page_title: Latvian partisans
section_title: Aftermath of World War II
hierarchical_section_title: Latvian partisans / Aftermath of World War II
context_page_description: Latvian national partisans were the Latvian national partisans who waged guerrilla warfare against Soviet rule during and after Second World War.
context_section_description: Latvian national partisans waged guerrilla warfare against Soviet rule during the Soviet occupation of Latvia in 1940 during World War II, and the Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic after the war. Similar anti-Soviet resistance groups fought against Soviet rule in Estonia, Lithuania, Belarus, Poland, Romania and Galicia (Eastern Europe).
  The Red Army occupied the formerly independent Latvia in 1940–1941 and, after the period of occupation of Latvia by Nazi Germany, again in 1944–1945. As Stalinist repression intensified over the following years, thousands of residents of this country used the heavily forested countryside as a natural refuge and basis for armed anti-Soviet resistance.
  Resistance units varied in size and composition, ranging from individually operating guerrillas, armed primarily for self-defence, to large and well-organised groups able to engage significant Soviet forces in battle.
caption: A mannequin of a Latvian national partisan in the Latvian War Museum, 2006.
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