Command Arājs

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The Arājs Command was a notorious Latvian auxiliary unit of the German Security Service (SD) during the Second World War . This group of volunteers played a key role in the Holocaust in Latvia through shootings and security guards . Most of the people murdered by the detachment were Latvian Jews and Communists . The total number of direct fatalities is put at at least 26,000 people. The strength of the unit was a few hundred people during the murder of Jews in 1941. Through the expansion and integration of other Latvian SD aid units, the number of personnel increased in 1943 to at times up to 1,500 men.

Emergence

Just ten days after the start of the German-Soviet War , Wehrmacht troops conquered the Latvian capital Riga, which the Soviet Union had occupied since June 17, 1940 . Immediately after the end of the fighting, on the afternoon of July 1, Walter Stahlecker and parts of Einsatzgruppe A , which he led , whose mission was to murder undesirable parts of the population, settled in the city's prefecture. Here the former Latvian police officer Viktors Arājs had assembled a group of around 30 former police officers and members of the army at the disposal of the Germans. After an interview, Stahlecker confirmed Arājs the next day as the leader of a local Latvian "Sonderkommando".

Such special SD commandos, which were formed in many places in the Baltic States, were intended to murder Jews and communist functionaries. With the participation of locals, the shootings should be presented as a spontaneous “self-cleaning” of the Baltic peoples. Accordingly, people wore civilian clothes in the early days. A green armband with the inscription "Sicherheitsdienst" and an identification number was used for identification.

Until July 20, 1941, the unit numbered no more than 100 men. From this point on, Latvian SD aid units from other cities were subordinated to the Arājs Command, so that the number of personnel grew slowly. The Arājs command became more and more synonymous with the formal designation " Latvian auxiliary police of the security police and the SD ". In terms of structure, it was similar to the superior authority, i. H. of Einsatzgruppe A, as a mobile killing squad.

holocaust

Viktors Arājs set up shop at 19 Valdemāra Street and published calls for volunteers. The early volunteers included many former Thunder Crossers and members of the Latvian student associations . Arājs people were involved in the first arrests of wealthy Jews. During the pogrom-like riots on July 4th, the command was responsible for the burning of the synagogues in Gogol and Stabu streets . Every night the Arājs people brought groups of prisoners of different sizes from the various prisons in Riga by truck to the Biķernieki forest and shot them there. The orders for this were mostly given directly by the management of Einsatzgruppe 2, in particular Kurt Krause , later Rudolf Lange . Even after the ghetto was established , the mass executions did not stop. The headquarters of the command later moved to 99 Krišjāņa Barona Street .

It is believed that the majority of the 21,000 Jews murdered in small Latvian towns were shot by the Arājs command. Mobile firing squads of 40 to 50 men each were transported to other parts of Latvia by Latvian pre-war Ikarus buses. Usually at the destination the victims had already been captured by the local authorities and death pits had been prepared. The actual executions were then carried out by the Arājs people. Some of these actions were also directed against inmates of mental hospitals .

During the Rumbula massacre on November 30 and December 8, 1941, the Arājs Command was actively involved in clearing the ghetto. When the houses were combed, those who did not leave their homes because of illness, old age or fear were shot. The mass murder was ordered by Friedrich Jeckeln and the actual executions were carried out by his personal staff. Around 1,500 Latvians were involved in setting up and guarding the marching columns to the pits at the place of execution, including at least 800 police officers from Riga County .

At the beginning of 1942, people from the Arājs Command stationed in Riga were involved in the murder of around 20,000 Jews transported from Western Europe. The actual execution and organization of the "purges", however, was now carried out by SS and Police General Jeckeln and his people.

Guard services and partisan fighting

By October 1941, the extermination of Jews in the small towns had been completed and ghettos had been set up in Riga and Daugavpils , which ended the actual “main function” of the Latvian firing squads. The SD leadership devised new tasks for the Arājs command, which should grow to around 1200 men by 1943.

On October 22, 1941, a battalion of 470 Arājs people was assembled and transferred to the headquarters of Einsatzgruppe A near Leningrad in order to carry out the usual death actions after the city was conquered. Since this never happened, two Latvian companies received military training and for the first time were dressed in uniforms of the Waffen-SS with different insignia of rank. During an operation against partisans in the rear area of ​​the Blue Division , Stahlecker, who personally led the combat group, was fatally injured. In January 1943, 154 Arājs men were deployed near Leningrad. Another group of about 300 men from the Latvian SD was stationed in Minsk in 1942 . Subordinated to the German occupation authorities, it had general police and guard duties, including the murder of Jews and operations against partisans.

From December 1941 to the end of 1943, the command provided the guards for the Salaspils concentration camp .

In November 1943, the Latvian Security Service was divided into two battalions : one led by Viktors Arājs and the other by Kārlis Ozols . By July 1, 1944, 108 Latvian SD members had been killed on the Eastern Front, at that time the staff was still 847 people. With the conquest of Latvia by the Red Army , the Arājs battalion was disbanded and the people were divided between different units of the Latvian Legion . The Ozols battalion was transferred to the 7th Latvian Grenadier Regiment and fought in the Courland Basin until the end of the war . Remnants of the Latvian security service were used under Jeckeln's command in the Kurland basin to fight Latvian partisans, including the Kurelis units .

