Lithuanian 1941 independence

The Lithuanian 1941 independence was a brief period in the history of Lithuania between the first Soviet occupation, and the chaos immediately following Nazi occupation when politically active Lithuanians declared independence and formed a short-lived national government.

Background

The Lithuanian Activist Front (LAF) was established during the first Soviet occupation. Its mission was to establish an independent Lithuania. The LAF declared that much of what was built during the two decades of Lithuanian independence had been destroyed by the Soviet occupation in less than a year. The Soviets had in fact done a great deal of damage to the Lithuanian economy, as well as deported 35,000 people (June deportation), mainly the intelligentsia, to Siberia and other remote areas of the Soviet Union in the days preceding the uprising. In effect, these actions helped energize the Lithuanian Activist Front.

A Lithuanian underground government, which was meant to take power after the liberation of the country, had already been formed before the June uprising, mostly out of the members of LAF's Kaunas and Vilnius sections. It was later confirmed on June 22 1941, at the start of the June uprising.

June Revolt

When Germany declared war on the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, this was seen as a good opportunity to seek independence, as the Russians would have to move their troops to fight the Germans. On June 22 the Lithuanian Activist Front started the uprising. The main forces of the LAF were concentrated in the major cities of Vilnius and Kaunas, but minor clashes also occurred in rural areas and smaller towns. Major fights happened near the Metalas factory in Šančiai, a suburb of Kaunas as the rebels tried to prevent the Soviet army from crossing the Nemunas. Estimates for the number of the Lithuanian rebels vary from 30,000 to 100,000; the latter possibly includes some inactive LAF members. The Lithuanian Activist Front took over the telecommunications system, and the Kaunas radio station.

The following day, June 23, at 09:28 AM the national anthem of Lithuania, Tautiška giesmė, was played on the radio in Kaunas, and LAF member Leonas Prapuolenis read a message in which he asked for:

* people to guard public and private property,
* the workers to organize the defence of companies and factories,
* the workers of governmental institutions to guard their institutions and
* no-one to give up any property or documents,
* former policemen to guard their territories from any insurgencies,
* the public in general to go back to the jobs they were doing before Soviet occupation.

Also, the names of the Lithuanian provisional government members (formerly the Lithuanian underground government) were announced, and the message "Atstatoma Laisva Lietuva" ("Free Lithuania is being restored") was read. In Lithuanian majority areas, people supported the LAF and looting was avoided; however in Polish majority areas LAF committed many attrocities (rapes, murders, pillage); even the Germans referred to their LAF allies as "organized robbers".Tadeusz Piotrowski, "Poland's Holocaust", McFarland & Company, 1997, ISBN 0786403713, [http://books.google.com/books?id=A4FlatJCro4C&pg=PA163&vq=LAF&dq=AK+"Lithuanian+collaborators"&source=gbs_search_s&sig=ACfU3U2tRh2HYmZaGO8HdfCPMLJPQlsecg Google Print, p.163] ] During the uprising several hundred Lithuanian Activist Front members were killed — according to other sources, the number was several thousand.

The retreating Red Army massacred popular Lithuanian figures, political prisoners and criminal prisoners who were arrested during the first Soviet occupation; in some cases this was after torturing them. Between 1-2,000 people were killed; the main massacres were at Rainiai, Pravieniškės, Červenė and Panevėžys. Soviet casualties in the uprising were rather larger: about 5,000 Soviet soldiers and activists were killed, as the Soviet forces were caught unprepared. However, about 20,000 people, including the main leaders and many other activists, managed to escape to Russia. The local corps of the Red Army consisted of 15,000 people, 7,000 of them being ethnic Lithuanians. Most of the latter rebelled and joined the cause of the Lithuanian Activist Front; several thousand members of the local Red Army corps retreated to Russia after they understood that it would be impossible to crush the uprising because of the need to fight the Germans.

Rule of the government

Once the country was liberated, the planned government came into power, despite losing many of its ministers. Its first meeting as the real government of Lithuania took place on June 24 of 1941. LAF activist Juozas Ambrazevičius was chosen as prime minister instead of Kazys Škirpa, who was under house arrest in Berlin. The new government attempted to take full control of the country and start a desovietisation campaign. Laws were issued which declared the denationalisation of various properties nationalised during the Soviet rule. The government also restored local administrative units, and passed over 100 laws by decree, some of which were prepared in advance by the underground government. In about 5 to 10 days the local administrative units were reestablished, mostly employing those who worked there prior to the Soviet occupation. Many people returned to their previous workplaces.

Most of the people recognised the new government, except for the pro-Soviet activists, and reconstituted local institutions acted according to the laws of interwar Lithuania as well as the new laws issued by the provisional government. It was harder to recreate local administrative units in Eastern Lithuania (Vilnius region), apart from the city of Vilnius itself and some Lithuanian-dominated parts of this multi-ethnic region. The June uprising did not affect these areas and only 25% of local policemen acted according to suggestions of the provisional government. One explanation is that more people were exiled to Siberia or murdered during the year of the Soviet occupation from Eastern Lithuania than from Western Lithuania. Eastern Lithuania also had large communities of non-Lithuanians who were more likely to support the Soviet government.

