Latvian Youth Organization

Youth Organization of Latvia ( Latvian. Latvijas Jaunatnes Organizācija) is a pro-Nazi youth organization created in the General Commissariat of Latvia during the Nazi occupation.

The Youth Organization of Latvia (AML) was created in accordance with the order of the Commissioner General Otto Drexler of August 17, 1942. This organization can be evaluated as something similar to the Hitlerjugend branch of the Hitler youth organization. Its creation was aimed at attracting the sympathies of nationalist-minded strata of the population of occupied Latvia. In this regard, the AML coordinators publicly proclaimed themselves the heirs of the old traditions of “scouts” , “Mazpulk” and “vanaga”, that is, those youth societies and alliances that operated in Latvia during the interwar period. In essence, this organization was a militarized pro-Nazi society led by the Latvian collaborators A. Mateass and E. Rullis.

One of the main tasks of the organization was to involve the Latvian youth in the implementation of the military plans of the Nazi administration. It was this circumstance that frightened away youth from the so-called bourgeois and petty-bourgeois circles from participating in AML, and therefore, at the initial stage, AML cells remained relatively small. According to the Central Statistical Institute, as of April 17, 1943, 1038 children aged 10 to 14 years, as well as 667 teenagers aged 14 to 18, were enrolled in AML throughout Latvia.

In 1944, in the conditions of military setbacks, members of the Nazi administration carried out a criminal action, calling up air defense forces for boys and youths from the AML as additional auxiliary forces. Thus, thousands of secondary school students in Latvia technically served the war machine of the Third Reich. According to the data of the Latvian collaborator Arthur Silgailis , in the final period of the Nazi occupation, from July 1 to August 18, 1944, 5,543 young men were called up for supporting services in the Nazi air forces, and with the help of the leaders and propagandists of the AML, anti-aircraft artillery and searchlight units 3614 boys and youths born in 1927 and 1928 were sent.