Talk:Latvian Auxiliary Police

Latvia and Latvian

I have removed and changed a couple of categories, since this article is neither about a regular military unit nor a Latvian military unit or law enforcement agency. Latvia was occupied by Germany and incorporated to Reichskommissariat Ostland, hence the change to Category:Defunct law enforcement agencies of Germany. ^Talk/♥фĩłдωəß♥\^Work 18:10, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Hatred already present in the Latvian society

"The Nazi propaganda brainwashed thousands of Latvians, added fuel to the hatred already present in the Latvian society, and gave them a way to justify their actions." That is quite a statement, which needs to be either verified or rephrased. ^Talk/♥фĩłдωəß♥\^Work 18:20, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Needs work

This article, as it stands is a mishmash conflating several different things: self-proclaimed Latvian nationalist partisans in 1941, the early German-controlled Selbstschutz, the Latvian Schutzmannschaften, and the Sonderkommando Arajs (a Latvian auxiliary unit of the Security Police — Latviešu drošības nodaļa/Sicherungs-Kommando, Hilfspolizei der Sicherheitspolizei und der SD — and never a unit of the Schuma). The Schuma were subordinated to the Ordnungspolizei, while Arajs and his men were under the Sipo/SD. Yes, they all participated various atrocities, but that doesn't mean one can be sloppy with the facts of how they were organised. But the fact that the article was created by a now-banned sockpuppet around Latvian Legion Day leads me to assume that POV-pushing, rather than factual accuracy were part of the conscious decision to lump all Latvian auxiliary units in one bag, à la Soviet-era historiography. For anyone with the time to fix this article (which I don't at the moment), I would suggest the works of Kangeris, Birn, Curilla, and Dobriazko as possible WP:RS. —Zalktis (talk) 08:53, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

The entire subject is quite complicated, and the circumstances changed rapidly during the course of the occupation. The involvement of Latvian auxiliaries in the Holocaust is undoubted, but important and controversial issues remain as to the extent and role they played. Clearly the actions of the Arājs commando need to be treated separately. Another good resource that is widely available in English is Ezergailis, The Holocaust in Latvia. The entire book deals with the involvement of the Latvian auxiliary police, but the particular chapters to consult would be III, Anti-semitism, V, The SD in Latvia, VI, The Arājs Commando, and X, The Schutzmannschaften.--Mtsmallwood (talk) 16:19, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Ezergailis is OK, but in my opinion the organisation of his book makes it difficult to get a coherent picture of the institutional history of the auxiliary police; nor is that his book's purpose, either. For what it's worth, Angrick & Klein (due out in an English edition later this year) are even more muddled on this matter. Furthermore, I strongly disagree with the idea that the Latvian SD support units in Riga, Liepāja, Jelgava, Valmiera, and elsewhere belong lumped together with the Schuma in an article entitled "Latvian Auxiliary Police". Even if both types of units were involved in the Holocaust and anti-partisan ops, and even eventually incorporated into the Latvian Legion, that doesn't mean they were essentially the same thing. A good starting point for improving this article could be the article in English by Kangeris, available here. –Zalktis (talk) 15:55, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Tagged

The article is such a sorry state of contentions and in such chronological chaos that I wound up tagging it for both POV and poor writing. Arājs needs to be separate, the German players/organizations are an afterthought,... I don't have the bandwidth to work on the article myself right now, hence the tags in the meantime. PetersV       TALK 16:28, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

June 17 edits

I added some headings and resized an image, no text edits. Refer to above comments regarding substantive problems with article. This is just a little organization to help readability. Mtsmallwood (talk) 04:03, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Later revert

Thanks for the cleanup, every little bit helps!

