- Kazys Škirpa
Kazys Škirpa (born in Nemajūnai,
Biržai district ,Lithuania onFebruary 18 1895 , died inWashington DC onAugust 18 1979 ) was a Lithuanian military officer and diplomat best know for his attempts to establish Lithuanian independence in 1941.During
World War I he was mobilized into the Russian army and attempted to form Lithuanian detachments inPetrograd . After Lithuania declared independence in 1918, he returned and volunteered during theLithuanian Wars of Independence . In 1920 he as a member of theLithuanian Peasant Popular Union was elected to theConstituent Assembly of Lithuania . After that he decided to pursue military education inKaunas andBrussels . Upon graduation in 1925 he worked as chief of the General Staff, but was forced to resign after the1926 Lithuanian coup d'état , because he was actively refusing it and was trying to gather military force to protect the Government. Later he served as a Lithuanian representative in Germany (1927–1930),League of Nations (1937), Poland (1938), and again Germany (1938–1941). After theSoviet Union occupied Lithuania in 1940, Škirpa formed theLithuanian Activist Front . After Nazis invaded the Soviet Union, he was named as Prime Minister in theProvisional Government of Lithuania . However, Germans placed him under house arrest and did not allow him to leave for Lithuania. In 1944 he was sent to a concentration camp inBad Godesberg . After liberation he went to Paris, Dublin, and in 1949 to the United States. He worked at theLibrary of Congress . In 1975 his memoir book about the 1941 independence movement was published.References
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* cite web| url=http://www3.lrs.lt/pls/inter/w5_show?p_r=4160&p_d=2792&p_k=1 |title=Kazys Škirpa | publisher=Seimas |date=2006-02-22 |accessdate=2008-03-29
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