Lithuanian collaboration with Nazi Germany
Lithuanian collaboration with Nazi Germany took place during World War II, primarily on the territory of Lithuania during its occupation by German forces from 1941 to 1944.
The main reason was the experience of the brutal Soviet occupation, which automatically directed the hopes and aspirations of Lithuanians toward Nazi Germany.
At the beginning of World War II, which began with the German invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, Lithuania remained a neutral country.
[5] Ethnic Lithuanians, on the other hand, were proportionately more often victims of Soviet repression, as a result of which many of them began to see Germany as an ally and liberator.
[7] There was a widespread view that the collapse of independent Lithuania was caused by "Jewish treason," while the deportations were organized by the "Jewish-Soviet NKVD".
[9] The Soviet occupation triggered a strong anti-Soviet resistance movement that resulted in an armed uprising in June 1941, at the time of the German invasion of the USSR.
[9] However, anti-Sovietism was not the only factor that attracted people to the Nazis; fascination with corporatism, social discipline, economic and racial anti-Semitism, and the vision of building a Axis Europe were also important.
[15] However, the LAF also had its own goals; the uprising they organized, aimed primarily at capturing Kaunas and Vilnius before the Germans, was designed to present them with a fait accompli and force them to recognize at least Lithuanian autonomy.
The Lithuanian population, driven to despair by the last wave of deportations of some 20,000 people on June 14-17, 1941, just a week before the German invasion of the USSR, rose enthusiastically against the Soviets and their supporters.
They were to support the formed provisional government headed by Juozas Ambrazevičius and became the basis of the future Lithuanian army.
[19] German forces, primarily Einsatzgruppe A, began the process of exterminating the Jewish population in the first hours of the invasion.
[17] After the first wave of spontaneous anti-Jewish violence of the early summer of 1941, came a phase of planned extermination of the Jewish population, which happened between August and October 1941.
[24] In August 1941, the Lithuanian police, led by Col. Vytautas Reivytis [lt], began collecting data on Jewish communities, and then, on the basis of Secret Circular No.
"[24] The National Labor Service (TDA) battalion, recruited mainly from Lithuanian Red Army deserters, played a crucial role in the process of extermination.
[24] Detached from TDA contingent, commanded by Bronius Norkus, as a part of Rollkommando Hamann, was responsible for the deaths of at least half of the 125,000 Jews killed in Lithuania between August 1 and December 1, 1941.
[25] In Ponary, near Vilnius, the killings were carried out by the Special Squad of the German Security Police and SD, known as Ypatingasis būrys.
[36] Enthusiasm for German rule among the Lithuanian population waned in 1942, due to disillusionment with the lack of real political autonomy, as well as the growing burden of the occupation itself.
[39] The unit was mostly broken up by the Polish Home Army and then brutally disbanded by the Germans for refusing to defend Germany itself.
[39][3] A significant number of Local Selection members escaped into the forests, but some were conscripted by the Germans into the army, mainly to serve in Luftwaffe auxiliary units.
