The occupation of the Baltic states refers to the military occupation of the three Baltic states: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania by the Soviet Union in 1940 followed by their forcible illegal incorporation into the Soviet Republics. The foreign Waffen-SS volunteers rushed to join the defense of Estonia and Western Latvia in 1944.

Swedish SS Commander in Pz AAII Nordland interviewed in Narva

Estonian 20.Waffen-Grenadier-Division der SS

After having been conquered by the Danes, the Livonian Knights, the Teutonic Knights of Germany, the Poles, the Swedes and the Russians, the Baltic States declared themselves independent republics in 1918. In August 1940, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania was illegally annexed by the Soviet Union as Soviet Socialist Republics. State administrators were liquidated and replaced by Soviet cadres. The repressions followed with mass deportations carried out by the Soviets. Many of the country's political and intellectual leaders were killed or deported to remote areas of the USSR by the Soviet authorities in 1940-1941. Repressive actions were also taken against thousands of ordinary people. When the German Operation Barbarossa started against the Soviet Union, tens of thousands of Estonians and Balts were forcibly drafted into the Red Army. Political prisoners who could not be evacuated were murdered by the NKVD. The German Wehrmacht were perceived by most Baltic nationals as liberators from the USSR and its repression, and hopes were raised for the restoration of independence. The initial enthusiasm that accompanied the liberation from Soviet occupation quickly waned as the Baltics became part of the German-occupied Reichskommissariat Ostland. After World War II mass deportations were concluded in the Baltic countries by the Soviet Union and the policy of encouraging Soviet immigration to the Baltic states continued and soon the ethnic Baltic population had fallen to 62-68 percent. More than 10 percent of the entire adult Baltic population was deported or sent to Soviet labor camps. Half of the deported perished, the other half were not allowed to return until the early 1960s. Credit: Wikipedia inter alia. Top image: the Swede SS-Untersturmführer Hans-Gösta Pehrsson being interviewed in early 1944 by a Norwegian SS-Kriegsberichter in Mummasaare in Estonia, known as Bunkerstrasse. The summer of 1944 saw the battle of the European Waffen-SS on the Narva Front. Here, nationals from among others Denmark, Estonia, Flanders, Germany, Holland, Norway, Sweden and Wallonia shared the trenches and fought shoulder-to-shoulder to throw the Soviets back off Orphanage Hill and Grenadier Hill. National Archives of Norway. Bottom image: Estonian Grenadier of the 20.Waffen-Grenadier-Division der SS in 1944. Credit: Julius Backman. Erik Rundkvist Archives.