Abstract
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>During World War II, the country of Latvia was occupied in succession by the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany; yet nearly 200,000 residents of Latvia fought as soldiers. Latvian Soldiers of World War II: Fighting for the Homeland in Nazi and Soviet Service traces the origins, wartime experience, and legacies of soldiers from Latvia who served in national formations on both sides of the Eastern Front: in the 130th Latvian Rifle Corps of the Soviet Union’s Red Army (“Latvian Riflemen”); and in the Latvian SS Volunteer Legion of Nazi Germany’s Waffen-SS (“Latvian Legionnaires”). This book reveals how Latvian soldiers adapted to their new ideological settings and incubated nationalist ideas while serving in the armies of occupying powers. These soldiers distinguished themselves in combat on both sides, earning more medals than other non-Germanic Waffen-SS and non-Slavic Red Army formations. Veterans of each side then became key political actors in postwar Soviet Latvia and the Latvian diaspora in the West, respectively. After the war, the victorious Latvian Riflemen gradually became marginalized—first in postwar Soviet Latvia, now in independent Latvia—while the defeated Waffen-SS Latvian Legionnaires successfully integrated into Cold War-era Western democracies and developed durable institutions and narratives in exile that were imported into post-Soviet Latvia. In the memory wars that followed World War II, wartime victors became the losers of history and the “lost cause” of the defeated side triumphed, yielding ongoing tensions both within Latvia and between Latvia and other countries, most notably Russia.</jats:p>