page_title: Kaunas
section_title: Nazi occupation
hierarchical_section_title: Kaunas / History / Nazi occupation
caption_attribution_description: English: Wehrmacht soldiers marching through the Liberty Avenue in Kaunas, Lithuania. Lietuvių: Vermachto kariai žygiuoja per Laisvės alėją Kaune.
context_page_description: Kaunas is the second-largest city in Lithuania after Vilnius and an important centre of Lithuanian economic, academic, and cultural life. Kaunas was the biggest city and the centre of a county in the Duchy of Trakai of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Trakai Palatinate since 1413. In the Russian Empire, it was the capital of the Kaunas Governorate from 1843 to 1915.
  During the interwar period, it served as the temporary capital of Lithuania, when Vilnius was seized by Poland between 1920 and 1939. During that period Kaunas was celebrated for its rich cultural and academic life, fashion, construction of countless Art Deco and Lithuanian National Romanticism architectural-style buildings as well as popular furniture, the interior design of the time, and a widespread café culture. The city interwar architecture is regarded as among the finest examples of European Art Deco and has received the European Heritage Label. It contributed to Kaunas being named as the first city in Central and Eastern Europe to be designated as a UNESCO City of Design. Kaunas has been selected as the European Capital of Culture for 2022, together with Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg.
context_section_description: On 26 June 1941 the German military command ordered the rebel groups to disband and disarm. Two days later Lithuanian guards and patrols were also relieved of their duties. Already in July, in a conversation the Tilsit Nazi Gestapo agent Dr Heinz Gräfe clearly stated to Stasys Raštikis that the Provisional Government was formed without German knowledge. Such a form, although not having anything against individuals, is unacceptable to the Germans. The current Provisional Government should be transformed into a National Committee or Council under the German military authority. The Nazi Germans did not recognize the new Provisional Government, but they did not take any action to dissolve it. The Provisional Government, not agreeing to continue to be an instrument of the German occupiers, disbanded itself on 5 August 1941 after signing a protest for the Germans action of suspending the Lithuanian Government powers. Members of the Provisional Government then went as a body to the Garden of the Vytautas the Great War Museum, where they laid a wreath near the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in the presence of numerous audience. The Sicherheitsdienst confiscated the pictures of the wreath-laying ceremony, thinking that it could be dangerous for the German occupation policy in Lithuania. On 17 July 1941 the German civil administration was established. The government's powers were taken over by the new occupants. Nazi Germany established the Reichskommissariat Ostland in the Baltic states and much of Belarus, and the administrative centre for Lithuania (Generalbezirk Litauen) was in Kaunas ruled by a Generalkommissar Adrian von Renteln.
caption: Wehrmacht soldiers marching through the Liberty Avenue in Kaunas
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