JUNE 17 – 70 YEARS LATER!
By admin at 30 June, 2010, 2:11 pm
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In a superficial sense, June 17 seem to be a day like any other, the football World Cup is underway, a large oil leak outside Louisiana and Florida in the United States, summer has arrived in southern Sweden.
Yet this was a day that once came to change history for a long time and for many people. As a result of the secret additional protocol to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, signed August 23, 1939, Latvia was invaded June 17, 1940 – today exactly 70 years ago – by the Soviet Red Army. Beginning a 51 year long occupation marked by war, repression, deportations and massive refugee flows.
The official part of the Pact was a mutual non-aggression treaty and extensive trade between communist Soviet Union and nazi Germany. It was signed after short but intensive negotiations. But it also contained a secret protocol with the obvious intention ov dividing Eastern Europe through a boundary from north to south. The Additional Protocol was denied by the Soviet Union through its entire history. Molotov himself called it a “forgery”. Andrei Gromyko, who was foreign minister for nearly 30 years, denied the existence of the protocol all the time. Although it was known it was not recognized in Moscow until 1989. The secret stamp was not removed until 1992.
The Additional Protocol separated Eastern Europe into two spheres. Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Bessarabia and eastern Poland went to the Soviet side, while Lithuania and western Poland ended up in the Nazi German zone.
A month later the border was corrected. Included into the German sphere was counted a larger area in Poland, while Lithuania ended up in the Soviet Union which gave the three Baltic countries a common history for a long time. On the map that was used one can still see that the Soviet dictator Josef Stalin and the Nazi German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop put their signatures alongside with the dating September 28, 1939. By a pencil-yield millions of people’s destinies were predetermined for a long time to come. For many of them for as long as they lived.
Already a week after the signing, on 1 September 1939, Germany took half of Poland and started World War II. A month later the Soviet Union had taken “their” part.
Subsequently, one country after another fell, in accordance with the secret protocol. For Latvia that happened June 17, 1940, today exactly 70 years ago. As was the case with the other Baltic countries, this was preceded by extensive threats over an extended period. In October 1939 the Latvian government was forced to sign a “Mutual Assistance Pact”. In the light of this Soviet military troops were stationed in Latvia. In an interrogation protocol from 1941 Latvia’s arrested former president Karlis Ulmanis said:
“Latvia was very unwilling to sigh that agreement (…) I was concerned about the possible increase and spread of Communist propaganda in Latvia; I was also concerned about creating the impression and the opinion in Latvia, as well in international estimation, that by signing this treaty Latvia had lost the ability of independent political action. “
(The quote appears in “The Hidden and Forbidden History of Latvia during the Soviet and Nazi Occupations 1940-1991″ (volume 14 page 43), which was released as part of the “Symposium Of The Commission Of The Historians of Latvia “).
Like so many others Ulmanis was deported to Siberia. His grave has never been found.
The further history was Nazi German occupation between 1941 and 1944. Then again Sovietunion occupation until Latvian independence was regained August 21, 1991.
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