Herberts Cukurs

Herberts Cukurs (May 17, 1900 in Liepāja, Courland Governorate, Russian Empire – February 23, 1965 in Montevideo, Uruguay) was a Latvian aviator. He was a member of the notorious Arajs Kommando and was involved in murders of Latvian Jews as part of the Holocaust but he never stood trial, though there are eyewitness accounts linking Cukurs to war crimes. He was assassinated by operatives of the Israeli intelligence service (Mossad) in 1965.

As a result of his actions during the Nazi occupation of Latvia from 1941 to 1944, Cukurs has been called the "Butcher of Riga".

Aviation pioneer
As a pioneering long-distance pilot, he won national acclaim for his international solo flights in the 1930s (Latvia-Gambia and Riga-Tokyo). He was awarded the Harmon Trophy for Latvia in 1933, and was considered a national hero, compared to Charles Lindbergh.

Cukurs built at least three aircraft of his own design. In 1937 he made a 45000 km tour visiting Japan, China, Indochina, India and Russia, flying the C 6 wooden monoplane "Trīs zvaigznes" (registration YL-ABA) of his own creation. The aircraft was powered by a de Havilland Gipsy engine.

He also designed the Cukurs C-6bis prototype dive bomber in 1940.

Collaboration with Nazi Holocaust
During the occupation of Latvia by Nazi Germany in the summer of 1941, Cukurs became a member of the notorious Arajs Kommando, responsible for many of the crimes of the Holocaust in Latvia.

In his book The Holocaust in Latvia, 1941-1945, historian Andrew Ezergailis writes that Cukurs played a leading role in the atrocities committed in the Riga ghetto in conjunction with the Rumbula massacre on 30 November 1941. Later Ezergailis retracted these interpretations saying that in the light of new documents it would be wrong to claim that Cukurs indeed was participating in the Rumbula shooting or the burning of the Riga synagogue. After the war, surviving witnesses reported that Cukurs had been present during the ghetto clearance and fired into the mass of Jewish civilians. During interviews with the press, Ezergailis stated that there is no evidence that Cukurs had been at the pits at Rumbula, and that it has not been proven that Cukurs was "the most eager shooter of Jews in Latvia".

According to eyewitness sources Cukurs was the most recognizable Latvian SD man at the scene of the Rumbula massacre. Ezergailis states that "although Arājs' men were not the only ones on the ghetto end of the operation, to the degree they participated in the atrocities there the chief responsibility rests on Herberts Cukurs' shoulders." Cukurs was described as follows:

According to another account Cukurs also participated in the Burning of the Riga synagogues. According to Bernard Press in his book The Murder of the Jews in Latvia, Cukurs burned the synagogue on Stabu Street, but only after dragging Jews out of the neighboring houses and locking them inside

Time magazine reported at the time of his death in 1965 that his crimes included the Riga synagogue fire; the drowning of 1,200 Jews in a lake; and participating in the November 30, 1941 murder of 10,600 people in a forest near Riga.

Postwar flight and assassination
Cukurs was mentioned several times in the Nuremberg Trials as a vicious Nazi executioner, but his whereabouts were unknown and he was never formally charged. He had fled to Germany with retreating German troops.

After the war, Cukurs emigrated to Brazil via France. There, he established a business in São Paulo, flying Republic RC-7 Seabees on scenic flights. While living in South America he neither hid nor tried to hide his identity.

He is now known to have been assassinated by Mossad agents, who persuaded him to travel to Uruguay under the pretense of starting an aviation business, after it was found out that he would not stand trial for his participation in the Holocaust. An acquaintance named "Anton Künzle"&mdash;in reality, disguised Mossad agent Yaakov Meidad&mdash;cabled Cukurs from Montevideo. He was invited to a house in a remote suburb of the city that had just been rented by a man from Vienna. He was shot in the head twice with a suppressed automatic pistol after a short but violent struggle that was not heard by neighbors.

Media outlets in South America and Germany were sent a note stating: "Taking into consideration the gravity of the charge leveled against the accused, namely that he personally supervised the killing of more than 30,000 men, women and children, and considering the extreme display of cruelty which the subject showed when carrying out his tasks, the accused Herberts Cukurs is hereby sentenced to death. Accused was executed by those who can never forget on the 23rd of February, 1965. His body can be found at Casa Cubertini Calle Colombia, Séptima Sección del Departamento de Canelones, Montevideo, Uruguay."

The note was initially dismissed as the work of a crank, but then police were notified and the body was discovered.

Attempts at rehabilitation
Since the fall of Communism, there have been efforts in Latvia to rehabilitate Cukurs. For example, an exhibition was held in Riga in honour of the 'national hero' Herberts Cukurs, in which his work in the Arājs Kommando was portrayed as having been harmless.

The Latvian Foreign Minister Artis Pabriks condemned the issuance of postal envelopes dedicated to Cukurs in 2004. In a statement, Pabriks said that "those who produced such envelopes in Latvia evidently do not understand the tragic history of World War II in Latvia or in Europe". The foreign ministry stated that Cukurs was "guilty of war crimes" and that he "took part in the activities of the notorious Arājs Kommando, which participated in the Holocaust and was responsible for the killing of innocent civilians. The General Prosecutor's Office of Latvia has twice rejected the exoneration of Herberts Cukurs".