page_title: History of Lithuania
section_title: Occupation of Lithuania by Nazi Germany (1941–1944)
hierarchical_section_title: History of Lithuania / World War II (1939–1945) / Occupation of Lithuania by Nazi Germany (1941–1944)
caption_attribution_description: For documentary purposes the German Federal Archive often retained the original image captions, which may be erroneous, biased, obsolete or politically extreme. This description has been identified as biased or incorrect: The description is from 1941, it's sneer from the Wehrmacht's special operations unit Propagandakompanie 612 (propaganda company 612)Deutsch: Propagandakompanie 612 Die litauischen Juden haben plötzlich viel zu erzählen. Wenig später bekommen sie Besen und Schippe in die Hand um aufzuräumen. Bildberichter: Hanisch. Ort: Radum/ Litauen. Datum: 24. Juni 1941. English: Oberschütze of the German Wehrmacht. Propaganda Company 612. All of a sudden Lithuanian Jews have much to tell. A little later they are handed broom and shovel to clean up. Pressefotograf: Hanisch. Location: Radum/ Lithuania. Date: June 24 1941.
context_page_description: The history of Lithuania dates back to settlements founded many thousands of years ago, but the first written record of the name for the country dates back to 1009 AD. Lithuanians, one of the Baltic peoples, later conquered neighboring lands and established the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the 13th century. The Grand Duchy was a successful and lasting warrior state. It remained fiercely independent and was one of the last areas of Europe to adopt Christianity. A formidable power, it became the largest state in Europe in the 15th century through the conquest of large groups of East Slavs who resided in Ruthenia. In 1385, the Grand Duchy formed a dynastic union with Poland through the Union of Krewo. Later, the Union of Lublin created the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth that lasted until 1795, when the last of the Partitions of Poland erased both Lithuania and Poland from the political map. Afterward, the Lithuanians lived under the rule of the Russian Empire until the 20th century.
  On February 16, 1918, Lithuania was re-established as a democratic state.
context_section_description: On June 22, 1941, Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa. In Franz Walter Stahlecker's report of October 15 to Heinrich Himmler, Stahlecker wrote that he had succeeded in covering up actions of the Vorkommando (German vanguard unit) and made it look like an initiative of the local population to carry out the Kaunas pogrom. The German forces moved rapidly and encountered only sporadic Soviet resistance. Vilnius was captured on June 24, 1941, and Germany controlled all of Lithuania within a week. The retreating Soviet forces murdered between 1,000 and 1,500 people, mostly ethnic Lithuanians (see Rainiai massacre). The Lithuanians generally greeted the Germans as liberators from the oppressive Soviet regime and hoped that Germany would restore some autonomy to their country. The Lithuanian Activist Front organized an anti-Soviet revolt known as the June Uprising in Lithuania, declared independence, and formed a Provisional Government of Lithuania with Juozas Ambrazevičius as prime minister. The Provisional Government was not forcibly dissolved; stripped by the Germans of any actual power, it resigned on August 5, 1941. Germany established the civil administration known as the Reichskommissariat Ostland.
  Initially, there was substantial cooperation and collaboration between the German forces and some Lithuanians. Lithuanians joined the Tautinio Darbo Apsaugos Batalionas (TDA) and Schutzmannschaft police battalions in hopes that these police units would be later transformed into the regular army of independent Lithuania. Instead, these units were employed by the Germans as auxiliaries in perpetrating the Holocaust. However, soon Lithuanians became disillusioned with harsh German policies of collecting large war provisions, gathering people for forced labor in Germany, conscripting men into the German army, and the lack of true autonomy. These feelings only naturally led to the creation of a resistance movement. The most notable resistance organization, the Supreme Committee for the Liberation of Lithuania, was formed in 1943. Due to passive resistance, a Waffen-SS division was not established in Lithuania. As a compromise, the Lithuanian general Povilas Plechavičius formed the short-lived Lithuanian Territorial Defense Force (LTDF). Lithuanians did not organize armed resistance, still considering Soviet Union their primary enemy. Armed resistance was conducted by pro-Soviet partisans (mainly Russians, Belarusians and Jews) and Polish Armia Krajowa (AK) in eastern Lithuania.
  Before the Holocaust, Lithuania was home to a disputed number of Jews: 210,000 according to one estimate, 250,000 according to another. About 90% or more of the Lithuanian Jews were murdered, one of the highest rates in Europe. The Holocaust in Lithuania can be divided into three stages: mass executions (June–December 1941), a ghetto period (1942 – March 1943), and a final liquidation (April 1943 – July 1944). Unlike in other Nazi-occupied countries where the Holocaust was introduced gradually, Einsatzgruppe A started executions in Lithuania on the first days of the German occupation. The executions were carried out by the Nazis and their Lithuanian collaborators in three main areas: Kaunas (marked by the Ninth Fort), in Vilnius (marked by the Ponary massacre), and in the countryside (sponsored by the Rollkommando Hamann). An estimated 80% of Lithuanian Jews were killed before 1942. The surviving 43,000 Jews were concentrated in the Vilnius Ghetto, Kaunas Ghetto, Šiauliai Ghetto, and Švenčionys Ghetto and forced to work for the benefit of German military industry. In 1943, the ghettos were either liquidated or turned into concentration camps. Only about 2,000–3,000 Lithuanian Jews were liberated from these camps. More survived by withdrawing into the interior of Russia before the war broke out or by escaping the ghettos and joining the Jewish partisans.
caption: Lithuanian Jews and a German Wehrmacht soldier in Lithuania, June 1941
exif: {}