I have undone this most recent revert as it is a hodge-podge of part verifiable events, part wild allegations, and part completely incorrect information regarding basic facts, leading to the whole original content being questionable, hence the current tags. Reverts back to the faulty version of content will be undone as vandalism. Thank you. PētersV       TALK 14:08, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

What about a standard lead paragraph? The article isn't pretty clear... were this units formed from ethnic Latvians, Baltic Germans, or just Nazis imported from other parts? Is "Latvian" a purely geographic designation or an ethnic one?Anonimu (talk) 18:46, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

I was going to slowly work through the article as I had a chance, then write a lead, but that's a good idea, I'll try and get to one over the next few days. Unfortunately there's a lot of confusion between who/what/when regarding Aizsargi, police, army, the true collaborator SD units (like Arajs), and the uninvolved Waffen SS who came later, the lead will have to address that to some extent. Welcome back! (And let's keep out of the proverbial snake pits this time!) PētersV       TALK 22:01, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

I see where the prior cleanup split the background off to the lead, it doesn't work as well there, so that can be a bit confusing until straightened out. The sectioning is good, though, so leaving as is for now. PētersV       TALK 22:05, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Border Guard Regiments and Front Battalions

Border guard regiments (Lettisches Grenzschutz Regiment 1-6) were not a part of Auxiliary Police and should be removed from this article as well as Police Front battalions! Dukurs (talk) 17:02, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

I absolutely agree: please, remove this mistake and lie about Border Guard Regiments

Units called "Grenzschutz Regiment" WERE NOT of Latvian Auxiliary Police. Plaese, DELETE from the list of this article these six units: Lettisches Grenzschutz Regiment 1 Riga, February 1944 - March 1944 Lettisches Grenzschutz Regiment 2 Riga, February 1944 - October 1944 Lettisches Grenzschutz Regiment 3 Riga, February 1944 - July 1944 Lettisches Grenzschutz Regiment 4 Tukums, February 1944 - August 1944 Lettisches Grenzschutz Regiment 5 Aizpute, February 1944 - October 1944 Lettisches Grenzschutz Regiment 6 Kuldīga, February 1944 - August 1944 I saw this mistake in several forums on Axis theme, but this is a lie: In those forums some people mentioning these units to police, show reference to the website called "Latviesu karavirs otra pasaules kara laika" (http://www.lacplesis.com/). But even that website contain lists of police units, but there are NOT these (Grenzschutz Regiment) units. Please, look yourself: http://www.lacplesis.com/Latvian_Units_During_WWII.htm http://www.lacplesis.com/651_feldpostnummern.htm "Grenzschutz Regiment" units were a borders guarding infantrie and they had nothing common with police at all. They were formed after the Soviet Army moved closer to the territory of Latvia. On February 2, 1944 for the infantry forces at the borders and front in these units (without free will) were recruited men born in 1910-1914, and on February 5 there were recruited men born in 1906-1909. There were formed six Border guard regiments and those were sent to the front and later suffered great losses (in the archives there are records of protests from soldiers about sending these units out of the territory of Latvia), and until the autumn of 1944 all these units were enclosed in the "Waffen" divisions: after several reformings and changes the "Grenzschutz Regiment 2" was enclosed in the "15. Waffen Grenadier Division des SS (lettische Nr.1)", all others were enclosed in the "19. Waffen Grenadier Division des SS (lettische Nr.2)" and were sent to the front of "Courland pocket". The units called "Lettisches Grenzschutz Regiment" never have been "Schutzmannschaft" and never have been Latvian Auxiliary Police units; all of them were infantry of the front. Please, better learn German and carefully translate the title of unit and check the archives of the "Wehrmacht". Additional sources: U.Siliņš, J.Vējiņš (several authors). Latvija likteņa gaitās 1918 - 1991. - Riga, Preses Nams, 2006. Silgailis A. Latviešu leģions. - Kopenhagena, Imanta, 1962. Silgailis A. Latviešu leģions. - Riga, Junda, 2001. Silgailis A. Latvian Legion. - San Jose, James R. Bender Publishing Co., 1986. http://www.amazon.com/Latvian-Legion-Arturs-Silgailis/dp/0912138351

(And, please, don't lie, because such lies are painful to the realitives of the former soldiers of these units). Let's be correct and don't judge the innocent according to the war-crimes. Otherwise this article could be judged.) Mr Littlehour (talk) 00:24, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

removing POV tag with no active discussion per Template:POV

I've removed an old neutrality tag from this page that appears to have no active discussion per the instructions at Template:POV:

This template is not meant to be a permanent resident on any article. Remove this template whenever:

1. There is consensus on the talkpage or the NPOV Noticeboard that the issue has been resolved
2. It is not clear what the neutrality issue is, and no satisfactory explanation has been given
3. In the absence of any discussion, or if the discussion has become dormant.

