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Lithuania |
Prior to the German invasion, some leaders in Lithuania and in exile believed Germany would grant the country autonomy along the lines of the status of the Slovakia protectorate. German intelligence Abwehr believed it had control of the Lithuanian Activist Front, a pro-German organization based in the Lithuanian embassy in Berlin.[citation needed] The German Nazis allowed Lithuanians to form the Provisional Government, but did not recognize it diplomatically and did not allow Lithuanian ambassador Kazys Škirpa to become the Prime Minister. Once German military rule in Lithuania was replaced by a German civil authority, the Provisional Government was disbanded.
Rogue units organised by Algirdas Klimaitis and supervised by SS Brigadeführer Walter Stahlecker started pogroms in and around Kaunas on 25 June 1941.[46][47] Lithuanian collaborators would become involved in the murders of hundreds of thousands of Jews and Gypsies.[48][49][50] Lithuanian-American scholar Saulius Sužiedėlis points to the increasingly antisemitic atmosphere clouding Lithuanian society, and the presence of antisemitic LAF émigrés who "needed little prodding from 'foreign influences'".[51] Overall, he concludes that Lithuanian collaboration was "a significant help in facilitating all phases of the genocidal program . . . [and that] the local administration contributed, at times with zeal, to the destruction of Lithuanian Jewry".[52] Elsewhere, Sužiedėlis has similarly emphasised that Lithuania's "moral and political leadership failed in 1941, and that thousands of Lithuanians participated in the Holocaust",[53] though warned that, "[u]ntil buttressed by reliable accounts providing time, place and at least an approximate number of victims, claims of large-scale pogroms before the advent of the German forces must be treated with caution".[54]
In 1941, the Lithuanian Security Police (Lietuvos saugumo policija), subordinate to Nazi Germany's Security Police and Nazi Germany's Criminal Police, was created.[55] Of the 26 local police battalions formed, 10 were involved in systematic extermination of Jews known as the Holocaust. The Special SD and German Security Police Squad in Vilnius killed tens of thousands of Jews and ethnic Poles in Paneriai (see Ponary massacre) and other places.[55] In Minsk, the 2nd Battalion shot about 9,000 Soviet prisoners of war, in Slutsk it massacred 5,000 Jews. In March 1942 in Poland, the 2nd Lithuanian Battalion carried out guard duty in the Majdanek extermination camp.[56] In July 1942, the 2nd Battalion participated in the deportation of Jews from the Warsaw ghetto to Treblinka death camp.[57] In August–October 1942, the police battalions formed from Lithuanians were in Ukraine: the 3rd in Molodechno, the 4th in Donetsk, the 7th-в in Vinnitsa, the 11th in Korosten, the 16th in Dnepropetrovsk, the 254th in Poltava and the 255th in Mogilyov (Belarus).[58] One of the battalions was also used to put down the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 1943.[56]
Lithuanian Territorial Defense Force
The Lithuanian Territorial Defense Force, composed of volunteers, was formed in 1944. Its leadership was Lithuanian, whereas arms were provided by Germans. The purpose of the Lithuanian Territorial Defense Force was to defend Lithuania against the approaching Soviet Army and to defend the civilian population in the territory of Lithuania form actions by partisans. In practice, it was primarily engaged in suppressing the Polish population and the anti-Nazi Polish resistance of Armia Krajowa; the LTDF disbanded after it was ordered to act under Nazi command.[44] Shortly before it was disbanded, the LTDF suffered a major defeat from Polish partisans in the battle of Murowana Oszmianka.[41]
The participation of the local populace was a key factor in the Holocaust in Nazi-occupied Lithuania[45] which resulted in the near total destruction of Lithuanian Jews[a] living in the Nazi-controlled Lithuanian territories that would, from July 17, 1941, become the Generalbezirk Litauen of Reichskommissariat Ostland. Out of approximately 210,000[46] Jews, (208,000 according to the Lithuanian pre-war statistical data)[47] an estimated 195,000–196,000 perished before the end of World War II (wider estimates are sometimes published); most from June to December 1941.[46][48] The events that took place in the western regions of the USSR occupied by Nazi Germany in the first weeks after the German invasion (including Lithuania - see map) marked the sharp intensification of The Holocaust.[49][50][51]
