Forest Brothers The Forest Brothers ( also Brothers of the Forest ; Forest Brethren ; Forest Brotherhood ; , , ) were Estonian , Latvian , and Lithuanian partisans who waged a guerrilla war against Soviet rule during the Soviet invasion and occupation of the three Baltic states during , and after , World War II . Similar anti - Soviet Eastern European resistance groups fought against Soviet and communist rule in Bulgaria , Poland , Romania , and western Ukraine . The Red Army occupied the independent Baltic states in 1940 – 1941 and , after a period of German occupation , again in 1944 – 1945 . As Stalinist repression intensified over the following years , 50 , 000 residents of these countries used the heavily forested countryside as a natural refuge and base for armed anti - Soviet resistance . Resistance units varied in size and composition , ranging from individually operating guerrillas , armed primarily for self - defense , to large and well - organized groups able to engage significant Soviet forces in battle . Background . Origins of the term . The term Forest Brothers first came into use in the Baltic region during the chaotic Russian Revolution of 1905 . Varying sources refer to forest brothers of this era either as peasants revolting or as schoolteachers seeking refuge in the forest . Caught between two powers . Estonia , Latvia , and Lithuania gained their independence in 1918 after the collapse of the Russian Empire . The ideals of nationalism and self - determination had taken hold with many people as a result of having independent states of Estonia and Latvia for the first time since the 13th century . At the same time Lithuanians re - established a sovereign state , which had rich former history , being the largest country in Europe during the 14th century , but occupied by the Russian Empire since 1795 . Allied declarations such as the Atlantic Charter had offered promise of a post - war world in which the three Baltic nations could re - establish themselves . Having already experienced occupation by the Soviet regime followed by the Nazi regime , many people were unwilling to accept another occupation . Unlike Estonia and Latvia where the Germans conscripted the local population into military formations within Waffen - SS , Lithuania never had its own Waffen - SS division . In 1944 the Nazi authorities had created an ill - equipped but 20 , 000 - strong " Lithuanian Territorial Defense Force " under General Povilas Plechavičius to combat Soviet partisans led by Antanas Sniečkus . The Germans , however , quickly came to see this force as a nationalist threat to their occupation regime . The senior staff were arrested on May 15 , 1944 , with General Plechavičius being deported to the concentration camp in Salaspils , Latvia . However , approximately half of the remaining forces formed guerrilla units and dissolved into the countryside in preparation for partisan operations against the Red Army as the Eastern Front approached . The guerrilla operations in Estonia and Latvia had some basis in Adolf Hitler ' s authorization of a full withdrawal from Estonia in mid - September 1944 — he allowed any soldiers of his Estonian forces , primarily the 20th Waffen - SS Division ( 1st Estonian ) , who wished to stay and defend their homes to do so — and in the fate of Army Group Courland , among the last of Hitler ' s forces to surrender after it became trapped in the Courland Pocket on the Courland Peninsula in 1945 . Many Estonian and Latvian soldiers , and a few Germans , evaded capture and fought as Forest Brothers in the countryside for years after the war . Others , such as Alfons Rebane and Alfrēds Riekstiņš escaped to the United Kingdom and Sweden and participated in Allied intelligence operations in aid of the Forest Brothers . While the Waffen - SS was found guilty of war crimes and other atrocities and declared a criminal organization after the war , the Nuremberg Trials explicitly excluded conscripts in the following terms : In 1949 – 1950 the United States Displaced Persons Commission investigated the Estonian and Latvian divisions and on September 1 , 1950 adopted the following policy : The Latvian government has asserted that the Latvian Legion , primarily composed of the 15th and 19th Latvian Waffen - SS divisions , was neither a criminal nor collaboration ist organization . Mart Laar ( Prime Minister of Estonia , 1992 – 1994 and 1999 – 2002 ) , in his 1992 book " War in the Woods : Estonia ' s Struggle for Survival , 1944 – 1956 " rejected Soviet propaganda that had painted the Baltic resistance as having been orchestrated by wealthy landowners and Nazi officials and noted that the Forest Brothers counted among their ranks anti - Nazis and former Soviet partisans . The ranks of the resistance swelled with the Red Army ' s attempts at conscription in the Baltic states after the war , with fewer than half the registered conscripts reporting in some districts . The widespread harassment of disappearing conscripts ' families pushed more people to evade authorities in the forests . Many enlisted men deserted , taking