Between Stalin and Hitler: Class War and Race War on the Dvina, 1940-46

by Swain; Geoffrey

• ISBN13: 9780415331937
• ISBN10: 0415331935
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2004-10-28
• Publisher: RoutledgeCurzon

Summary

Little has been written on the history of the Second World War on the experience of collaboration and resistance of the Baltic States. The struggle between Nazism and communism was at its sharpest in Latvia, where Latvians were fighting in the Latvian SS Legion as well as in the Latvian Division of the Red Army, hence making it a civil war. Covering the horrors that took place in Latvia from the beginning of the Second World War until 1947, this book focuses on the heart of the twentieth century: Stalinist industrialization, collectivization and political annihilation; Nazi expansionism and genocide; with in addition local nationalism, local nationalist rivalries, and local anti-Semitism. The author traces the developments in once particular region of Latvia, Daugavpils. There, the dilemma Hitler or Stalin, the ideological struggle of fascism or communism was more acute than anywhere else in Europe since the population was actively involved in establishing both.

Table of Contents

Preface	ix
Maps	xi
Introducing bourgeois Daugavpils	1	(16)
Daugavpils during the terrible year	17	(30)
Genocide	47	(25)
Dunaburg under Schwung	72	(33)
Dunaburg under Riecken	105	(32)
Re-establishing Soviet Daugavpils	137	(26)
The nationalist partisan war	163	(23)
Stalinist Daugavpils	186	(23)
Conclusion: experiencing class war and race war	209	(16)
Notes	225	(34)
Bibliographical note	259	(2)
Index	261