Posted on 08/25/2022 11:58:22 PM PDT by dennisw
A concrete obelisk topped by Soviet stars that was the centerpiece of a monument commemorating the Red Army’s victory over Nazi Germany has been taken down in Latvia’s capital of Riga
COPENHAGEN, Denmark — A concrete obelisk topped by Soviet stars that was the centerpiece of a monument commemorating the Red Army’s victory over Nazi Germany was taken down Thursday in Latvia's capital — the latest in a series of Soviet monuments brought down after Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Heavy machinery was spotted behind a green privacy fence at the foot of the nearly 80-meter (260-foot) obelisk shortly before it was felled. The column, which had stood like a high-rise in downtown Riga, crashed into a nearby pond, causing a huge splash at Victory Park.
A Latvian media outlet broadcast the event live as onlookers, some with Latvian flags wrapped around their shoulders, cheered and applauded.
The obelisk, made up of five spires with three Soviet stars at the top, stood between two groups of statues — a band of three Red Army soldiers and on the other side a woman representing the “Motherland” with her arms held high.
The monument was built in 1985 while Latvia was still part of the Soviet Union. It has stirred controversy since Latvia regained independence in 1991 and eventually became a NATO and European Union member.
On Twitter, Latvia's foreign minister said by taking down the monument, Latvia was “closing another painful page of the history and looking for better future.”
The country shares a 214-kilometer (133-mile) border with Russia and has a large ethnic Russian population. On Russia’s annual Victory Day, which commemorates the Soviet victory over Germany in World War II, people gathered in front of the Riga monument to lay flowers.
Latvia’s parliament voted to approve the demolition of the Victory Park monument in May, and the Riga City Council followed suit. Work to clear away the monument started three days ago with the removal of statues. The area was then cordoned off and authorities issued a flight ban for drones. Police temporarily closed traffic near the park on Thursday, citing security reasons.
Russia's invasion of Ukraine in late February has prompted authorities in several eastern European countries to remove symbols from their communist eras.
The government in Poland -- another country once was part of the Soviet sphere -- said Thursday that a memorial site in neighboring Belarus containing the graves of Polish soldiers who died during World War II is being leveled to the ground by the Belarusian authorities.
Lukasz Jasina, a Foreign Ministry spokesman, said on Twitter that the cemetery in Surkonty, where Poland’s resistance battled Soviet forces, is being “devastated by the services of the Minsk regime.”
The development comes a day after Poland said it was demolishing a monument to Soviet Red Army soldiers in Poland, one of dozens that have been marked for destruction.
They’ll have to build another monument when Russia liberates Europe a third time.
Sounds big but it is about half the height of the Washington monument which stands 555 ft tall
The Soviet obelisk was almost as high as the average utility bill German citizens are receiving.
Built in 1985, thirty years after the end of WW2, This was when real pushback to Soviet rule was beginning in the Baltic states so it was a big FU reminder to Latvia that it was a subject state. Besides that it was a classic example of the really hideously ugly monuments the Soviets erected in the final generation of its existence that were both massive and tacky looking at the same time.
Russia can’t even defeat Ukraine!
Russia should no longer be considered a “superpower”, just a mid-level power with crappy equipment
Poland or Hungary could each take care of Russia, based on the pathetic battlefield performance we’ve seen so far
Sounds like something CNN would have named.
That obelisk is, or was, impressive. There is a lot of broken concrete to haul away.
Because that’s a smart move
What is forgot here in the west, because it is NOT TAUGHT, is that the Baltic States of Estonia, Latvia & Lithuania, were equal victims of the Poland crime! On 23 August 1939, the Molotov-Ribbentrop (nonaggression) Treaty was signed by two of the bloodiest regimes in modern history, an act that made WW2 inevitable!
While most know how it partitioned Poland like a farm animal, what was equally bad was the raft of secret provisos, including 'spheres of influence'. When Stalin moved in on his allocation of Poland on 17 September 1939, he also 'invited' these countries to sign 'mutual assistance pacts' which gave the Soviet military unrestricted right to establish military bases within. Upon the surrender of France to Germany in June 1940, the Soviet Union used those same troops to aid the full invasion that removed those countries from the map. In the 1+ year prior to Germany's Operation Barbarossa, the Soviet occupiers imprisoned local leaders, killed some and force-exiled large groups to eastern Russia. Their 'friendship' operations were sufficient that, like in the Ukraine, there were many greeting the German Army as liberators.
So it is no wonder that with memories like these AND seeing Russia's CURRENT actions in the Ukraine, they have decided that it is time for these monuments to go!
Europe needs to figure out that Russia has already started this fight, and that they are in it. They can do it voluntarily or forcefully. They can do it in time to save themselves or they can do it when it is too late.
