Pērkonkrusts was a Latvian ultranationalist, anti-German, anti-Slavic, and antisemitic political party founded in 1933 by Gustavs Celmiņš, borrowing elements of German nationalism—but being unsympathetic to Nazism at the time—and Italian Fascism. It was outlawed in 1934, its leadership arrested, and Celmiņš 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. Pērkonkrusts continued to exist in some form until 1944, when Celmiņš, who had initially returned to work in the occupying German administration, was imprisoned.
Pērkonkrusts: What Is It? What Does It Want? How Does It Work?– party propaganda publication from 1933.
Call for Pērkonkrusts members to join the Arājs Commando, published in the German-controlled newspaper Tēvija on 4 July 1941.
Kārlis Augusts Vilhelms Ulmanis was a Latvian politician and a dictator. He was one of the most prominent Latvian politicians of pre-World War II Latvia during the Interwar period of independence from November 1918 to June 1940 and served as the country's first prime minister.
Kārlis Ulmanis
Kārlis Ulmanis as a student at the University of Nebraska
Ulmanis in 1934
50 lati banknote with the portrait of Ulmanis