Anderson, S. and Anderson, J.L.. Inside the League: The Shocking Exposé of how Terrorists, Nazis, and Latin American Death Squads Have Infiltrated the World Anti-Communist League, Dodd, Mead, 1986, ISBN: 9780396085171. LINK
As Prof. Ieva Zaķe summarizes in her paper The Secret Nazi Network: Post-World War II Latvian Immigrants and the Hunt for Nazis in the United States:
In 1986, Scott Anderson and Jon Lee Anderson wrote that the participation of Eastern Europeans such as Latvians in the Holocaust was “one of the least-told stories in modern history”a because these people had been “recruited by American and British intelligence, brought into the United States and Canada, allowed to rise to prominent positions in their émigré communities, and ultimately to revise history.”b
a Scott Anderson and Jon Lee Anderson, Inside the League: The Shocking Expose of How Terrorists, Nazis, and Latin American Death Squads Have Infiltrated the World Anti-Communist League (New York: 1986), 12. b Ibid, 13.
Inside the League is among the earliest “exposés” alleging British and American intelligence knowingly recruited Holocaust collaborators as Cold War agents and whitewashed their past. "Latvian Nazis" are a feature common to this conspiratorial narrative, including the allegation that Daugavas Vanagi ("Hawks of the River Daugava"), founded by Latvian Legion1 veterans, is an organization of war criminals.
The Andersons' work is widely cited: in other books, academic and student papers, university course plans, and web sites from conspiracy-crackpots to the collection of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum:
Even though Latvians comprise only a portion of the Andersons' conspiratorial pie, given the recognition accorded Jon Lee Anderson for his journalism2 and legitimacy accorded the book, we thought it worthwhile to examine the Andersons' narrative regarding Latvians.
Nazis among us — more dangerous than the German original
The Andersons allege that a conspiracy by and of Nazis has infiltrated the fabric of American life:
When most people think of Nazis, two images are evoked: aging war criminals, the Josef Mengeles and Klaus Barbies living in frightened obscurity somewhere in South America, or else of disenchanted youths who, in brown shirts and jackboots, vandalize synagogues and march through city streets. But there is a 1third type of Nazi, who is far more powerful, public, and dangerous than the other two: these are the Croatians, Slovaks, Ukrainians, Latvians who carried out the German-dictated massacres, who never faced a Nuremberg, and who joined the World Anti-Communist League.
The participation of these Eastern Europeans in the Holocaust remains one of the least-told stories in modern history. The reason this is so is simple: 2many of them were recruited by American and British intelligence, brought into the United States and Canada, allowed to rise to prominent positions in their émigré communities, and ultimately to revise history.
Today, their rhetoric is different; they no longer talk very much about the 3“Communist, Jewish, Freemason conspiracy” for now they have allies who need them to be more discreet than that. 4In 1986, as in 1936, they hide behind the buzzwords anti-Bolshevism and anti-communism to further their goals and to forge links with others.
...Through their front groups and their 5involvement in American politics, the Nazi collaborators have blended in and become respectable.
Declassified documents show that Latvians who assisted the CIA were recruited as contacts after they were already in the United States. Their function was mainly to gather information on current events and circumstances, to interview defectors and visitors in their native language, and to identify individuals willing to be sources of information from within the USSR.
The Andersons promulgate all the the major myths of "Latvian Nazis among us":
- émigré Nazis are a powerful force in their ethnic communities and national politics;
- émigré Nazis are more "Nazi" than the German Nazis, and have been Nazis all along: before, during, and after WWII and the Holocaust;
- American authorities actively and knowingly recruited and brought to the U.S. émigré Nazis to be front-line soldiers in the Cold War.
The Andersons move on to disparage Daugavas Vanagi, the post-war welfare group of Latvian Legion veterans.
Misspellings, misidentifications, misinformation — shoddy research, false accusations
The Daugavas Vanagi (DV), “Hawks of the River Daugava,” are our crucible for the Andersons' contentions.
The DV are a veterans' self-help welfare organization founded in Zedelgem POW Camp, where guards shot Latvians for live target practice until they were informed the Latvians weren't actually Nazis. The portrayal of the DV here, however, holds true to the “Latvians are Nazis” story line.
Much has been written about different Nazi networks—ODESSA, Kamaraden-werk, etc.—that were created after the war to enable war criminals to escape and work in exile toward the formation of a Fourth Reich. No other organization, however, approaches the scope, depth, or influence of the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations. Since its inception, it has grown to become the largest and most important umbrella for Nazi collaborators in the world. The organizer and chairman of this “ex-Nazi International” is none other than Yaroslav Stetsko.
