Ideological Collaboration in Latvia During World War II: Pro-Nazi Press in Russian and Latvian

Ideological collaborationism fits into the history of the propaganda war in the occupied territories of the USSR. Newspapers and magazines published in 1941—1945 played a significant role in the Nazi information space in the occupied Soviet territories. This article examines the main periodicals intended for residents of occupied Latvia (in some cases, for the entire Baltic States), and also distributed in Belarus and northwestern Russia. During the years of German occupation, newspapers and magazines were published in Latvia in both Latvian and Russian, respectively, targeting different audiences. Among the Russian-language newspapers and magazines, the most significant were the newspaper “Za Rodinu”, as well as the magazines “Volny Pakhar” and “Novy Put”. These were publications that began to appear in Riga immediately after the establishment of the German occupation power. A number of Latvian editions — “Tēvija”, “Daugavas Vēstnesis” were published in interwar Latvia, and after the establishment of the Nazi regime they began to be published again, joining the system of Nazi propaganda. The material of newspapers and magazines gives a broad idea of how Nazi propaganda was built in the occupied territories, taking into account local specifics, historical, cultural and political conditions of the region. At the same time, it should not be reduced to blind propaganda: periodicals performed many social functions under the occupation — they presented the reader with educational, entertaining and other information. All this together constituted the realities of people’s lives under the occupation, formed the information background of that time.