Voldemar Frantsevich Damberg (, ; 14 November 1899 – 8 August 1965) was a Soviet Army major general. Of Latvian ethnicity, Damberg rose to corps command during World War II.
A factory worker, Damberg briefly served as a Latvian Rifleman during World War I and rose to cavalry squadron commander in the Red Army during the Russian Civil War. Damberg continued to serve in cavalry units and was arrested during the Great Purge. Restored to the army, Damberg held corps command with the Soviet troops in Iran and the Transcaucasus. During 1944 and 1945 he served as a corps commander, division commander and deputy corps commander in the Baltic. He continued to command Latvian army units and ended his career in the 1950s as military commissar of the Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic.
Early life, World War I and Russian Civil War
A Latvian, Voldemar Frantsevich Damberg was born on 14 November 1899 in Riga. After the evacuation of the Salamandra factory from Riga in July 1915 during World War I, he worked as a metalworker at the Zhiguli factory in Samara and as a blacksmith's striker at the Samara Military Workshops. At the end of that year he departed to Perm, where he worked at a branch of the former Salamandra factory, and four months later moved to the Lessner factory to work as an assistant metalworker. At the end of 1916, Damberg went to the Western Front to join his older brother in the Imperial Russian Army. On arrival in December 1916, he joined the 2nd Latvian Rifle Regiment as a ryadovoy. After the February Revolution in March 1917, he deserted and returned to Perm where he returned to his previous job.
In July of that year, Damberg joined a workers' detachment, which was merged into the Red Guard detachment of the Motovilikha factory. With the detachment, Damberg fought against the Whites on the Ural Front as the Russian Civil War began. In April 1918 he transferred to the Red Army and became a Red Army man in the 1st Latvian Cavalry Regiment, and from June served as chairman of the committee and commissar of the 2nd Latvian Cavalry Battalion. Damberg was enrolled as a student in the School of the Army of Soviet Latvia in April 1919, but did not graduate. When the school was sent to the front in June he was appointed chief of a cavalry detachment. In May the school was disbanded near Sebezh, but Damberg was sent with a group of cadets to the 1st Moscow Cavalry Courses. After completing the courses in October, he commanded a platoon of the 1st Cavalry Regiment of the Separate Cavalry Brigade of the Western Front. For carrying the wounded commander of the regiment's 2nd Squadron off the battlefield, Damberg was awarded the Order of the Red Banner. After the expansion of the brigade into the 15th Cavalry Division and the redesignation of the regiment to the 85th Cavalry Regiment, Damberg continued to serve with the regiment as its commissar and as a squadron commander. In May 1920 he was sent to the Higher Cavalry School in Petrograd for further training.
Interwar period
Damberg graduated from the school in August 1922, and was assigned to the Bashkir Command Courses at Ufa as chief of its cavalry department. From May 1923 he was an assistant squadron commander at the Orenburg Cavalry School, and from October 1924 commander of the separate cavalry squadron of the 57th Ural Rifle Division. From June 1927 he served as chief of staff of the 48th Cavalry Regiment of the 8th Orenburg Cavalry Division, and during that year temporarily commanded the regiment. In October 1928 he was admitted to the preparatory department of the Frunze Military Academy, and a year later transferred to its special department.
Upon graduation in May 1932, Damberg was appointed chief of the 1st section of the staff of the 10th North Caucasus Cavalry Division. He rose to chief of staff of the 11th Cavalry Division in January 1934. In March 1938, then-Colonel Damberg was expelled from the Communist Party during the Great Purge for ties to an "enemy of the people." He was dismissed from the army, arrested by the NKVD on 14 July and imprisoned on fabricated charges. Damberg was freed on 6 December and after being restored to the army in February 1939 appointed an instructor in the general tactics department of the Frunze Military Academy. In January 1941 he was transferred to serve as assistant commander of the 24th Cavalry Division of the Transcaucasus Military District.