Litene (German : Lettin) is the center of Litene Parish, in Gulbene Municipality, in north-eastern Latvia. Other names: Lytene, Myza Lytene. [1] A notable building is Litene Manor. [2]
Litene (German : Lettin) is the center of Litene Parish, in Gulbene Municipality, in north-eastern Latvia. Other names: Lytene, Myza Lytene. [1] A notable building is Litene Manor. [2]
 | It has been suggested that this section be split out into another articletitled Litene massacre . (Discuss) (October 2024) |
Litene became infamous in the summer of 1941, the "year of terror" of the Soviet occupation. Eleven hundred Latvian army officers were arrested by the Soviet NKVD in 1941. For it was at Litene Army camp that most of them were arrested under the pretext of a "training exercise". [3] Two hundred Latvian officers were shot in Litene, 80 in Riga and 560 were deported to Siberian gulags. Only 90 of them returned from Siberia after Joseph Stalin's death. [4] [5] [6]
In the spring of 1941, units of the disbanded Latvian Army now called the 24th Territorial Corps of the Red Army were sent for summer training to the former Latvian Army base at Litene. [7] On 14 June 1941, the remaining officers, while on a supposed training mission, were disarmed, arrested and deported to forced labor at Norillag, north of the Arctic Circle in Siberia, where they were sentenced to death or long-term imprisonment.
In 1988, excavation was undertaken at the former Latvian Army summer camp in Litene. The excavators uncovered the remains of 11 individuals, evidently officers of the 24th Territorial Corps. [5]
During commemoration ceremonies on 14 June 2001 at Litene fraternal cemetery Latvian Defence Minister Ģirts Valdis Kristovskis unveiled a memorial to the Latvian officers killed in 1941. [8]
The Latvian National Armed Forces, or NBS, are the armed forces of Latvia. Latvia's defense concept is based on a mobile, professional rapid response force and a reserve segment that can be called upon relatively fast for mobilization should the need arise. The National Armed Forces consists of Land Forces, Naval Forces, Air Force and National Guard. Its main tasks are to protect the territory of the State; participate in international military operations; and to prevent threats to national security.
Dievturība is a contemporary continuation of the ethnic religion of the Latvians from what it was before Christianization in the 13th century. Some scholars call it a neopagan movement, despite being systematized before 1940, and hence rendering the term "neopaganism" irrelevant. Adherents call themselves Dievturi, literally "Dievs' keepers", "people who live in harmony with Dievs". Dievturība is mainly rooted in Latvian folklore, folk songs and Latvian mythology.
The Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic was de facto one of the constituent republics of the Soviet Union between 1940–1941 and 1944–1990.
Pērkonkrusts was a Latvian ultranationalist, anti-German, anti-Slavic, and antisemitic political party founded in 1933 by Gustavs Celmiņš, borrowing elements of German nationalism—but being unsympathetic to Nazism at the time—and Italian Fascism. It was outlawed in 1934, its leadership arrested, and Celmiņš eventually exiled in 1937. Still-imprisoned members were persecuted under the first Soviet occupation; some collaborated with subsequently invading Nazi Germany forces in perpetrating the Holocaust. Pērkonkrusts continued to exist in some form until 1944, when Celmiņš, who had initially returned to work in the occupying German administration, was imprisoned.
After the occupation of Latvia by the USSR in June 1940, much of the previous Latvian army was disbanded and many of its soldiers and officers were arrested and imprisoned or executed. The following year Nazi Germany occupied Latvia during the offensive of Army Group North. The German Einsatzgruppen were aided by a group known as Arajs Kommando in the killing of Latvian Jews as part of the Holocaust. Latvian soldiers fought on both sides of the conflict against their will, and in 1943 180,000 Latvian men were drafted into the Latvian Legion of the Waffen-SS and other German auxiliary forces.
Kārlis Goppers was a Russian and Latvian military officer, veteran of World War I and the Russian Civil War and the founder and President of Latvijas Skautu un Gaidu Centrālā Organizācija.
The June deportation of 1941 was a mass deportation of tens of thousands of people during World War II from Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, present-day western Belarus and western Ukraine, and present-day Moldova – territories which had been occupied by the Soviet Union in 1939–1940 – into the interior of the Soviet Union.
Jānis Balodis was an army general, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Latvia (1919–1921), Minister of War (1931–1940), and a politician who was one of the principal figures during the Latvian War of Independence and the dictatorship of Kārlis Ulmanis, when he was officially the number two of the regime as the Minister of War, Deputy Prime Minister and Vice President.
Mordehai Dubin was a major Jewish spiritual and political leader in Latvia. He served as a Member of Parliament (Saeima) for the Agudas Israel party. He headed the Jewish community in Latvia until 1940, when it was annexed by the USSR.
Arvīds Brēdermanis was an official of the foreign service of Latvia between the World Wars, and was also a founder of the Latvian Scouting movement.
The Masļenki border incident was an attack by Soviet NKVD troops on 15 June 1940 against the Latvian border posts in the district of Abrene at the then Latvian–Soviet border on the eve of the Soviet occupation of Latvia.
The "Bund" in Latvia was a Jewish socialist party in Latvia between the two World Wars, adhering to the political line of the General Jewish Labour Bund.
Latvian Riflemen Soviet Divisions were military formations of the Red Army during World War II created in 1941 and consisting primarily of ethnic Latvians.
The guerrilla war in the Baltic states was an insurgency waged by Baltic partisans against the Soviet Union from 1944 to 1956. Known alternatively as the "Forest Brothers", the "Brothers of the Wood" and the "Forest Friars", these partisans fought against invading Soviet forces during their occupation of the Baltic states during and after World War II. Similar insurgent groups resisted Soviet occupations in Bulgaria, Poland, Romania and Ukraine.
Robert Indrikovich Eikhe was a Latvian Bolshevik and Soviet politician who was the provincial head of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in Siberia during the collectivization of agriculture, until his arrest during the Great Purge.
Aleksandrs Grīns was a Latvian writer, translator and army officer. He has written many novels and stories, many of them historic. Most of his works were banned in the Soviet Union from 1945 until 1991. He was awarded the Order of the Three Stars and Order of Viesturs.
The 24th Rifle Corps was a corps of the Red Army. It was part of the 27th Army and took part in the Great Patriotic War. It appears to have been initially formed in the Kalinin Military District, around what is today Tver, in 1939. In 1940 it was relocated to Soviet-occupied Latvia with units of the dissolved Latvian Army joining the corps.
Vilis Arveds Hāzners (1905–1989) was an officer in the Latvian army and Latvian Legion, and a recipient of the Nazi German Ehrenblattspange des Heeres.
Valdemārs Klētnieks, also known as Voldemārs Klētnieks and Valdis Klētnieks, was a Latvian writer and national Scout Commissioner for Latvia before World War II. When the Soviet Union occupied Latvia in 1940, the Latvian Scout Organization was banned. Klētnieks eventually fled Latvia for a displaced persons camp in Germany, where he remained for five years following the end of World War II. In 1950, he settled with his wife and children as refugees in the United States, where he continued to write books in the Latvian language and joined the Boy Scouts of America national staff.
During World War II, Soviet forces were responsible for numerous atrocities against prisoners of war. These actions were carried out by the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD) and the Red Army. In some cases, the crimes were sanctioned or directly ordered by Joseph Stalin and the Soviet leadership.
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