This country is at war with Germany.

We shall go on to the end.

I remember the sheets of flame which came up and almost blinded us from our guns. In Arctic blizzards between January and March 1945, the Latvian 15th SS division, a core of Russian

front veterans, but most raw teenage conscripts from Nazi occupied Latvia tried to stop the Red Army sweeping

across Pomerania, which is now Poland.

One in three died.

The majority never returned home.

Hello and welcome to the World War II podcast. I'm Angus Wallace. In this episode I'm joined by Vincent Hunt and we're going to be discussing Latvians fighting with the Germans in the Latvian 15th SS division.

So interviews, dairies and never before utilised sources in his book Road to Slaughter, Vince has built a compelling narrative

of desperate fighting as the Latvians were withdrawn from defending their own country into Poland.

Well, Vince, thanks for joining me. Let's start with Latvia,

prior to the First of War, it had been German, then it becomes independent,

then it falls under Russian control in 1939. You know, where did that leave the people?

Who are liberators, who are not liberators?

How do the Latvians see themselves in it during the Second World War?

Very much as caught between two giants.

The Russians came in as part of the deal between Hitler and Stalin.

They brought in what you might call a class war.

All the intellectuals are a sense of Siberia or

killed. It's really like a reign of terror. Obviously there is a Bolshevik government in Latvia at the time which has been enabled by sleeper cells during the years of independence.

So there's a communist government in charge that reports to

Stalin. When the Germans come in, obviously the Germans had been the dominant

...