PÃÂrkonkrusts (, "Thunder Cross") was a Latvian ultranationalist, anti-German, anti-Slavic, and antisemitic political party founded in 1933 by Gustavs Celmià Âà ¡, borrowing elements of German nationalismâÂÂbut being unsympathetic to Nazism at the timeâÂÂand Italian Fascism. It was outlawed in 1934, its leadership arrested, and Celmià Âà ¡ eventually exiled in 1937. Still-imprisoned members were persecuted under the first Soviet occupation; some collaborated with subsequently invading Nazi Germany forces in perpetrating the Holocaust. PÃÂrkonkrusts continued to exist in some form until 1944, when Celmià Âà ¡, who had initially returned to work in the occupying German administration, was imprisoned.
Following the restoration of Latvia's independence in 1991, a new radical nationalist movement, also called PÃÂrkonkrusts, was formed in 1995. The organization espouses many of the same values as its predecessor. Members have participated in efforts to bomb the Monument to the Liberators of Soviet Latvia and Riga from the German Fascist Invaders several times, leading to the arrest, trial and imprisonment of many of its members. Since around 2000, the group has become almost inactive.
PÃÂrkonkrusts has been categorised by scholars as either representing the radical right or fascism. Fascism researcher Roger Griffin describes PÃÂrkonkrusts as having been a "small but genuine fascist opposition" which "pursued a revolutionary solution to the [economic] crisis and which would turn Latvia into an authoritarian state based on a new élite with a new corporatist economy", with its politics defined by "integralist nationalism". Building on Griffin's definition of generic fascism, a categorisation of PÃÂrkonkrusts as "anti-German national socialism" has also been proposed in an article from 2015.
Aside from the party's newspaper, PÃÂrkonkrusts (1933âÂÂ34), the main source of information on the political platform of PÃÂrkonkrusts can be found in the 1933 brochure, PÃÂrkonkrusts: What Is It? What Does It Want? How Does It Work? (). This publication not only outlined the movement's political programme, but also included the complete party statutes.
With its slogan "Latvia for Latvians! Work and bread for Latvians!" (), PÃÂrkonkrusts wished to place all political and economic control of their country exclusively in the hands of ethnic Latvians. As a result, the party rejected the existing legislation that gave national minorities cultural autonomy. PÃÂrkonkrusts aimed its propaganda against minorities who supposedly had taken over the Latvian economy (i.e. Baltic Germans, Jews) and the contemporary parliamentary politicians, whom it accused of corruption.
PÃÂrkonkrusts rejected Christianity as a foreign influence and suggested instead adopting Dievturëba, which was an attempt to revive an assumed pre-Christian Latvian religion.
Despite its rural ideals, PÃÂrkonkrusts gained most of its support in the urban areas like Riga, CÃÂsis, Valmiera, Jelgava, more specifically among students at the University of Latvia.
"Thunder Cross" is one of the names for the swastika in Latvian, which was used as a symbol of the organization.
The group used a variation of the Roman or Hitler salute, and greeted with the Latvian phrase "Cëà Âai sveiks" ("Ready for battle" or "Hail the struggle").
According to Latvian historian , although the party used both the swastika and the Roman salute, it was neither affiliated with, nor a copycat of German Nazismâ as was the case with the headed by .
The uniform of PÃÂrkonkrusts was a grey shirt and black beret.
The fascist group (Fire Cross), one of the Latvian ethnic symbols as well as a sign which is a mirrored image of a swastika, was founded in Latvia in 1932 by Gustavs Celmià Âà ¡, but was soon outlawed by the government of Latvia. The former Ugunskrusts organisation reemerged immediately under the new name of PÃÂrkonkrusts. By 1934, PÃÂrkonkrusts is estimated to have had between 5,000 and 6,000 members, although the organization maintained that it had more.
KÃÂrlis Ulmanis, leader of the conservative nationalist Peasants' Union Party and then Prime Minister of Latvia, proposed constitutional reforms in October 1933, which socialists feared would target the left more than the right. In November of the same year, seven communist deputies were arrested, while PÃÂrkonkrusts officials were left alone. Because of political unrest, stemming partially from the growing power of the right, Ulmanis staged a bloodless coup d'état in May 1934, banning not only the Communist Party and PÃÂrkonkrusts, but all parties and the Saeima (Parliament). Following the coup, PÃÂrkonkrusts leader Celmià Âà ¡ was imprisoned for three years and then banished from Latvia.
Although PÃÂrkonkrusts did not exist officially after 1934, many former leaders and members acted with a degree of unity in subsequent years.
In the late 1930s, Celmià Âà ¡ set up a 'foreign liaison office' of PÃÂrkonkrusts in Helsinki, Finland. During his peripatetic exile, Celmià Âà ¡ had established personal contacts with the representatives of other fascist groupings in Europe, most notably Romania's Corneliu Codreanu.
Not long after the MolotovâÂÂRibbentrop pact in 1939, Latvia was occupied by the Soviet Union. Whereas the Soviet regime released the Communists imprisoned by Ulmanis with great ceremony, political prisoners from PÃÂrkonkrusts were not freed. Instead, more members of PÃÂrkonkrusts were arrested by the Soviet authorities during 1940âÂÂ1941, some of them being deported to Siberia.
