Document Latvian Legion - any one speek Latvian?

[AJ]

Hi,

Can anyone tell me wha I got here.
Believe it's some kind of drafting paper for the Latvian Legion?

Nicely stamped "Generalinspekteur der Lettischen Legion"

[AJ]

#2

[randy@treadways]

Hi,

Can anyone tell me wha I got here.
Believe it's some kind of drafting paper for the Latvian Legion?

Nicely stamped "Generalinspekteur der Lettischen Legion"

It's your lucky day. My wife is Latvian.
She said this is a postcard notifying a Latvian Legion draftee (or volunteer- it's debatable) to report for a mandatory medical exam. It explains that if he doesn't show up he will be punished. The typed information in the lower right shows that the man had registered for legion service on April 1st 1942 [April Fools Day!]. The card was sent on December 22, 1943 and says to report for the medical exam six days later, on the 28th (at 9am). Since twenty months has gone by since the man had registered, and it's wartime, one can only speculate what had happened in the meantime. He was already 34 years old when he registed, and it being wartime it's hard to imagine them letting him just sit at home.
Maybe he DID join up in '42, was wounded and sent back home to recuperate, and now he's being told to report for a medical check to see if he's ready to go back to active service. That's just speculation of course. I'm sure by the end of 1943 the Legion was starting to get pretty desperate.
It also says that his normal job is in the Latvian Agriculture trade union- probably rather than a farmer he's a mid-level bureaucrat or administrator- because of the use of the word 'kamera'- it's now not in general usage but back then it meant a higher up level of the trade union.

The second document is a survey card for a workplace. The filled-in information explains that there are 106 people working here, of which 69 are men. Row e) also says that 21 employees are 'unskilled', and 7 of those are men.
Although it doesn't explain the purpose of collecting this information, my wife thinks it's probably related to the first document- because of the survey's interest in how many are men and how many are unskilled--- these being obvious primary 'draft' targets for the Latvian Legion- a unit of the Waffen SS, as is seen in the rubber stamp on the medical exam postcard.

My wife said her parents (both of whom lived through the war as kids) said the primary motivation for people joining the Legion was not so much pro-Nazism, as anti-communism. The Ribbentrop-Moletov deal was still secret then and all the locals knew was that in 1940 the Russians had marched in and took over very brutally, and a year later they were liberated by the Germans and life became more reasonable (albeit there was a war going on so obvious shortages). Then when the Russians pushed out the Germans it was even worse than before! Even today as a result of 50 years of Russian annexation, the country is now populated by about 40% ethnic Russians, and the two parts of the population- Russians and Latvians- hate each other.

OH yes one more thing-- on the address side of the postcard after the word Hernn, there is an abbreviation that my wife thinks *might* mean Sergeant, but she's not sure.
If he has the rank of a sergeant it probably means that he *has* done prior service, which is where the 'recuperating from wounds' speculation came from.

[randy@treadways]

I forgot to add- my wife said that the middle part- which is not filled out, gave free return home on public transit (mostly street cars / trams in Riga at that time). Undoubtedly this would be filled out and signed by an officer or NCO only when the medical exam was finished. They weren't going to fill it out and sign it beforehand- leaving it blank was an incentive for the guy to show up.

One thing I just noticed.... in Latvian, Iela means "street". The notice was sent to the guy at Barona Street #32. And it told him to show up for the medical exam at Barona Street #99. Right down the same street! How convenient. Don't know if he'd even need to take a tram to get there.

[Napalm]

And this is where he lived...:-)
http://barona32.lv/?sad=3&sad2=1

[MarcRikmenspoel]

I believe it says "Ltn." as in Leutnant (German Army), or 2nd Lieutenant (American Army). He was probably an officer in the Latvian Army, who was put on a list for potential soldiers, back in 1942. Then, in the autumn of 1943, as the 15 Waffen-Grenadier Division formed, and the 2. SS-Infanterie Brigade (eventually the 19. Waffen-Grenadier Divsion) expanded, he was called up for military service.

Latvian men of certain age groups, and others with military experience, had to "register for the draft." This was done with the help of the Latvian self-administration, since they believed the Germans would implement an illegal draft no matter what. If they cooperated, they'd have some say in what went on.

Drafting people of an occupied country is illegal under international law. That doesn't stop it from happening. The Germans covered their actions by insisting that the registration was for labor service work. Men would be called up to serve as laborers, given a physical, and then the able-bodied would have the option to volunteer for military service. Of course, almost all the men ended up in the military, and had to sign a notice that they had volunteered.

For former Latvian Army officers and NCOs, the Latvian self-administration encouraged them to truly volunteer. Otherwise, the Latvian soldiers would have to be led more by Germans, instead of their own countrymen. This man probably would have joined some german-sponsored unit much sooner, if he wasn't in an important agricultural position.

[AJ]

Thanks guys for the replies! Great work!

randy@treadways, please give my regards to your wife for her troubles!

AJ