Since there's no evidence of ongoing discussion, I'm removing the tag for now. If discussion is continuing and I've failed to see it, however, please feel free to restore the template and continue to address the issues. Thanks to everybody working on this one! -- Khazar2 (talk) 02:51, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

Duplicates

There are two articles on the same subject, other being Latvian Police Battalions. I suggest merging them. DJ Sturm (talk) 17:15, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

Hello, the two articles present different facts, thus I have decided to revert. According to this article, the Auxiliary Police was created in July exclusively from volunteers, and was tasked with eliminating Jews and anti-Nazi partisans within Latvia. The other article states that the Police Battalions were formed in September from volunteers and conscripts, and was tasked with various combat duties near the front line, outside Latvia. Note that, while I have checked most sources present in this article, I haven't done the same for the other article (which has only 2 refs anyway). I'd like to see at least some sources indicating the two formations were one and the same. If it turns out they actually are, and a merger is required, all sourced information needs to be migrated to the unified article (participation in Holocaust, etc).Anonimu (talk) 22:25, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

Well, both articles refer to Latvian Schutzmannschaft, which exclusively means batallions numbered 16–28 and later formed ones with bigger numbers. Both pictures in this article supposedly portray the activities of 21st battalion from Liepāja. As regards to battalions' activities from July to September, we are talking about origins of the said battalions and probably engagament of their personnel before the specific, numbered battalions were formed. DJ Sturm (talk) 20:45, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

In WWII there were Sicherheitsdienst ("SD units") and collaborative Hilfspolizei (e.g., Arajs Kommando Auxilliary Police); there was also local police after the Nazi occupation but not aligned with the SD, i.e., think "auxilliary police" no capitalization, but same German noun (Hilfpolizei); there were the Schutzmannschaft ("Schuma"), who were later police battalions assigned to anti-partisan activies; none of those to be confused with the Waffen SS ("Latvian Legion"). Combining the articles furthers the fiction that all were culpable in the Holocaust. In no way are the articles in question "on the same subject." If there are deficiencies in differentiation, those need to be corrected. VєсrumЬа ►TALK 02:33, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

So which one of the articles is supposed to be about Schuma and what is the other one about? It is very confusing as of now. DJ Sturm (talk) 22:49, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

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Dyukov

I've removed the materials sourced to Dyukov. Not a reliable source. Johan Beckman is a Kremlin-aligned anti-Baltic "anti-Fascist" who has attended Putin's military "youth" camps and exalted the experience. And Dyukov cites demonstrably falsified archives.

Please do indicate a reference for the unreliability of the source. Wikipedia is about verifiability, not truth. I have reverted your edit in the meantime. Anonimu (talk) 00:02, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Dyukov is a propagandist. That means, demonstrably counter-factual and not suitable for an encyclopedic article. Or do you dispute that Dyukov contends Estonians were resettled on coach trains, with doctors and nurses in attendance, supposedly per archival records--and not deported to Siberia in cattle cars? Please undo your restoration of Dyukov's content. VєсrumЬа ►TALK 01:28, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Is not something unusual for historians in Eastern Europe to get called propagandists and nationalists by outraged politicians and historians (often one and the same) in neighbouring countries. However, Dyakov is only one of the authors of the cited work, and the subject of the article is Nazi collaborators, not deportations from Estonia, so unless you bring more specific accusations, it stays. Anonimu (talk) 09:42, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Dyukov et al. is still propaganda. Legal principle: false in one, false in all. And Dyukov is a proven liar. VєсrumЬа ►TALK 23:58, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

Formation, also, Arājs

It is true that units were formed as recruiting reserves and sent to the front in pursuit of the retreating Red Army. However those were Selbstschutz units, not Schutzmannschaft. At Vilis Hāzners's deportation trial, the US DOJ cabled German authorities for any records they had available on the "RIGAER SCHUTZMANNSCHAFT". Their response was that there was (a) no such unit and (b) of the list of units in the area they did provide, all were formed only in 1942 or 1943. The progression of events was that the Selbstschutz were eventually renamed as Schutzmannschaft and additional Schutzmannschaft units formed. Also, Arājs had nothing to do with the Schutzmannschaft. Sonderkommando Arajs was a Sicherheitsdienst (SD) unit subordinated to the Einsatzkommando. VєсrumЬа ►TALK 23:58, 12 January 2023 (UTC)