Though still largely controlled by the Ukrainians under Stetsko, the ABN now has chapters from other Soviet republics as well and from all of the Eastern European countries under Soviet control. A prime criterion for membership appears to be fealty to the cause of National Socialism; 6ABN officers constitute a virtual Who's Who of those responsible for the massacre of millions of civilians in the bloodiest war in history.
After Stetsko, the most important official of the Bloc in the 1940s was the chairman of its council of nations, 7Alfred Berzins. Described by Stetsko as “also a former prisoner of Nazi concentration camps,” Berzins was in reality a Latvian who volunteered to serve in a Nazi-sponsored police battalion responsible for the roundup and extermination of his nation's Jews and Communist Party members. In February 1942, he joined the Latvian SS and was awarded the German Iron Cross, First Grade. In exile, he was secretary of the Central Committee of the 8Dangavas [sic.] Vanagi (“Dangava [sic.] Hawks”), an organization composed of the Latvian SS officers and government ministers who oversaw the Final Solution in their country. Until his death, he lived under his own name in Hampton Roads, Virginia.
The Latvian chapter of the League is controlled by the Danagaus [sic.] Vanagi (“Danaga [sic.] Hawks”). Operating out of Munster, West Germany, and publishing a newspaper in Canada, the 9Hawks are a band of Latvian leaders who assisted the Nazis in exterminating the Jews of their Baltic homeland.
If one wants to find Nazi collaborators, it is only necessary to examine the European chapters of the World Anti-Communist League.
APPENDIX The League List
...
10Talivadis [sic.] Zarins (Latvia): an official of the Daugavas Vanagi, a council of Latvian war criminals based in West Germany.
The authors' hyperbole promulgates the myth of the Germanless Holocaust and absolves Nazi Germany for it responsibility for the Holocaust. No collaborator operated without German supervision. Moreover, none of the Latvian members of ABN were Holocaust collaborators.
Indicative of the authors' poor command of facts, they confuse:
- Alfreds Jēkabs Bērziņš, Latvian politician and government minister under the Ulmanis regime, active after the war in preserving Latvian culture and advocating for Latvian independence, and
- Alfrēds-Jānis Bērziņš, a Latvian Legionnaire active after the war in the Daugavas Vanagi.
Alfreds Jēkabs Bērziņš (1899–1977) fought in Latvia's War of Independence at the age of 19; as a Rīga Military School Cadet, he defended Rīga against the Bermontians. He joined the National Guard (Aizargi) in 1926, eventually rising to become its head. At the age of 32 he was voted into the Parliament (Saeima), three years later becoming a member of the administration. He became one of the youngest members of the Ulmanis regime after the May 15th, 1934 coup. Appointed as Minister of Public Affairs, Bērziņš was serving as Minister of the Interior when the Soviet occupation took place. With assistance, Bēŗziņš managed to escape a month after the Soviet invasion via Estonia and Finland to Sweden. In the summer of 1940, Bērziņš attended a Latvian conference in Geneva, Switzerland, then travelled on to Rome, Italy, where he attended a Baltic diplomatic conference until February, 1941. En route from Rome to Stockholm, the Gestapo arrested him as a British spy (meanwhile, the British considered him as an agent of either Germany or Japan), holding him in Berlin until July, 1941, then incarcerating him at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp for nearly three years. Bērziņš remained in Berlin upon his release. He fled the Soviet advance in early 1945, first to Nausnitz, then in July to Lübeck , where he entered a Displaced Persons ("DP") Camp. Bērziņš emigrated to the United States arriving in August, 1950, where he became active in the Free Europe Committee, a member of the Assembly of Captive European Nations (ACEN), and in 1951 founded the American Latvian Association (ALA), which supported organizations dedicated to cultural preservation in exile and groups devoted to restoring Latvia's freedom. We expect Bērziņš to have been involved in the “Visamerikas konferenci cīņai pret komunismu” (Pan-American Conference for the Struggle Against Communism), but can find virtually nothing regarding his relationship with the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations (ABN) other than mention he was among a number of “chairmen” of its “People's Council.” Bērziņš authored several books in Latvian and English on the Ulmanis regime and Sovietization of Latvia.
