Between Giants (25 page)

In 1941 and 1942, with the prospect of a swift victory over the Soviet Union still a strong one, the Germans were not interested in allowing any form of nationalism in the Baltic States. As the tide of war turned against them, their attitude to the Baltic nations shifted to allow for the possibility of allied states, but by then it was too late. The failure of
Generalplan Ost to
allow any degree of self-government in the Baltic States (and also in Belarus and the Ukraine) resulted in a failure to take significant advantage of the strongly anti-Soviet attitude of most of the population of these countries. It can be argued that this failure, particularly in the larger context of Belarus and the Ukraine as well as the Baltic States, was a large – possibly decisive – factor in determining the outcome of the war on the Eastern Front, and therefore the entire world war.

The Estonian
Omakaitse,
whose members had helped disrupt Red Army movements during the brief German campaign to seize Estonia, were in most cases disarmed by the Germans. Nevertheless, their numbers continued to swell, and by the end of the year, about 40,000 Estonians had volunteered for service.
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Many of those who came forward were men who had previously been in the pre-war Estonian Army, and whose units had been absorbed into the Red Army after Stalin’s annexation of Estonia – one estimate suggests that two thirds of the 15,000-strong Estonian component of the Red Army deserted, and subsequently volunteered for service in the
Omakaitse
or police.
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A minority of these men – fewer than 2,000 – were involved in mass killings, mainly of Jews and Roma, in both Estonia and occupied Russia. A larger number was probably involved in shootings of suspected communists, including members of so-called ‘destruction battalions’ – units organised by the retreating Soviets to carry out a ‘scorched earth’ policy across Estonia. The German authorities established a labour camp at Jägala, commanded by an Estonian, Aleksander Laak; when trainloads of Jews arrived at the camp, those deemed not healthy enough for work were shot. In 1943, the camp was ‘liquidated’, and the remaining inmates were killed. Many of the Estonian volunteers were incorporated into police battalions, some of which served in occupied Russia and Belarus. The first such formation was given the title
Estnische Sicherungsabteilung 181
(‘Estonian Security Detachment 181’) when it was created in Tartu at the end of August 1941. These battalions were involved in the killing of Jews in the Belarusian town of Navahrudak. They also took part in guard duties at labour, prison and concentration camps across Estonia and other occupied territories. One section of the police, headed by Ain-Ervin Mere and Julius Ennok, was later deemed to have rounded up individuals who for a variety of reasons were thought to be potentially hostile to German interests. Many of these were then executed, as a result of death warrants issued by Estonian officials.
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Jüri Uluots had been the last prime minister of Estonia prior to the Soviet occupation, and he created a national council, but was careful to avoid calling it a new government; he had watched the reaction of the Germans to the Lithuanian Transitional Government, and wished to avoid following the same path. Uluots attempted to persuade the Germans to allow him to establish a new independent Estonia, but his efforts were brushed aside. Struggling to find any well-known Estonian who could be appointed to run a puppet administration, the Germans turned to Hjalmar Mäe, who had been imprisoned before the war for attempts at pro-fascist plotting. He would now run a directorate, responsible for implementing German decisions and policies. Oskars Dankers and Petras Kubiliūnas were appointed to similar roles in Latvia and Lithuania respectively.

The contributions of the three Baltic States to the German war effort were very different. In an attempt to harness the widespread anti-Soviet sentiment in the western parts of the Soviet empire, Gruppenführer Gottlob Berger, chief of the SS Head Office, suggested in October 1941:

Perhaps – using the expression ‘Legion’, which will not give any new uplift to the nationalistic aspirations of these countries – we can create Latvian, Lithuanian and Ukrainian
Hilfspolizei
[‘assistant police’ or ‘auxiliary police’] battalions.
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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.’
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.’
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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 pronounced 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.
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Other battalions were implicated in the Holocaust, guarding the Warsaw ghetto or escorting trains carrying Jews to the extermination camp at Treblinka.
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