Biography

Born in Riga

Riga

Riga is the capital and largest city of Latvia. With 702,891 inhabitants Riga is the largest city of the Baltic states, one of the largest cities in Northern Europe and home to more than one third of Latvia's population. The city is an important seaport and a major industrial, commercial,...

, he was educated at the commerce school of the Riga Stock Exchange

Riga Stock Exchange

The Riga Stock Exchange now "NASDAQ OMX Riga" is the sole stock exchange operating in Riga, Latvia. It is owned by NASDAQ OMX, which also operates exchanges in the USA, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Iceland, Armenia, Lithuania, and Estonia...

, and graduated in Moscow

Moscow

Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

. In 1917, he began studies at the Riga Polytechnical Institute which had been evacuated to Moscow. After the October Revolution

October Revolution

The October Revolution , also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution , Red October, the October Uprising or the Bolshevik Revolution, was a political revolution and a part of the Russian Revolution of 1917...

, he returned to Latvia.

In 1918, Celmiņš enlisted into the newly-created Latvian Army, and was promoted to lieutenant

Lieutenant

A lieutenant is a junior commissioned officer in many nations' armed forces. Typically, the rank of lieutenant in naval usage, while still a junior officer rank, is senior to the army rank...

 the following year, and was then appointed Latvian military attaché

Military attaché

A military attaché is a military expert who is attached to a diplomatic mission . This post is normally filled by a high-ranking military officer who retains the commission while serving in an embassy...

 in Poland

Poland

Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...

. In 1921, he was awarded the Order of Lāčplēsis

Order of Lacplesis

The Order of Lāčplēsis, the first and the highest Latvian military award, was established in 1919 on the initiative of the Commander of Latvian Army, during the Latvian War of Independence, Jānis Balodis. The Lāčplēsis Order is awarded in the first, second and third class. Initially, a holder of...

.

Retired from army in 1924, he worked in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs from 1925 to 1927. Celmiņš became the secretary of Minister of Foreign Affairs, and subsequently worked in the Finance Ministry. On 24 January 1932, the Latvian nationalist

Nationalism

Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...

 group Ugunskrusts

Ugunskrusts

Ugunskrusts may refer to the following:* the swastika as a symbol in Latvian folklore...

 was founded, and Gustavs Celmiņš was elected as its leader. After Ugunskrusts was banned, he founded the organization Pērkonkrusts

Perkonkrusts

Pērkonkrusts , was a Latvian political party founded in the 1930s. This group adapted fascist ideology to the situation in independent Latvia after 1918. It was the largest and longest-lived organisation of its kind in Latvia...

 ("Thundercross"). Common for both organisations was that they advocated a national revolution for a radical re-organisation of society, politics, and the economy in Latvia. Following Kārlis Ulmanis

Karlis Ulmanis

Kārlis Augusts Vilhelms Ulmanis was a prominent Latvian politician in pre-World War II Latvia during the Latvian period of independence from 1918 to 1940.- Education and early career :Ulmanis studied agriculture at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich and...

' 15 May 1934 coup d'état

Coup d'état

A coup d'état state, literally: strike/blow of state)—also known as a coup, putsch, and overthrow—is the sudden, extrajudicial deposition of a government, usually by a small group of the existing state establishment—typically the military—to replace the deposed government with another body; either...

, Celmiņš was arrested and imprisoned for three years. He was exiled from Latvia in 1937.

Celmiņš moved to Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

, then Switzerland

Switzerland

Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

. While in Zürich

Zürich

Zurich is the largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is located in central Switzerland at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich...

, he was arrested and then banished from Switzerland. He later lived in Romania

Romania

Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...

, where he had contacts with the Iron Guard

Iron Guard

The Iron Guard is the name most commonly given to a far-right movement and political party in Romania in the period from 1927 into the early part of World War II. The Iron Guard was ultra-nationalist, fascist, anti-communist, and promoted the Orthodox Christian faith...

, and then moved to Finland

Finland

Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...

. In 1938, he became the leader of Pērkonkrusts "foreign contacts office". After the Soviet Union

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

 invaded Finland

Winter War

The Winter War was a military conflict between the Soviet Union and Finland. It began with a Soviet offensive on 30 November 1939 – three months after the start of World War II and the Soviet invasion of Poland – and ended on 13 March 1940 with the Moscow Peace Treaty...

