Pastor and writer who headed Latvia's pro-German government of 1919
"Not clever speeches or treaties but force decides a nation's fate," he declared at his 1924 treason trial.
A leading Latvian novelist and Lutheran pastor, he headed the pro-German government backed by von der Goltz after the Liepāja coup of 1919. His regime fell after Cēsis, he fled to Germany and, returning in 1924, was tried for treason and expelled.
Career timeline
1890–1899Studied theology at the University of Dorpat (Tartu)
1903–1906Edited and published the journal Austrums in Cēsis
1906–1918Lutheran pastor in the Matīši, Kalsnava and Vietalva parishes
1917Co-founded the Latvian Farmers' Union, member of its board
1919.05–06Prime Minister of the pro-German provisional government
1924Convicted of treason, then expelled by presidential pardon
1926–1930Pastor of a German congregation in Altstadt, East Prussia
Latvia's prime minister in the war of independence, later dictator after the 1934 coup
On the day of the occupation his radio address ordered no resistance: "I will remain in my place and you remain in yours."
Prime minister of Latvia's provisional government from November 1918, he survived the Soviet army, a German coup and Bermondt's army in turn and led the Riga peace and land reform of 1920. He set up a dictatorship by coup in 1934 and, deported by the Soviets in 1940, died in prison in 1942.
Career timeline
1918.11First prime minister of Latvia's provisional government
1920Led the Riga peace treaty and land reform
1918–1934Farmers' Union leader; prime minister and foreign minister several times
1934.05Bloodless coup with army and Aizsargi backing
1936.04Also state president, styled himself leader of the people
1939.10Signed treaty allowing Soviet bases
1940.07Forced from office and deported after Soviet occupation
Latvia's first foreign minister, who won international recognition for its independence
One of the most influential statesmen and diplomats of the early Latvian Republic. As its first foreign minister he drove the 1920 peace treaty with Soviet Russia, de jure recognition and League of Nations admission; he died in a car crash in 1925.
Latvia's first foreign minister, he won de facto British recognition in 1918, the Riga peace of 1920, and de jure Allied recognition and League membership in 1921. He also served as prime minister and died in a road accident in 1925 at thirty-eight.
Career timeline
1917Co-founder of the Latvian Farmers' Union; head of the Vidzeme Land Council's financial division
1918Appointed Latvia's first foreign minister
1920Concluded the Riga peace treaty with Soviet Russia
1921Secured de jure Allied recognition and League of Nations membership
Baltic Landeswehr strike-troop commander who led the Liepāja coup and fell at Riga
In the assault on Riga he led a small detachment across the Daugava bridge toward the citadel holding hundreds of anti-Bolshevik prisoners; he fell in the charge, but his men reached the citadel and freed them.
A Baltic German baron from Courland who fought as a Bavarian uhlan officer in the First World War, he became a staff officer and strike-troop commander of the Baltic Landeswehr in 1919. On 16 April he led the Liepāja coup against the Ulmanis government, and on 22 May he was killed at twenty-five in the attack that retook Riga from the Red Army.
Career timeline
1913Read law at Heidelberg University
1914Volunteered for the 2nd Bavarian Uhlan Regiment; served on the Western and Eastern fronts
1915Promoted to lieutenant
1917Company commander, 18th Bavarian Infantry Regiment, Western front
1919.01Took command of the Baltische Landeswehr shock troops
1919.04Led the coup that toppled the Ulmanis government at Liepāja
Latvian foreign minister who signed the Soviet–Latvian Mutual Assistance Treaty in 1939 and was deported to the Soviet Union in 1940
Born in Riga to an Estonian trader and a Baltic German mother, he served in the Estonian Army during the Latvian War of Independence. He joined the Latvian foreign ministry in 1920, became its general secretary in 1933, ran the ministry de facto after Kārlis Ulmanis’s coup of 1934 and was foreign minister from 1936 to 1940; he was also active on the Council of the League of Nations. In June 1939 he signed the German–Latvian Non-Aggression Pact and on 5 October 1939 the Soviet–Latvian Mutual Assistance Treaty. After the Soviet occupation he and his family were deported to Voronezh in July 1940 in the presence of the interior minister Vilis Lācis; he was arrested in June 1941 and in 1952 sentenced to 25 years. Released in 1954, he returned to Latvia in 1958, wrote against the Latvian diaspora organisations and died in Riga in 1967.
Career timeline
1920Joined the Latvian foreign ministry
1933General secretary of the foreign ministry
1936–1940Minister of foreign affairs
1939Signed the Soviet–Latvian Mutual Assistance Treaty
Riga docker who used his contract work for the Luftwaffe to smuggle dozens of Jews out of the ghetto and camps and hide them
Born in Jelgava, he served in the Latvian Army’s artillery during the War of Independence in 1919–1920 and then worked as a docker in the port of Riga. Having witnessed the persecution of Jews in the streets, he resolved to save them, became a contractor for the Luftwaffe and from late November 1941 smuggled Jewish workers out of the Riga ghetto and nearby camps. With his wife Johanna and friends he hid them in warehouses and a bunker dug in his yard until the Red Army arrived in October 1944. The number saved is given as forty to about 55. After the war the KGB questioned him repeatedly. In 1966 Yad Vashem recognised him and his wife as Righteous Among the Nations, and when he died in 1987 the Jews of Riga arranged his funeral.
Career timeline
1919–1920Artillery service in the War of Independence
1941–1944Smuggled Jews out of the Riga ghetto and camps and hid them
Latvian former policeman whose Arajs Kommando, under the SS Security Service, murdered about half of Latvia’s Jews
Born in Baldone to a Latvian blacksmith and a mother from a wealthy Baltic German family, he served in the Latvian Army, studied law at the University of Latvia and was a policeman until 1938. When the Germans entered Riga in July 1941 he was introduced to Stahlecker and recruited a unit from his student fraternity and the Pērkonkrusts, which took part in burning Riga’s synagogues on 4 July. The Arajs Kommando murdered some 26,000 people in Latvia and then Belarus, and he was made an SS-Sturmbannführer in 1943. Interned in a British camp until 1949, he lived under a false name and worked at a printing company in Frankfurt. In 1979 the Hamburg State Court sentenced him to life imprisonment for leading the Jews of the Riga ghetto to their deaths on 8 December 1941; he died in prison in Kassel in 1988.