Rogue units organised by Algirdas Klimaitis and supervised by SS Brigadeführer Walter Stahlecker started pogroms in and around Kaunas on 25 June 1941.[46][47] Lithuanian collaborators would become involved in the murders of hundreds of thousands of Jews and Gypsies.[48][49][50] Lithuanian-American scholar Saulius Sužiedėlis points to the increasingly antisemitic atmosphere clouding Lithuanian society, and the presence of antisemitic LAF émigrés who "needed little prodding from 'foreign influences'".[51] Overall, he concludes that Lithuanian collaboration was "a significant help in facilitating all phases of the genocidal program . . . [and that] the local administration contributed, at times with zeal, to the destruction of Lithuanian Jewry".[52] Elsewhere, Sužiedėlis has similarly emphasised that Lithuania's "moral and political leadership failed in 1941, and that thousands of Lithuanians participated in the Holocaust",[53] though warned that, "[u]ntil buttressed by reliable accounts providing time, place and at least an approximate number of victims, claims of large-scale pogroms before the advent of the German forces must be treated with caution".[54]
In 1941, the Lithuanian Security Police (Lietuvos saugumo policija), subordinate to Nazi Germany's Security Police and Nazi Germany's Criminal Police, was created.[55] Of the 26 local police battalions formed, 10 were involved in systematic extermination of Jews known as the Holocaust. The Special SD and German Security Police Squad in Vilnius killed tens of thousands of Jews and ethnic Poles in Paneriai (see Ponary massacre) and other places.[55] In Minsk, the 2nd Battalion shot about 9,000 Soviet prisoners of war, in Slutsk it massacred 5,000 Jews. In March 1942 in Poland, the 2nd Lithuanian Battalion carried out guard duty in the Majdanek extermination camp.[56] In July 1942, the 2nd Battalion participated in the deportation of Jews from the Warsaw ghetto to Treblinka death camp.[57] In August–October 1942, the police battalions formed from Lithuanians were in Ukraine: the 3rd in Molodechno, the 4th in Donetsk, the 7th-в in Vinnitsa, the 11th in Korosten, the 16th in Dnepropetrovsk, the 254th in Poltava and the 255th in Mogilyov (Belarus).[58] One of the battalions was also used to put down the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 1943.[56]
Lithuanian Territorial Defense Force
The Lithuanian Territorial Defense Force, composed of volunteers, was formed in 1944. Its leadership was Lithuanian, whereas arms were provided by Germans. The purpose of the Lithuanian Territorial Defense Force was to defend Lithuania against the approaching Soviet Army and to defend the civilian population in the territory of Lithuania form actions by partisans. In practice, it was primarily engaged in suppressing the Polish population and the anti-Nazi Polish resistance of Armia Krajowa; the LTDF disbanded after it was ordered to act under Nazi command.[44] Shortly before it was disbanded, the LTDF suffered a major defeat from Polish partisans in the battle of Murowana Oszmianka.[41]
The participation of the local populace was a key factor in the Holocaust in Nazi-occupied Lithuania[45] which resulted in the near total destruction of Lithuanian Jews[a] living in the Nazi-controlled Lithuanian territories that would, from July 17, 1941, become the Generalbezirk Litauen of Reichskommissariat Ostland. Out of approximately 210,000[46] Jews, (208,000 according to the Lithuanian pre-war statistical data)[47] an estimated 195,000–196,000 perished before the end of World War II (wider estimates are sometimes published); most from June to December 1941.[46][48] The events that took place in the western regions of the USSR occupied by Nazi Germany in the first weeks after the German invasion (including Lithuania - see map) marked the sharp intensification of The Holocaust.[49][50][51]
