At 5:00 a. m. on June 17th, 1940, the Soviet invasion of Latvia began. Within three hours, Red Army units crossed the border at more than fifteen points, pouring in from the north, south, and east.
By the end of the day, Soviet troops had occupied Riga and all major cities—without a single declaration of war. Latvia was overwhelmed instantly. The Soviet Union, at that moment an ally in all but name of Nazi Germany, had launched an act of open aggression, violating multiple treaties including Latvia’s 1920 peace treaty and its 1932 non-aggression pact. Latvian leader Kārlis Ulmanis chose not to resist.
Militarily, the decision was understandable—Latvia stood no chance against the Red Army, and resistance would have meant mass bloodshed. But the lack of even a formal protest would later haunt the country. The occupation was carefully planned. Soviet agents and NKVD operatives had arrived weeks earlier.
On June 18th, Stalin’s enforcer, Andrei Vyshinsky, notorious for orchestrating the Great Purge, entered Latvia to supervise the takeover. A puppet government was installed, political organizations dissolved, and the Communist Party—previously tiny and unpopular—was artificially empowered. Then came the illusion of legality. Rigged elections were rushed through in July.
Only one list of candidates was allowed. Voters were intimidated by Soviet troops. The results were falsified. Days later, the new “people’s parliament” voted to join the USSR.
Even before it convened, arrests had already begun. Latvian politicians, officers, and other members of the elite were arrested and deported to the Soviet Union. By the summer of 1940, Latvia’s independence was dead—destroyed by force, fear, and deception. On July 21st, 1940, the mask came off.
At its very first session, Latvia’s so-called people’s government abandoned every promise made before the elections. Soviet power was openly proclaimed. Membership in the Soviet Union was declared a goal. Once again, Latvia’s constitution was ignored, because decisions about sovereignty were supposed to be made by referendum—not by a parliament installed by force.
Just days later, a handpicked Latvian delegation traveled to Moscow to perform the final ritual. On August 5th, in the Kremlin, they formally asked to be absorbed into the Soviet Union. It was political theater. Tragic for Latvia.
Grotesque to Stalin. The Latvian request was obviously granted. Latvia was no longer just occupied—it was annexed. From that moment on, real Soviet rule began.
Repression escalated immediately. Political activists were arrested and deported. Publishing houses were nationalized, wiping out the last traces of a free press. Schools were rewritten overnight to teach Stalin’s constitution.
Key positions were filled not by locals, but by communists brought in from the Soviet Union. The Latvian army was dismantled and renamed the “People’s Army. ” It was rapidly reduced in size, its officers purged, and its ranks placed under the watch of political commissars. By mid-1941, nearly one in five Latvian soldiers had been arrested, deported, or executed.
Meanwhile, the NKVD tightened its grip. Arrests multiplied. A secret prison was built in central Riga—the infamous house on the corner—where torture became routine. By late 1940, thousands had already disappeared into the Soviet security system.
Within weeks, private land, banks, factories, shops, and even homes were confiscated. Farms over 30 hectares were broken up, destroying the backbone of Latvian agriculture. Businesses were seized, savings frozen, and people evicted from their own houses to make room for Soviet officials. The economy collapsed almost overnight.
The stable Latvian currency was deliberately destroyed when the Soviet ruble was imposed at a fake exchange rate, wiping out savings. Shops emptied, rationing began, and shortages became the norm. Inflation exploded while wages collapsed. In the countryside, farmers were targeted through quotas, crushing taxes, and land seizures.
Though collectivization was officially denied, everything pointed toward it. Successful farmers were labeled as “enemies of the people,” their land confiscated, and preparations for mass collective farms run away by early 1941. Political terror completed the paralysis. The NKVD and local collaborators arrested thousands, censored all information, destroyed books, attacked religion, and created an atmosphere of constant fear.
In June 1941 alone, over 15,000 Latvians—including children and infants—were deported to Siberia. Under such conditions, organized resistance in 1940 was nearly impossible. Some disagreements still linger over the final count of victims, not only for the June operation, but for the entire Soviet occupation. As for the numbers of people seized on June 14th, the most frequently cited number is 14,693.
Of these, 8,436 were men and 6,257 were women. A few counts are slightly higher, a few lower. The consensus figure for the total number of Latvians deported, murdered, or missing during the year of terror is 34,250. Along with the 34,250 Latvians, some 39,000 Lithuanians suffered the same fate, as did 61,000 Estonians.
At dawn on the 22nd of June 1941, Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union. German bombers immediately struck Soviet airfields, ports, and rail hubs in Latvia, while Army Group North invaded from different directions. The Soviet forces were caught completely off guard and began a rapid, chaotic retreat. Only in Liepāja did serious fighting occur.
From June 23rd to 26th, trapped Red Army and Navy units tried desperately to break out rather than defend the city. Soviet commanders even scuttled submarines and abandoned aircraft. Elsewhere, Red Army resistance was minimal. German troops captured Daugavpils, Tukums, and by July 1st entered Riga almost without a fight.
The Soviet government fled Latvia within days. Soon, the entire country was under German control. Many Latvians initially greeted the Germans as liberators—not out of support for Nazism, but because Soviet terror, the mass arrests, confiscations, and the June 1941 deportations had made Soviet rule unbearable.
The Germans eventually conscripted Latvian men into their ranks, into a Latvian Waffen-SS unit.