their weapons with them . Summer War . With the German invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22 , 1941 , Joseph Stalin made a public statement on the radio calling for a scorched earth policy in the areas to be abandoned on July 3 . About 10 , 000 Forest Brothers , which had organized themselves into countrywide Omakaitse ( Home Guard ) organizations , attacked the forces of the NKVD , destruction battalions and the 8th Army ( Major General Ljubovtsev ) , killing 4 , 800 and capturing 14 , 000 . The battle of Tartu lasted for two weeks , and destroyed a large part of the city . Under the leadership of Friedrich Kurg , the Forest Brothers , drove out the Soviets from Tartu , behind the Rivers Pärnu – Emajõgi line . Thus they secured South Estonia under Estonian control by July 10 . The NKVD murdered 193 people in Tartu Prison on their retreat on July 8 . The German 18th Army crossed the Estonian southern border on July 7 – 9 . The Germans resumed their advance in Estonia by working in cooperation with the Forest Brothers and the Omakaitse . In North Estonia , the destruction battalions had the greatest impact , being the last Baltic territory captured from the Soviets . The joint Estonian - German forces took Narva on August 17 and the Estonian capital Tallinn on August 28 . On that day , the red flag shot down earlier on Pikk Hermann was replaced with the flag of Estonia by Fred Ise only to be changed by a German " Reichskriegsflagge " a few hours later . After the Soviets were driven out from Estonia , German Army Group North disarmed all the Forest Brother and Omakaitse groups . Southern Estonian partisan units were yet again summoned in August 1941 under the name of Estonian Omakaitse . Members were initially selected from the closest circle of friends . Later , candidate members were asked to sign a declaration that they were not members of a Communist organization . Estonian " Omakaitse " relied on the former regulations of Estonian Defence League and Estonian Army , insofar as they were consistent with the laws of German occupation . The tasks of the " Omakaitse " were as follows : On 15 July , the " Omakaitse " had 10 , 200 members ; on 1 December 1941 , 40 , 599 members . Until February 1944 membership was around 40 , 000 . The partisan war . By the late 1940s and early 1950s the Forest Brothers were provided with supplies , liaison officers and logistical coordination by the British ( MI6 ) , American , and Swedish secret intelligence services . This support played a key role in directing the Baltic resistance movement , however it diminished significantly after MI6 ' s Operation Jungle was severely compromised by the activities of British spies ( Kim Philby and others ) who forwarded information to the Soviets , enabling the KGB to identify , infiltrate and eliminate many Baltic guerrilla units and cut others off from any further contact with Western intelligence operatives . The conflict between the Soviet armed forces and the Forest Brothers lasted over a decade and cost at least 50 , 000 lives . Estimates for the number of fighters in each country vary . Misiunas and Taagepera estimate that figures reached 30 , 000 in Lithuania , between 10 , 000 and 15 , 000 in Latvia and 10 , 000 in Estonia . NKVD units dressed as forest brothers committed atrocities in order to discredit them and demoralize the civilian population . In Estonia . In Estonia 14 , 000 – 15 , 000 men participated in fighting in 1944 – 1953 . Estonia ' s Forest Brothers were most active in Võru County and the border areas between Pärnu and Lääne Counties , with significant activity between Tartu and Viru Counties as well . From November 1944 to November 1947 , they made 773 armed attacks and killed about 1000 Soviets and their supporters . August Sabbe , one the last surviving Forest Brothers in Estonia , was discovered in 1978 by KGB agents posing as fellow fishermen . Instead of surrendering , he leaped into the Võhandu stream and hooked himself to a log , drowning . The KGB insisted that the 69 - year - old Sabbe drowned while trying to escape , a theory difficult to credit given the shallow water and lack of cover at the site . There were numerous attempts to hunt down relatives of the Forest Brothers . One of the Estonians who managed to escape the deportation was Taimi Kreitsberg . She recalled that the Red deportation officials " . . . " took me to Võru , I was not beaten there , but for three days and nights I was given neither food nor drink . They told me they were not going to kill me , but torture me [ until ] I betrayed all the bandits . For about a month they dragged me through woods and took me to farms that were owned by the relatives of Forest Brothers , and they sent me in as an instigator to ask for food and shelter while the Chekists themselves waited outside . I told people to drive me away , as I had been sent by the security organs . " " In Latvia . In Latvia , preparations for partisan operations were begun during the German occupation , but the leaders of these nationalist units were arrested by Nazi