Latvia: SS: Veterans of the Latvian Waffen S-S honored their fallen comrades

(16 Mar 2001) English/Nat
Several hundred veterans of the Latvian Waffen S-S honored their fallen comrades on Friday in a ceremony at a Riga church.
The veterans, also know also known as the Latvian Legion, did not stage a controversial march that in previous years has angered Moscow and Jewish groups.
This comes a few days after veterans groups decried what they said were historical misunderstandings, calling for a nationwide debate about the Latvian Waffen SS.
The veterans said they were always fighting for Latvian independence, not for Germany.
The former soldiers, most in their 70s and 80s, said they were not holding their annual meeting to make a political statement but to remember some 50 thousand fellow soldiers who died in battle during World War Two.
The veterans, some in wheelchairs, others carrying flowers or canes, gathered at the Dome Cathedral to sing and pray before dispersing.
They then reconvened at a Riga war cemetery, where some Waffen S-S soldiers and veterans are buried.
The annual march to an independence monument near the cathedral was cancelled because the obelisk is under renovation and covered in scaffolding, veterans groups said.
But they said they would march next year after work on the monument is completed.
Many Latvians believe the Latvian Waffen S-S was a conscripted, front-line army and wasn't the same thing as Germany's S-S -- Adolf Hitler's elite force that carried out the Holocaust and other atrocities.
Latvia's 11-thousand member Jewish community said it was an affront to the memory of 80-thousand Latvian Jews killed during the 1941-44 Nazi occupation.
Russia blasted the procession last year, saying it showed contempt for Soviet war dead.
But many Latvians accept veteran claims that they were patriots fighting for Latvian independence against Soviet invasion or that they were forced into fighting for the Waffen S-S against their will.
Earlier in the week veterans groups called for a nationwide debate about the Latvian Waffen SS and decried what they said were historical misunderstandings.
But even the government has distanced itself from the commemorative events, and lawmakers last year withdrew earlier recognition of March 16 as an official day of remembrance.
The Soviets occupied Latvia at the start of the war in 1940, Germany ruled from 1941-44, and the Soviets retook it in 1944.
Latvia regained its independence in 1991 following the collapse of the Soviet Union.
With Latvia sandwiched between the Nazi and Soviet armies, 250-thousand Latvians ended up fighting on one side of the conflict or the other, usually after being conscripted.
Around 150-thousand Latvian combatants died.
SOUNDBITE: (English)
"You have to keep in mind that we never fought for Germany. We had been fighting for Latvian independence. Anybody who has ever been under the Russian regime like we were in 1940-41, we don't want to get under the same regime again."
SUPER CAPTION: Veteran (Refused to give name)

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