LÎÒ #30438. Reichskommissariat Ostland. Parcel card from - 18.08.1942 Riga, To: ...................... arriv.- 22.08.1942
Riga (Latvian: Rīga, pronounced [riːɡa]( listen)) is the capital and largest city of Latvia, a major industrial, commercial, cultural and financial centre of the Baltics[citation needed], and an important seaport, situated on the mouth of the Daugava. With 706,413 inhabitants (2010)[3] it is the largest city of the Baltic states. Riga's territory covers 307.17 km2 (118.60 sq mi) and lies between 1 and 10 metres (3.3 and 33 ft) above sea level,[5] on a flat and sandy plain.[5]
Reichskommissariat Ostland (i.e., Reich Commissariat of the Eastern Land) was the German name for the Nazi civil administration of part of the territories of Eastern Europe occupied by Nazi Germany during World War II. Ostland was the name given to the German-occupied territories of the Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania), part of the eastern parts of pre-war Poland, and western parts of Belarus. The political organization for this territory - after an initial period of military occupation - was that of a German civil administration, nominally under the authority of the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories (Reichsministerium für die besetzten Ostgebiete) led by Nazi ideologist Alfred Rosenberg.
The main political objective, which the ministry laid out in the framework of National Socialist policies for the east established by Adolf Hitler, were the complete annihilation of the Jewish population and the settlement of ethnic Germans along with the expulsion or Germanization of parts of the native population - not only in the Reichskommissariat Ostland but also in the other German-occupied Soviet territories. Through the use of Einsatzgruppen A and B over a million Jews were killed in the Reichskommissariat Ostland.[1] The Germanization policies would, built on the foundations of the Generalplan Ost, later be carried through by a series of special edicts and guiding principles for the general settlement plans for the Ostland.[2]
Throughout 1943 and 1944, the Red Army gradually recaptured most of the territory in their advance on Germany, but Wehrmacht forces held out in the Courland pocket. With the end of the war in Europe and the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945, the Reichskommissariat ceased to exist completely.
Ostland should not be confused with Ober Ost, which had a similar role as Ostland as an occupation authority for Baltic territories by the German Empire in World War I.