This Bērziņš was, in fact, a Nazi concentration camp inmate.5
Alfrēds-Jānis Bērziņš (1920-2011) was born into a family of municipal professionals (in Latvian, “ierēdņi”,functionaries or office-holders). He enlisted in the army (mandatory service) in 1938, serving 18 months until being demobilized shortly before the Soviet occupation in 1940. When, after the Soviet retreat and German occupation, Bērziņš encountered the mass-grave exhumation of 30 corpses of Latvian prisoners maimed and killed by the Soviets, he voluntarily joined the police battalions which were already fighting as front-line units against the Red Army. In 1942 he was appointed unit commander on the Leningrad front. Bērziņš never participated in any collaborationist war crimes. Wounded in battle, Bērziņš returned to recuperate in Latvia for a number of months, then returned to the front in 1943 in the Latvian Legion (“Waffen-SS”, combat units whose members had no Nazi affiliation or allegiance), where he served bravely and with distinction.6 Over the remainder of the war, he earned two Iron Crosses; holding off the re-invading Red Army in the Courland Pocket (the only part of Eastern Europe not “liberated” by the Soviets—Latvians hoped Courland could once again be their bridgehead to independence as it had been in their war of independence against the Russians and Germans a scant two decades earlier), he was gravely wounded. His sixth time wounded in battle, Bērziņš was evacuated first to Dundaga (still in Courland) where he had his leg amputated above the knee, then evacuated for further treatment and recovery to Bavaria, where he remained until taken prisoner in Marktredwitz by American forces. After the war, Bērziņš became active in the Daugavas Vanagi, rising to become its general-secretary. Bērziņš repatriated to his homeland in 2010 and passed away in 2011.7
This Bērziņš only served on the Eastern Front, and in no way participated in the Holocaust.89
We encounter the Germanless Holocaust again. There was no independent action by any of Hitler's collaborators, no “overseeing” of any part of the Holocaust. No Latvian was a member of the Nazi party or officer of the criminal Allgemeine SS. There was no such organization as a “Latvian SS” or officers thereof. The Germans entrusted industrialized genocide only to themselves, closely supervising their collaborators who, for the most part, had ancillary duties while the Germans did the killing. The notorious Arājs Kommando collaborators, numbering 300-500 during the Holocaust (estimated to be have killed 26,000 Jews) and other and other Sicherheitsdienst (SD) collaborators were, nevertheless, supervised at all times.10 Beyond the authors' lack of understanding of the German execution of the Holocaust in Eastern Europe, we have their baseless contention that the Daugavas Vanagi consists of Holocaust organizers and perpetrators.
We would remind the reader that the minister who was a member of Daugavas Vanagi could not have overseen the Holocaust in Latvia because he had already spent 4½ months in a Nazi jail before the Nazis even invaded, at which time he was transferred to a concentration camp.
Daugavas Vanagi members are portrayed more as some lawless band. More of the same as the Andersons repeat repeat the blatantly false accusation they led Holocaust collaborators.
Only at its very last mention is Daugavas Vanagi spelled correctly. The Andersons still misspell the name of Tālivaldis Zariņš. The Andersons miss no opportunity to inject their mantra that the Daugavas Vanagi are a war criminals.
Indeed, they assert that Latvian (and other) non-German Nazis now tirelessly work toward the rise of the Fourth Reich:
“Even before the dust had settled on Hitler's shattered Third Reich, many of those responsible [for the “gas chambers, ovens, and mass graves of Treblinka and Auschwitz”] were escaping to work for the formation of a Fourth Reich. From their havens, they have nurtured their cause and kept it alive, they have recruited younger generations, and they have formed networks for safety and strength, bonds that remain to this day.”
The Andersons' narrative bears little relation to reality.
Above: Central Prison courtyard following Soviet retreat.
Below: Rows of murdered victims at Baltezers, a scene such as Alfrēds-Jānis Bērziņš might have encountered, motivating him to fight on the Eastern Front.
From These Names Accuse, Latvian National Foundation, Stockholm, Sweden.
Assessment of INSIDE THE LEAGUE — conspiracy theorists par excellence
Focusing on the Andersons' portrayal of the émigré Latvian community and its leadership, particularly those who served in the Latvian Legion, there is nothing to recommend their work.
At best, the Andersons' contentions regarding alleged Latvian Nazis11 cobbles together a cud-chewing re-mastication of contemporaneous accusations, including the preposterous contention that Latvians managed the "Final Solution" in Latvia.
