Monument to SS legionnaires destroyed in Latvia
Unknown persons destroyed a stele to SS legionnaires at night in the Latvian city of Bauska, RIA Novosti reports
The Bauska municipality police chief, Broņislavs Ostrovskis, noted that the police had studied all available recordings from nearby CCTV cameras, but found nothing suspicious. He suggested that the incident may be related to the dismantling of Soviet monuments that took place recently in Latvia.
A deputy of the Bauska Regional Duma, Raitis Abelnieks, said the monument would be restored, and suggested that it was demolished by a group of people, rather than one person with a winch, as the police initially believed.
The stele was erected in 2012, and it caused criticism from Russia, Belarus and Israel, since two of the three immortalised Latvian battalions were part of the Latvian Waffen SS legion and participated in punitive operations on the territory of Ukraine, Belarus and Russia.
The Waffen SS legion was created by the Nazi Germany command during World War II on the territory of occupied Latvia out of two Grenadier divisions.
The SS, as well as the SD, the Gestapo and the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, were recognised as criminal organisations during the Nuremberg trials of a group of major Nazi war criminals. Also, the creation of concentration camps, which were organised, in particular, by SS forces, was recognised as a crime against humanity.
