On 29 April 1944, the Nazi Security Service arrested Konstantīns Čakste, a University of Latvia law professor and chairman of the Latvian Central Council. The underground organization he led demanded the restoration of a democratic Republic of Latvia and maintained contacts with Baltic resistance movements and the West. The arrest ended Čakste’s political work: after Reimersa Street, the Central Prison, and Salaspils, he was taken to Stutthof concentration camp, where he died during the evacuation in February 1945.

The Latvian Central Council was a democratic resistance movement that rejected both Nazi and Soviet occupation and grounded its position in the continuity of the 1922 Constitution. Čakste’s arrest marked a severe blow to this underground political course at a moment when a second Soviet occupation of Latvia was approaching.