The Andersons' narrative is rife with not just misinformation but glaring mistakes. They erroneously label the assertion Nazis imprisoned a prominent Latvian in a concentration camp a lie because they confuse identities. They denounce the Latvian Legion post-war veterans' organization, Daugavas Vanagi as a den of "war criminals" with no source for their contention. Moreover, in an otherwise copiously annotated work, there is not a single citation for the accusations they levy against Latvians.
If they had given the same care to exposing anti-Communists as Jon Lee Anderson devoted to his subsequent biography of Che Guevara12, extensively interviewing relatives and compatriots, they might have produced an informed work. Ironically, the Andersons might have discovered that Latvian ideological commonality lay with Guevara, not Hitler. At the turn of the last century, Latvians were inclined toward Marxist ideals and voted for Bolshevism every time until Latvia's first post-independence election.13
Cold War "anti-Communism" was an amalgam of individuals and organizations opposing Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe14 and Soviet-supported expansionism elsewhere. Rather than examine the dynamic which at times united former oppressors and oppressed in a common cause, the Andersons have simply declared anti-Communists—Latvians included—a menace to society.
Russia's invasion and annexation of Crimea and continuing aggression in eastern Ukraine (2016) have validated the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations' Ukrainian founders' worst fears. Lies, murder, and territorial aggression have survived beyond the Soviet era, proving that whatever the Russian
regime — tsarist, Soviet, or "democratic" — Russia's geopolitical intent regarding its neighbors remains immutable. — Ed.
The Andersons' exposé of Latvian "Nazi" anti-Communists fails fact checking catastrophically, from misspelled names to unattributed false accusations of war crimes, to mistaken identities — wrongfully labeling a Latvian's incarceration in a Nazi concentration camp a lie. | |
Zero stars | Ignorance is an improvement. |
1 | The Latvian Legion were Waffen-SS troops, functionally subordinate to the Wehrmacht structure, deployed on the Eastern Front against the Red Army. |
2 | Scott Anderson is a novelist, and Jon Lee Anderson is an investigative journalist and long-time contributor to the New Yorker magazine, viz. www.newyorker.com/ |
3 | The motif of escape from justice gained momentum in the first major case the U.S. government brought against a Latvian, Vilis Hāzners, and lost decisively. Even though witnesses were conclusively proven to have misidentified Hāzners, activists and Ryan himself blamed the loss on prosecutorial incompetence. Even in death, Hāzners continues to be convicted in social media and Holocaust literature. |
4 | Conversation with Holocaust scholar Prof. Emeritus Andrew Ezergailis, July, 2020. |
5 | Londonas Avīze obituary; Latvian Wikipedia; declassified 1964 FBI report. |
6 | No one has ever been accused of a war crime in the service of the Latvian Legion. |
7 | Summarized from Latvian Wikipedia |
8 | Latvian Police Battalions were subjects of a number of show trials after the war. Soviet authorities routinely convicted and executed individuals who had not even been present to commit the crimes they were accused of. In some cases of show trials of Baltic individuals, trial transcripts were published accidentally before the trial took place. |
9 | That Latvians were awarded Iron Crosses for their bravery was a measure of their dedication to save Latvia from Soviet re-invasion, not a measure of allegiance to Nazism. |
10 | Even then, the Germans trusted their collaborators only so far. Arājs's men did not have access to automatic weapons, and they had to check their weapons out for use. Violating the Germans' weapons curfew risked summary execution. |
11 | No Latvian was ever a member of the Nazi party. |
12 | Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life (1997) |
13 | By then, the Latvians had learned that "Bolshevism" was Russian totalitarianism in a new wrapper. |
14 | "Eastern Europe" and the three "Baltic States" are post-WWII artifacts. The historical configuration of Europe has been western (Germans and westward), central (peoples and their territories between the Germans and Russians), with eastern being "European Russia" aka "Russia in Europe," i.e., Russia west of the Urals continental divide from Asia. Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania became a unified entity as the "Baltic States" during occupation; prior, as the former Russian Baltic provinces, that term had included Finland. Although the Lithuanians and Latvians are sister peoples, historical identities and experiences diverge: Lithuania following Poland, Estonia and Latvia following Germany and Sweden prior to Russia. Latvia in the middle of historical Europe, highlight centered on its capital, Rīga. From A general descriptive Atlas of the Earth, containing separate maps of the various countries and states ... with a short account of each country, by William Mullinger Higgins, 1836. |