Whereabouts of known relatives

A Soviet special commission to investigate Nazi crimes found 244 members of the Arājs Command by 1946 and condemned them. Arājs himself lived under a false identity in Germany until a criminal case against him was opened in 1975. Herberts Cukurs was killed by Mossad agents in Uruguay in 1965 . Konrāds Kalējs died in Australia in 2001, avoiding criminal proceedings. There was also no trial against the well-known Australian chess player Kārlis Ozols . An officer of the command, Boriss Kinstlers , is known to have made a career with the Cheka after the war .

Stanislavs Steins (* 1916) obtained other personal papers at the end of the Second World War. Using his knowledge of Russian, he sneaked into the role of Alexander Schrams as an interpreter for a Soviet construction unit in Potsdam, then in the special construction combine in Potsdam. He was only exposed in 1977 and in 1979 sentenced to life imprisonment by the Potsdam District Court for war crimes and crimes against humanity. He was imprisoned in the remand facility of the MfS Berlin-Hohenschönhausen . After 1990 he received a pension from the Federal Republic of Germany as a member of the Waffen SS.

Other units of the Latvian Security Service

Many Latvian SD units in the province were gradually subordinated to Arājs. Even before the conquest of Riga, the journalist and anti- Semite Mārtins Vagulanis formed a larger organization in Jelgava and the surrounding area that carried out executions independently. In Riga itself there were at least two other similar Sonderkommandos "Teidemans" and "Rikards" in July 1941, both of which were later subordinated to Arājs. A Latgalian SD special command of 75 people was integrated into the Arājs command in 1943.

literature

  • Andrew Ezergailis, Historical Institute of Latvia (ed.): The Holocaust in Latvia 1941–1944: The Missing Center. Riga 1996, ISBN 9984-9054-3-8 .
  • Igors Vārpa: Latviešu Karavīrs zem Kāškrusta Karoga (Latvian soldier under the swastika flag), ISBN 9984-751-41-4 .
  • Kathrin Reichelt: Latvia under German occupation 1941–1944: The Latvian Part in the Holocaust ISBN 978-3-940938-84-8 .
  • Historical Commission of Latvia: Holokausta pētniecības Genealogie Latvijā. Rīga, 2008. ISBN 978-9984-824-05-5 online (English) . (PDF; 10.4 MB)
  • Māris Ruks: Arāja komandas Lettonia , Riga 2013, ISBN 978-993-482-6634 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Aivars Stranga: Holokausts vācu okupētajā Latvijā: 1941–1945. in Historical Commission of Latvia: Holokausta pētniecības Genealogie Latvijā. Rīga, 2008. ISBN 978-9984-824-05-5 , p. 26.
  2. ^ Kathrin Reichelt: Latvia under German occupation 1941–1944. P. 399, other authors give a number of 1200
  3. ↑ Igors Vārpa: Latviešu karavīrs zem kāškrusta karoga. Latviešu leģions - nācijas triumfs vai traģēdija? (The Latvian soldier under the swastika flag. The Latvian Legion - Triumph or Tragedy of the Nation?), P. 35.
  4. ↑ Igors Vārpa: Latviešu karavīrs zem kāškrusta karoga , p. 54.
  5. ↑ Igors Vārpa: Latviešu karavīrs zem kāškrusta karoga , p. 53.
  6. ↑ The city villa of a Jewish banker arrested in 1940: see Björn M. Felder: Latvia in World War II: Between Soviet and German occupiers 1940–1946. 2009 Schöningh ISBN 978-3-506-76544-4 , p. 218.
  7. ^ Kathrin Reichelt: Latvia under German occupation 1941–1944. P. 104.
  8. ^ Kathrin Reichelt: Latvia under German occupation 1941–1944. P. 129.
  9. ↑ Igors Vārpa: Latviešu Karavīrs zem Kāškrusta Karoga. P. 53.
  10. ^ Kathrin Reichelt: Latvia under German occupation 1941–1944. P. 132.
  11. ↑ a b c Igors Vārpa: Latviešu Karavīrs zem Kāškrusta Karoga , p. 57.
  12. ↑ Strods, Heinrihs. Salaspils koncentrācijas nometne (1941. gada oktobris-1944. gada septembris). Latvijas okupācijas muzeja gadagrāmata 2000 Rīga, Latvijas 50 gadu okupācijas muzeja fund. 2001. ISBN 9984-9332-4-5 , pp. 138-142.
  13. ↑ Igors Vārpa: Latviešu Karavīrs zem Kāškrusta Karoga p. 61 not identical with the chess player Karlis Ozols
  14. ↑ Igors Vārpa: Latviešu Karavīrs zem Kāškrusta Karoga p. 58.
  15. ↑ Arturs Pormals: Pūķu laiks Itaska, USA 2010 ISBN 978-9984-39-593-7 , pp. 244-250.
  16. ↑ Newspaper "Diena", Riga, Latvia, March 11, 2000 (via archived copy ( memento of the original from June 5, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link accordingly Instructions and then remove this notice. ) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / vip.latnet.lv
  17. ↑ Reiner Stenzel: To whom the federal government grants pensions
  18. ^ Kathrin Reichelt: Latvia under German occupation 1941–1944. P. 128.
  19. ↑ Igors Vārpa: Latviešu Karavīrs zem Kāškrusta Karoga p. 41.