Pērkonkrusts
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Pērkonkrusts (Thunder Cross in Latvian), was a Latvian radical nationalist organization active in the 1930s. This group adapted fascist ideology to the newly independent (in 1918) country of Latvia. With its slogan 'Latvia for the Latvians', the Thunder Cross wished to place all political and economic control of their country in the hands of native Latvians, or Letts. As a result, these extreme nationalists rejected the section of the Latvian Constitution that gave national minorities cultural autonomy. In its glorification of Latvia, the Thunder Cross’s call for simplicity and purity even went so far as to suggest a Latvian religion. Despite its rural ideals, the Thunder Cross gained most of its support in the urban areas, more specifically among students. By 1934, Perkonkrusts is estimated to have had between 5,000 and 6,000 members, although the organization maintained that it had more.
The Thunder Cross was not only anti-minority and particularly anti-Semitic, but also, ironically, anti-German, despite its Nazi ideas and tactics. The group used the Nazi salute and even greeted with the Latvian phrase 'Cinai sveiks' (in German 'Kampf Heil'). The term Thunder Cross means swastika, which was used as a symbol of the organization. The uniform of the Thunder Cross was a grey shirt and black beret. Perkonkrusts aimed its propaganda not only against minorities who supposedly had taken over the Latvian economy, but also against the contemporary politicians of the Republic of Latvia, whom it accused of corruption.
The fascist group the Fire Cross (Ugunskrusts), also a term for swastika, was founded in Latvia in 1932 by Gustavs Celmins, but was soon outlawed by the Latvian government. The Fire Cross quickly reemerged as the Thunder Cross. Karlis Ulmanis, a former student and lecturer at the University of Nebraska who became the first Premier of the Republic of Latvia, was Latvia’s president and Peasants' Union Party leader at the height of the Thunder Cross’s power. Ulmanis' agrarian party proposed constitutional reforms in October 1933, which socialists feared would target the left more than the right. Left wing fears proved founded when, in November, seven communist deputies were arrested, while Thunder Cross officials were left alone. Because of political unrest, stemming partially from the growing power of the right, and because of a simultaneous economic crisis, Ulmanis staged a bloodless coup d’état in May 1934, banning not only the Communist Party and the Thunder Cross, but all parties and the Latvian Parliament Saeima. Ulmanis’ authoritarian state relied on the bureaucracy, the military and the defense league Aizsargi. Following the coup, the Thunder Cross leader Celmins was imprisoned for three years and then banished from Latvia.
Although the Thunder Cross did not exist officially after 1934, many former leaders and members acted with a degree of unity in subsequent years. After the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, also known as the Nazi-Soviet pact, Latvia came under Soviet power. When Soviet bases were set up in Latvia, ex-Thunder Cross members were among the spies working with the Germans against the Red Army. When the Germans invaded Latvia in 1941, Perkonkrusts tried to revive itself, but German officials were just as suspicious of the group as Ulmanis had been and decisively forbad the organization soon after the invasion. Many former Thunder Cross members collaborated with the Germans. However, others maintained an anti-German sentiment and joined those groups subversively opposed to German occupation.
Former members of Ulmanis’ defense league, Latvian police and soldiers, as well as former members of the Thunder Cross, created “self-defense squadrons” under Nazi occupation. These squadrons, headquartered in Riga, were used to search, arrest, and murder civilian minority populations, including Jews and Soviet sympathizers. In 1941, former leader of the Thunder Cross, Celmin, now a Nazi official, encouraged Latvians to join a “security team” led by Viktor Arajs, the leader of the Riga police. Many former Thunder Cross members joined what became known as the Arajs Commando, a unit responsible for the extermination of thousands of Jews and Communist party members. In the team’s first week, it burned a Riga synagogue along with those inside it and murdered over 2,000 more Jews and Communists.
The Thunder Cross reemerged in the 1990s as an extremist organization whose stated goal was the overthrow of the current unsatisfactory government and the establishment of a “Lettish Latvia.” Members tried three times to bomb the Monument to the Liberators of Riga from the German and Fascist Invaders and successfully bombed a water main. In 2000, most of the leaders of the current Thunder Cross were arrested; however, sentences were mild, if given at all.
[edit] Sources
Crampton, R. J. Eastern Europe and the Twentieth Century—and After. 2nd ed. London: Routledge Taylor and Francis Group, 1994.
“Latvia’s Dictator Ended Nazi Threat.” New York Times. 3 June 1934, final ed.: E3. Proquest Historical Newspapers The New York Times (1851-2002). 1 December 2005. <[1]>
Pabriks, Artis and Aldis Purs. Latvia: The Challenges of Change. London: Routledge Taylor and Francis Group, 2001.
Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the United Nations. “Involvement of the Lettish SS Legion in War Crimes in 1941-1945 and the Attempts to Revise the Verdict of the Nuremberg Tribunal in Latvia.” www.un.int 2 December 2005. <[2]>.
Plakans, Andrejs. "Perkonkrusts (Engl. Thundercross)." Historical Dictionary of Latvia: European Historical Dictionaries, No. 19. Lanham, Md.: The Scarecrow P, Inc., 1997.
Von Rauch, Georg. The Baltic States: The Years of Independence, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, 1917-1940. Trans. Gerald Onn. London: C. Hurst & Company, 1974.
