General Roberts Dambītis (May 2, 1881 – March 27, 1957 in Trikāta parish near

Strenči Strenči (pronounced ; ) is a town in Valmiera Municipality in the Vidzeme region of Latvia. It is located about northeast of Riga, about northeast of Valmiera and about southwest of Valka. Strenči is known as the raftsmen capital of Latvia ...

Latvia Latvia, officially the Republic of Latvia, is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is one of the three Baltic states, along with Estonia to the north and Lithuania to the south. It borders Russia to the east and Belarus to t ...

) was a Latvian General and politician. A founder of the National Soldiers' Union as a

Latvian Rifleman The Latvian Riflemen (; ) were originally a military formation of the Imperial Russian Army assembled starting 1915 in Latvia in order to defend Baltic governorates against the German Empire in World War I. Initially, the battalions were formed ...

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

, Dambītis formally became the first soldier in the Latvian Army by placing volunteer units under the command of the

People's Council of Latvia The People's Council of Latvia (, LTP) was a temporary council which declared Latvia's independence on November 18, 1918 and then acted as the temporary parliament of the country until a Constitutional Assembly was elected. The People's Council ...

when it proclaimed Latvia's independence on November 18, 1918. He was subsequently appointed Deputy Minister of Defense during the Independence War. After the war he served in various high-ranking posts in military supply and administration, culminating in his appointment as Deputy Chief of the General Staff in 1935 and his retirement in 1939. In 1940, during the first year of Soviet Rule of Latvia, Dambītis joined the puppet government as Minister of War and oversaw the conversion of the Latvian Army to a

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Republic and, from 1922, the Soviet Union. The army was established in January 1918 by a decree of the Council of People ...

Corps. He remained in Latvia after the retreat of the

in 1941, was arrested by the

Gestapo The (, ), Syllabic abbreviation, abbreviated Gestapo (), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of F ...

and interned in the Sachsenhausen

concentration camp A concentration camp is a prison or other facility used for the internment of political prisoners or politically targeted demographics, such as members of national or ethnic minority groups, on the grounds of national security, or for exploitati ...

until 1945. After the war he returned to Trikāta, where he spent the remainder of his life.

References

Generals.dk
Biographical site (source used by kind permission of site editor, Steen Ammentorp)
Latvian Ministry of Defence / History
*Arveds Švābe, ed.: ''Latvju enciklopēdija.'' Stockholm: Trīs Zvaigznes, 1952–1953. *Lidija Švābe, ed.: ''Latvju enciklopēdija—papildinājumi.'' Stockholm: Trīs Zvaigznes, 1962. *Vilis Samsons, ed.: ''Latvijas PSR Mazā enciklopēdija.'' Rīga: Zinātne, 1967. 1881 births 1957 deaths People from Valmiera Municipality People from Valka county Ministers of defence of Latvia Deputies of the People's Saeima Latvian generals Latvian Riflemen Russian military personnel of World War I Latvian military personnel of the Latvian War of Independence {{Europe-mil-bio-stub Sachsenhausen concentration camp survivors Latvian military personnel in the Imperial Russian Army of World War I

See also

References