By July 10, 1941, German armed forces had occupied all of Latvia's territory. Latvia became a part of Nazi Germany's Reichskommissariat Ostland – the Province General of Latvia (Generalbezirk Lettland). Anyone who was disobedient to the German occupation regime as well as those who had co-operated with the Soviet regime were killed or sent to concentration camps. In 1939 Generalplan Ost was drawn up by Nazi Germany covering eastern countries. As regards Latvia, it was determined that the population of around 2,000,000 should be reduced by 50%, those remaining being considered worthy of "Germanisation". Accordingly, Jews, Romani people, communists, army officers, politicians, and other intellectuals all found themselves being rounded up.[30]: 54–56 Further reductions in the civilian population would be achieved through the creation of food shortages, resulting in mass starvation.[30]
Source:wiki
It’s become almost impossible to find how many Russians died in the battles vs German nazis at these memorials. Internet searches are expunging sources except those critical of Russia,
“Besides that it was a classic example of the really hideously ugly monuments the Soviets erected in the final generation of its existence that were both massive and tacky looking at the same time.”
Communist “art” is built to standards arrived at by a committee. Anything done by a committee lacks any artistic merit because everyone has an input instead of just one person’s idea of what art is. Each person takes the other person’s ideas and changes them not for merit but because they can, and they want to contribute something to justify their existence. Each contributes something they “think” the others will like and everything normalizes to the same palette of gray and heroic.
They should leave it laying on the ground as a new monument.
Looks like a piece of scrap concrete repurposed as a “monument”...Good riddance!
No argument but my statement still stands that INITIALLY the leading wave of German invaders were welcomed by some. What happened after was part of the incredible idiocy and racial paranoia of the German and NAZI occupiers.
A real world demonstration of the fallacy of that aphorism; "The enemy of my enemy is my friend." Just think how those poor people must have felt, being caught between the twin grindstones of Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany!
They also actively wanted to turn away from established/popular aesthetic standards, because those were associated with the pre-revolution era. Hence their embrace of styles such as Brutalism and designers such as Le Corbusier.
How many monuments did the Baltics build to memorialize the Germans that liberated them from the Red Army?
Understandable, since the first invasion/occupation of Latvia by the Soviets started in June 15, 1940 unleashed Soviet Terror.
Soviet terror
The Soviet authorities, having gained control over Latvia, immediately imposed a regime of terror. Hundreds of men were arrested, including many leaders of the Republic of Latvia. Tribunals were set up to punish "traitors to the people."
Under arrest and liable to prompt liquidation were Latvia's President Kārlis Ulmanis and Foreign Minister Vilhelms Munters. Immediate confiscation of property and execution within 24 hours was decreed for diplomats abroad who refused to recognize the new regimes and return to Latvia.[42] Later orders expanded the list of repressions, including anyone related to someone in hiding from the government or who had fled abroad—which act made them a traitor to the state.
On June 22, 1940, all three Baltic parliaments passed initial resolutions on the nationalization of land, followed in Latvia by a Bill of Land Reform a week later. Initially, a maximum of 30 hectares of land could be used by a family, reduced during the second Soviet occupation to 15–20 hectares.
The June deportation took place on June 13 and June 14, 1941, estimated at 15,600 men, women, and children, and including 20% of Latvia's last legal government. Approximately 35,000 total (1.8% of Latvia's population) were deported during the first Soviet occupation. Stalin's deportations also included thousands of Latvian Jews. (The mass deportation totalled 131,500 across the Baltics.)
According to the Serov Instructions, the deportations were swift and efficient and came in the middle of the night. Deportees were given an hour or less to get ready to leave. They were allowed to take with them their belongings not exceeding 100 kg in weight (money, food for a month, cooking appliances, clothing). The families would then be taken to the railway station. That was when they discovered that the men were to be separated from the women and children: "In view of the fact that a large number of deportees must be arrested and distributed in special camps and that their families must proceed to special settlements in distant regions, it is essential that the operation of removal of both the members of the deportee's family and its head shall be carried out simultaneously, without notifying them of the separation confronting them ... The convoy of the entire family to the station shall be effected in one vehicle and only at the station of departure shall the head of the family be placed separately from his family in a car specially intended for heads of families."
The trains were escorted by a NKVD officer and military convoy. Packed into barred cattle cars, with holes in the floor for sanitation, the deportees were taken to Siberia. Many died before even reaching their final destination because of harsh conditions. Many more perished during their first winter.
A number of Latvians who managed to avoid deportations decided to hide in the forests, where anti-Soviet units were organized. When Nazi Germany attacked Soviet Union, those rebels immediately went into collaboration with Nazi Germany
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