, Celmiņš enrolled as a volunteer on the latter's side. When the conflict ended, he moved to Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...

.

In July 1941, after Operation Barbarossa

Operation Barbarossa

Operation Barbarossa was the code name for Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II that began on 22 June 1941. Over 4.5 million troops of the Axis powers invaded the USSR along a front., the largest invasion in the history of warfare...

, he, together with Nazi

Nazism

Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...

 officials, returned to Latvia and regained leadership of Pērkonkrusts.

After the occupation authorities once again banned Pērkonkrusts in August 1941, Celmiņš 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 were also deployed in anti-partisan operations

Anti-partisan operations in World War II

Anti-partisan operations were operations against the various resistance movements during World War II by the Axis powers...

 Latvia and Belarus that included the massacres of rural Jews and other civilians. This situation was not what Celmiņš had hoped for, and so he began to sabotage the recruitment efforts. Because of this, he was later transferred to a job as a minor clerk within the occupation administration.

Pērkonkrusts members working within the SD

Sicherheitsdienst

Sicherheitsdienst , full title Sicherheitsdienst des Reichsführers-SS, or SD, was the intelligence agency of the SS and the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany. The organization was the first Nazi Party intelligence organization to be established and was often considered a "sister organization" with the...

 apparatus in occupied Latvia would feed Celmiņš information, some of which he would include in his underground, anti-German publication Brīvā Latvija

Brīvā Latvija (1943-44)

Brīvā Latvija. Latvju Raksti was the name of an underground, anti-German resistance newspaper in Nazi-occupied Latvia during World War II. Its first four issues appeared under the title Vēstījums . The newspaper's editor and principal author was the Latvian fascist Gustavs Celmiņš...

. This eventually led to Celmiņš and his associates being arrested by the Gestapo

Gestapo

The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...

 in 1944, with Celmiņš ending up imprisoned in Flossenbürg concentration camp

Flossenbürg concentration camp

Konzentrationslager Flossenbürg was a Nazi concentration camp built in May 1938 by the Schutzstaffel Economic-Administrative Main Office at Flossenbürg, in the Oberpfalz region of Bavaria, Germany, near the border with Czechoslovakia. Until its liberation in April 1945, more than 96,000 prisoners...

.

In late April 1945 he was, together with other prominent concentration camp inmates, transferred to Tyrol

Transport of concentration camp inmates to Tyrol

The Transport of Inmates of German Concentration Camps to Tyrol happened in late April 1945 and led to the only time such prisoners were liberated by German troops.- Transfer and liberation:...

 where the SS left the prisoners behind. He was liberated by the Fifth U.S. Army on 5 May 1945.

After World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, he lived in Italy, where he published the newspaper Brīvā Latvija. In 1947 he published the autobiographic book Eiropas krustceļos ("At the Crossroads of Europe").

In 1949 he emigrated to the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. From 1950 to 1952 he was an instructor at Syracuse University

Syracuse University

Syracuse University is a private research university located in Syracuse, New York, United States. Its roots can be traced back to Genesee Wesleyan Seminary, founded by the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1832, which also later founded Genesee College...

's Armed Forces school in New York state, and beginning in 1951 he was also the director of the Foreign Language program for the US Air Force, and a television lecturer about the USSR and communism. From 1954 to 1956 he worked as a manufacturer in Mexico

Mexico

The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

. Between 1956 and 1958 he was a librarian at Trinity University

Trinity University (Texas)

Trinity University is a private, independent, primarily undergraduate, university in San Antonio, Texas. Its campus is located in the Monte Vista Historic District and adjacent to Brackenridge Park....

 in San Antonio, Texas

San Antonio, Texas

San Antonio is the seventh-largest city in the United States of America and the second-largest city within the state of Texas, with a population of 1.33 million. Located in the American Southwest and the south–central part of Texas, the city serves as the seat of Bexar County. In 2011,...

. In 1959 he became a professor of Russian

Russian language

Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...

 studies at St. Mary's University

St. Mary's University, Texas

St. Mary's University is a Catholic and Marianist liberal arts institution located on northwest of downtown San Antonio, Texas, United States. St. Mary’s is a nationally recognized master’s level school ranked among the top colleges in the west for best value and academic reputation by U.S. News...

in San Antonio, Texas. He died on 10 April 1968 in San Antonio, Texas.

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