a flat rate of corruption were accused. By 1934 the thunder cross had an estimated 5,000 to 6,000 members. The Donnerkreuz was not only hostile to minorities and radically anti-Semitic , but also anti-German. The movement used a modification of the Hitler salute with the Latvian slogan Cinai sveiks ("Kampf Heil"). The swastika was a party symbol, the party uniform consisted of a gray shirt with a black beret.
history
The Latvian prime minister and chairman of the peasant party Kārlis Ulmanis suggested a constitutional reform in October 1933 with the intention of weakening the political left . In fact, seven Communist MPs were arrested in November, while Thunder Cross politicians were left unmolested. Ulmanis took advantage of the political unrest that had broken out due to the growing influence of fascism and the prevailing economic crisis and staged a bloodless coup in May 1934 , which was followed by a ban not only on the Communist Party and the Thunder Cross, but on all parties in the Saeima . Ulmanis' authoritarian state relied mainly on the bureaucracy, the military and the paramilitary defenses Aizsargi . After the coup, Celmiņš, leader of the Thunder Cross, was sentenced to three years in prison and then banished from Latvia. Although the Thunder Cross formally no longer existed after 1934, the party did not break up completely.
With the secret additional protocol of the German-Soviet non-aggression pact , Latvia came into the Soviet Union's sphere of interest in 1939 . When Soviet military bases were established in Latvia as part of the Soviet-Latvian assistance agreement, former Thunder Crossers took part in German espionage campaigns against the Red Army . When Latvia was occupied by the German Wehrmacht in World War II in 1941 , Pērkonkrusts tried to found a new one, but the new German occupiers had as much distrust of the radical Latvian nationalists as Ulmanis once did and soon after confirmed the ban on the party. Some former Donnerkreuz members remained true to their anti-German attitude and supported resistance groups against the German occupiers. Several others collaborated with the Germans. Together with former units of the Aissargen, the Latvian police and the army, they formed "home guards" for the occupying power in order to terrorize the population on their behalf and to track down, arrest and murder Jews and Soviet sympathizers. In 1941 Gustavs, who had been transformed into a Nazi thief, asked Celmiņš to join a "security force" under the leadership of Victors Arājs . In its first week alone, the notorious militia, which later became known as the “ Arājs Command ”, burned down a synagogue and its inmates in Riga and murdered over 2,000 Jews and communists .
Re-establishment
The Thunder Cross was re-established in the 1990s as a right-wing extremist political movement with the aim of overthrowing the government and establishing a "Latvian Latvia". Since then there have been a total of three bomb attacks on the Red Army Victory Monument in Riga, but only one water pipe has been hit. Although the leaders of the Donnerkreuz organization were arrested in 2000, the courts only pronounced mild judgments - if at all - against them.
See also
literature
- RJ Crampton: Eastern Europe and the Twentieth Century — and After . Routledge Taylor and Francis Group, London 1994.
- Pabriks, Artis & Aldis Purs: Latvia: The Challenges of Change . Routledge Taylor and Francis Group, London 2001.
- Georg von Rauch: The Baltic States: The Years of Independence, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, 1917–1940 . C. Hurst & Company, London 1974.
- Armands Paeglis: Pērkonkrusts pār Latviju 1932–1944 . Zvaigzne ABC, Riga 1994.