When the Germans invaded Latvia in late June 1941, Celmià Âà ¡, who had moved to Germany following Latvia's occupation in 1940, returned to Latvia as a Sonderführer in the service of the German Wehrmacht.
In early July, PÃÂrkonkrusts was briefly permitted to operate openly again. Former PÃÂrkonkrusts members were actively sought by the German authorities as volunteers for the Arajs Commando. According to research by historian Rudëte Vëksne, however, there were only a handful of members of PÃÂrkonkrusts who played a role in the Holocaust in Latvia, their activities focused more on propaganda.
During the early phases of the Holocaust in Latvia, MÃÂrtià Âà ¡ VagulÃÂns, whom historian Valdis Lumans describes as a member of PÃÂrkonkrusts, led a killing squad attached to the Sicherheitsdienst (SD) in the town of Jelgava. Historian Andrievs Ezergailis has countered that VagulÃÂns was not in fact a member of PÃÂrkonkrusts, between whom and the Nazis existed "a wall of suspicion." Ezergailis has also argued, "I do not think that among the killers of the Jews there were more than ten PÃÂrkonkrusts members, if that. They played a more significant role as purveyors of anti-Semitism in Nazi press."
The German authorities decisively banned the organization for good in August 1941. Some former PÃÂrkonkrusts members collaborated with the Germans, while others maintained an anti-German sentiment and joined those groups subversively opposed to German occupation.
Celmià Âà ¡ continued his outward collaboration with the Germans in the hopes that sizable Latvian military formations would be created. From February 1942, he headed the Committee for Organising Latvian Volunteers (), the main function of which was the recruitment of Latvian men for the Latvian Auxiliary Police Battalions, known in German as Schutzmannschaften or simply Schuma. Aside from front-line combat duties, these battalions also participated in so-called anti-partisan operations in Latvia and Belarus that included the massacres of rural Jews and other civilians.
PÃÂrkonkrusts members working within the SD apparatus in occupied Latvia would feed Celmià Âà ¡ information, some of which he would include in his underground, anti-German publication BrëvàLatvija. This eventually led to Celmià Âà ¡ and his associates being arrested, with Celmià Âà ¡ ending up imprisoned in Flossenbürg concentration camp.
A radical group claiming PÃÂrkonkrusts's name emerged in the 1990s as an organization whose stated goal was the overthrow of the current unsatisfactory government and the establishment of a "Latvian Latvia". In 1995, three former members of the group "Rëba's Defenders" - Valdis Raups, Aivars Vëksnià Âà ¡ and then-68-year-old Vilis Linià Âà ¡ - joined up with martial artist Juris ReÃÂs to reconstitute PÃÂrkonkrusts. "Rëba's Defenders" was an unregistered splinter group from the self-proclaimed successor organization of the pre-WWII Aizsargi, led by JÃÂnis Rëba. Members of the group were assigned code names, swore loyalty oaths, and senior members wore masks to initiate recruits. The organization was explicitly militaristic and considered itself a "Latvian fighting unit" pursuing a "holy liberation struggle."
The ideology of the group was primarily characterized by ethnic and racial nationalism, anti-semitism, anti-communism, anti-liberalism and opposed to free markets. Among the goals of PÃÂrkonkrusts were a Latvia where the "Latvian would be the lord and master in his Fatherland... not in those of Latvian-speaking cosmopolitan bastards," and "racial purity of the Latvian people." PÃÂrkonkrusts has opposed "Jew neo-Communists... half-Jews and their allies... enemy number one of the Latvian people."
Members of the reconstituted PÃÂrkonkrusts tried three times to bomb the Monument to the Liberators of Soviet Latvia and Riga from the German Fascist Invaders. In one of the most serious incidents on the night of 5 June 1997, two of the members, Valdis Raups and Aivars Vëksnià Âà ¡, were killed in the explosion. Another nine members were prosecuted for the bombing and received sentences ranging from a year and a half of probation to three years in prison. In 2000, most of the leaders of the current PÃÂrkonkrusts were arrested and tried. The group ceased organised activities or was banned around 2006.One of the previous leaders of the organization Igors à  ià ¡kins has tried to re-activate PÃÂrkonkrusts again. He has claimed to represent PÃÂrkonkrusts at various events, such as the marking of Remembrance day of the Latvian legionnaires and Soviet Victory Day (9 May) in Riga. On 9 May 2007, à  ià ¡kins was arrested for wearing forbidden symbols in public. à  ià ¡kins was similarly detained for displaying forbidden symbols on 9 May 2009. In 2006 a similar organization, the Gustavs Celmià Âà ¡' Center (Gustava Celmià Âa centrs), which used the same symbols as PÃÂrkonkrusts and also claimed to promote Dievturëba, was registered with à  ià ¡kins becoming one of its leaders until the organization was dissolved by the Riga Regional Court in 2014.
In its relations with Latvia, the Foreign Ministry of the Russian Federation at times brings up the history of the PÃÂrkonkrusts movement as evidence of present-day Latvia's "fascist" heritage.
In 2016, blogger JÃÂnis Polis reported that the owner of the former GCC website is linked to purported fake news websites.