German actions and dissolution

From the very beginning, relations with Germany were very complicated. Germany did not recognise the new government despite the hopes that it would be possible to reestablish an independent Lithuania by using the confrontation between the Germans and Soviets. German troops invaded Lithuania and, as Lithuania had no army, it could not resist. The Germans avoided confrontation with the popular LAF and avoided provoking guerrilla war until the German army could establish itself in Lithuania. The government did not organise any resistance against Germany because it understood that any guerilla war at that point would have been futile, and would have led to the dissolution of government and in all probability major repressions against the Lithuanian people. Therefore the LAF government tolerated German military presence and tried to negotiate independence or at least major autonomy. However the Germans, despite taking no direct action against it, ignored the LAF government, and began to establish various administrative institutions, both military and civilian, controlled by the Reich rather than the government of Lithuania.

At first the Lithuanian provisional government tried to continue its work despite the military occupation of the country, and thought that Germany would let it continue civilian national rule. However, the Germans eventually established their own civilian institutions. The fact that Vilnius and its surroundings were occupied by a different division of German army than the rest of Lithuania, made the actual law enforcement harder for the provisional government. Eventually the government of Lithuania lost all the powers it had acquired, and, even though it was still permitted to function, it decided to dissolve itself on August 5, 1941. There were worries the government might become a puppet state of the Germans, who could use its relative legitimacy to seek their own goals.

The Lithuanian Activist Front, however, remained working for some time. On September 20, 1941 it sent a memorandum to Germany protesting the occupation of Lithuania; a few days later the Front was banned by the Nazis. Most of its leaders had to serve sentences in concentration camps. In November the last legal party of Lithuania, Lithuanian Nationalist Party, was also banned.

Despite the worsening relations between Germany and the Lithuanian population, collaboration was extensive. Due to many volunteers and willing collaborators for Nazi police, military and administration structures, Germany was able to maintain one of the smallest force in all of occupied Europe on Lithuanian territories (about 6,000 in 1943). Tadeusz Piotrowski, "Poland's Holocaust", McFarland & Company, 1997, ISBN 0786403713, [http://books.google.com/books?id=A4FlatJCro4C&pg=PA166&vq=smallest&dq=AK+%22Lithuanian+collaborators%22&source=gbs_search_s&sig=ACfU3U0Dy49wJTCVjJ42jQ-xlPD_pI7gIg Google Print, p.166] ]

Opinions and propaganda

June uprising for propaganda purposes

After the June uprising, both Soviets and Germans used the event for their own propaganda. Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov on June 23 claimed that the "Lithuanian fascists are attacking Red Army". However that was later regarded as a mistake, because it could have encouraged other Soviet-occupied nations to seek their own independence. Therefore Molotov's advisor Lozovski claimed that the uprising was intended not to depose Soviets, but to prevent the Nazis from coming; such propaganda was planned to make other Soviet occupied nations focus on defending themselves from the Nazis.

Germans presented a different picture: they said that LAF helped the Nazis by deposing the Soviets before Germans arrived so that the German Armed Forces ("Wehrmacht") could reach Daugavpils and Minsk quicker and with fewer losses. The fact that Germans did not abolish the provisional government might have been used so that other nations would also try to overthrow the Soviets themselves. After World War II, during the second Soviet occupation (1944-1991), the June uprising and independence were erased from history books, as Soviet propaganda claimed that Lithuania joined the Soviet Union on its own will.

The real legacy of the June independence

In reality, the June independence, lasting only for 6 weeks and even then largely impotent, did not have a significant or lasting influence on Lithuania, as it was eventually wholly occupied and administered by Germany. However, some argue that the June independence has an important ideological meaning, demonstrating that the Lithuanian people did not want to be ruled either by the Russians or Germans, but remained committed to independence. This uprising is sometimes said to have been of great influence for the ideological support of the later partisan war, after Lithuania was re-occupied by the Soviets in 1944. Partisans apparently remembered the June uprising and thought that it was possible to depose the Soviets. Some (mainly Russian) historians argue that the June independence was pro-Nazi, and support this claim by the fact that Kazys Škirpa was in Germany and asked the German government to recognize Lithuania. Opponents of this idea however claim that it was understandable at the time that LAF would seek recognition from major powers at first, and the strongest power excluding Soviet Union was Germany; and that the Nazi ideology was not widely known at the time.

Because of such controversy, the suggestion made some years ago to declare June 23 as a national holiday of Lithuania was turned down, although there are several streets named after June 23, Kazys Škirpa and Juozas Ambrazevičius in various cities and towns of Lithuania.

References

*Valentinas Brandišauskas, 1941 m. Birželio sukilimas: Dokumentų rinkinys, 2000, ISBN 9986-757-35-5
*Gediminas Zemlickas, Apie Birželio sukilimą ir Lietuvos laikinąją vyriausybę, Interview with Algimantas Liekis, Mokslo Lietuva, [http://news.mireba.lt/ml/207/birzelio.htm Part I] March 9, 2000, No. 5 (207) and [http://news.mireba.lt/ml/209/birzelio2.htm Part II] April 6-19, 2000, No. 7 (209)
*Sigitas Jegelevičius, [http://www.is.lt/voruta/article.php?article=604 1941 m. Lietuvos laikinosios vyriausybės atsiradimo aplinkybės] Voruta, June 11, 2004, No. 11 (557)

ee also

*Kaunas pogrom