authorities . Longer - lived resistance units began to form at the end of the war ; their ranks were composed of former Latvian Legion soldiers as well as civilians . In Latvia , the number of active combatants peaked at between 10 , 000 and 15 , 000 , while the total number of resistance fighters was as high as 40 , 000 . One author gives a figure of up to 12 , 000 grouped in 700 bands during the 1945 – 55 decade , but definitive figures are unavailable . Over time , the partisans replaced their German weapons with Russian ones . The Central Command of Latvian resistance organizations maintained an office on Matīsa Street in Riga until 1947 . In some 3 , 000 raids , the partisans inflicted damage on uniformed military personnel , party cadres ( particularly in rural areas ) , buildings , and ammunition depots . Communist authorities reported 1 , 562 Soviet personnel killed and 560 wounded during the entire resistance period . One account of the typical actions of the Forest Brothers is provided by Talrids Krastiņš . A reconnaissance soldier in the 19th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS ( 2nd Latvian ) , he was recruited with 15 other Latvians into a Nazi stay - behind unit at the close of the war . Escaping to the forest , the group avoided all contact with local residents and relatives , robbing trucks for money and maintaining an apartment in the center of Riga for reconnaissance and operations . At first they operated by assassinating low - level Communist party managers , but later focused their efforts on attempting to kill the head of the Latvian SSR , Vilis Lācis . The group recruited a Russian woman working at the Supreme Soviet of the Latvian SSR who informed them about Lācis ' transportation schedule . They set up a roadside ambush when Lācis was traveling from Riga to Jūrmala , but shot up the wrong car . The second attempt likewise relied on a female Russian collaborator , but one who proved to be an undercover NKVD agent . The entire group was apprehended and sentenced to prison in 1948 . The Latvian Forest Brothers were most active in the border regions , including Dundaga , Taurkalne , Lubāna , Aloja , and Līvāni . In the eastern regions , they had ties with the Estonian Forest Brothers ; in the western regions , with the Lithuanians . As in Estonia and Lithuania , the partisans were killed off and infiltrated by the MVD and NKVD over time , and as in Estonia and Lithuania , Western assistance and intelligence was severely compromised by Soviet counter - intelligence and Latvian double agents such as Augusts Bergmanis and Vidvuds Sveics . Furthermore , the Soviets gradually consolidated their rule in the cities , help from rural civilians was not as forthcoming , and special military and security units were sent to control the partisans . The last groups emerged from the forest and surrendered to the authorities in 1957 . In Lithuania . Among the three countries , the resistance was best organized in Lithuania , where guerrilla units controlled whole regions of the countryside until 1949 . Their armaments included Czech Skoda guns , Russian Maxim heavy machine guns , assorted mortars and a wide variety of mainly German and Soviet light machine guns and submachine guns . When not in direct battles with the Red Army or special NKVD units , they significantly delayed the consolidation of Soviet rule through ambush , sabotage , assassination of local Communist activists and officials , freeing imprisoned guerrillas , and printing underground newspapers . Captured Lithuanian Forest Brothers themselves often faced torture and summary execution while their relatives faced deportation to Siberia ( cf . quotation ) . Reprisals against pro - Soviet farms and villages were harsh . The NKVD units , named " People ' s Defense Platoons " ( known by the Lithuanians as pl . " stribai " , from the – " destroyers " ) used shock tactics to discourage further resistance such as displaying executed partisans ' corpses in village courtyards . The report of a commission formed at a KGB prison a few days after the October 15 , 1956 arrest of Adolfas Ramanauskas ( " Vanagas " ) , chief commander of the " Lietuvos Laisvės Kovotojų Sąjūdis " or " Union of Lithuanian Freedom Fighters " , noted the following : Juozas Lukša was among those who managed to escape to the west ; he wrote his memoirs there and was killed after returning to Lithuania in 1951 . Pranas Končius ( code name " Adomas " ) was the last Lithuanian anti - Soviet resistance fighter , killed in action by Soviet forces on July 6 , 1965 ( some sources indicate he shot himself in order to avoid capture on July 13 ) . He was awarded the Cross of Vytis posthumously in 2000 . Benediktas Mikulis , one of the last known partisans to remain in the forest , emerged in 1971 . He was arrested in the 1980s and spent several years in prison . Decline of the resistance movements . By the early 1950s , the Soviet forces had eradicated most of the Forest Brother resistance . Intelligence gathered by the Soviet spies in the West and KGB infiltrators within the resistance movement , in combination with large - scale Soviet operations in 1952 managed to end the campaigns against them . Many of the remaining Forest Brothers laid down their weapons when offered an amnesty by the Soviet authorities after Joseph Stalin ' s death in 1953 , although isolated engagements continued into the 1960s . The last individual guerrillas are known to have remained in hiding and evaded capture into the 1980s , by which time the Baltic states were pressing for independence through peaceful means . ( See Sąjūdis , The Baltic Way , Singing Revolution ) All three republics regained their independence in 1991 . Aftermath , memorials and remembrances . Many Forest Brothers persisted in the hope that Cold War hostilities between the West , which never formally recognized the Soviet occupation , and the Soviet Union might escalate to an armed conflict in which the Baltic states would be liberated . This never materialized , and according to Mart Laar many of the surviving former Forest Brothers remained bitter that the West did not take on the Soviet militarily . ( See also Yalta Conference , Western betrayal ) . When the brutal suppression of the Hungarian Revolution in 1956 did not bring about an intervention by , or a supportive response from , Western Powers , organized resistance in the Baltic States declined further . As the conflict was relatively undocumented by the Soviet Union ( the Baltic fighters were formally charged as common criminals ) , some consider it and the Soviet - Baltic conflict as a whole to be an unknown or forgotten war . Discussion of resistance was suppressed under the Soviet regime . Writings on the subject by Baltic emigrants were often labelled as examples of " ethnic sympathy " and disregarded . Laar ' s research efforts , begun in Estonia in the late 1980s , are considered to have opened the door for further study . In 1999 , the Lithuanian Seimas ( parliament ) enacted a declaration of independence that had been made on February 16 , 1949 , the 31st anniversary of the February 16 , 1918 declaration of independence , by elements of the resistance unified under the " Movement of the Struggle for the Freedom of Lithuania " . In Latvia and Lithuania , Forest Brothers veterans receive a small pension . In Lithuania , the third Sunday in May is commemorated as Partisans ' Day . In 2005 there were about 350 surviving Forest Brothers in Lithuania . In a 2001 lecture in Tallinn , U . S . Senator John McCain acknowledged the Estonian Forest Brothers and their efforts to liberate their country . Forest Brothers in popular culture . The Canadian film " Legendi loojad " ( Creators of the Legend ) about the Estonian Forest Brothers was released in 1963 . The film was funded by donations from Estonians in exile . The 1966 Soviet drama film " Nobody Wanted to Die ( ) " by Soviet - Lithuanian film director Vytautas Žalakevičius shows the tragedy of the conflict in which " a brother goes against the brother . " The film garnered Žalakevičius the USSR State Prize and international recognition , and is the best - known film portrayal of the conflict . A 1997 documentary film " We Lived for Estonia " tells the story of the Estonian Forest Brothers from the viewpoint of one of the participants . The 2004 film " Utterly Alone " ( ) portrays the travails of Lithuanian partisan leader Juozas Lukša , who travelled twice to Western Europe in attempts to gain support for the armed resistance . The 2005 documentary film " Stirna " tells the story of Izabelė Vilimaitė ( codenames " Stirna " and " Sparnuota " ) , an American - born Lithuanian who moved to Lithuania with her family in 1932 . A medical student and pharmacist , she was an underground medic and source of medical supplies for the partisans , eventually becoming a district liaison . She infiltrated the local Komsomol ( Communist Youth ) , was discovered , captured , and escaped twice . After going underground full - time , she was suspected of having been turned by the KGB as an informant and was nearly executed by the partisans . Her bunker was eventually discovered by the KGB and she was captured a third time , interrogated and killed . The 2007 Estonian film " Sons of One Forest ( ) " follows the story of two Forest Brothers in southern Estonia , who fight with an Estonian from the Waffen - SS against the Soviet occupants . The last Forest Brother . The last known Forest Brother was Jānis Pīnups , who came out of hiding only in 1995 . He had deserted from the Red Army in 1944 and was presumed missing in action by Soviet authorities in Latvia . He was rendered unconscious during a battle and left for dead . He decided to return home , where he started hiding in the nearby forest out of fear that his family would be deported , if his desertion was discovered . About 25 years after going into hiding he was forced to seek medical assistance and started acting more freely thereafter . Still only his siblings and , later on , the nearest neighbors were aware who he was , even the rest of his family learned he had not been killed in the war after he came out of hiding .