No. 9 Brief recording of the speech of comrade. Stalin at the graduation of students of the Red Army academies in the Kremlin on May 5, 1941 Comrade. Stalin in his speech spoke about the changes that have taken place in the Red Army over the past 3-4 years, about the reasons for the defeat of France, why it suffers

Summary of the High Command of the Red Army for June 22, 1941 At dawn on June 22, 1941, the regular troops of the German army attacked our border units on the front from the Baltic to the Black Sea and were held back by them during the first half of the day. After noon

Summary of the High Command of the Red Army for June 23, 1941

According to the Treaty on the transfer of the city of Vilna and the Vilna region to the Republic of Lithuania between the Soviet Union and Lithuania of October 10, 1939, part of the Vilna region and Vilna were transferred to the Republic of Lithuania.
On October 27, 1939, units of the Lithuanian army entered Vilna, and on October 28, the ceremony of welcoming the Lithuanian troops was officially held.

Soldiers of the Red Army and the Lithuanian army.

After the Republic of Lithuania was annexed to the USSR, on August 17, 1940, the 29th Lithuanian Territorial Rifle Corps (Raudonosios darbininkų ir valstiečių armijos 29-asis teritorinis šaulių korpusas), 179th and 184th I am infantry divisions. In total, 16,000 Lithuanians became soldiers and officers of the Red Army.

Based on this directive, the Commander of the District issued Order No. 0010 of August 27, 1940, where, after paragraph 10, it was indicated:

"Leave to the personnel of the rifle territorial corps the uniform that exists in the People's Armies, removing shoulder straps and introducing the insignia of the commanding staff of the Red Army."
Thus, the soldiers and officers retained the form of the pre-war Lithuanian army - only instead of shoulder straps, the buttonholes of the Red Army, chevrons and other insignia adopted at that time in the Red Army were introduced.

Captain Hieronymus Sabaliauskas. On the left with Lithuanian insignia, and on the right with Soviet ones.

Lieutenant Bronius Pupinis, 1940

Lieutenant Mykolas Orbakas. On the buttons of the uniform is the pre-war coat of arms of Lithuania "Vitis", and on the collar there are Soviet buttonholes.

The Lithuanian captain sewed the buttonholes of the Red Army.

Lithuanian Lieutenant of the Red Army.

Lithuanians take the oath.

Officers of the 29th Lithuanian Corps.

Glory to Stalin! Lithuanians praise the Leader. 1940

Lithuanian generals of the Red Army.

With the beginning of the invasion of German troops on the territory of the USSR on June 22, 1941, the killings of commanders (not Lithuanians) and mass desertion began in the 29th Lithuanian Territorial Rifle Corps of the Red Army.
On June 26, Soviet troops were ousted by German troops from the territory of Lithuania. Of the 16,000 servicemen of the 29th Lithuanian Territorial Rifle Corps, only 2,000 retreated with units of the Red Army. By July 17, 1941, the remnants of the corps retreated to Velikiye Luki. On September 23, 1941, the 29th Lithuanian Territorial Rifle Corps was disbanded.

June 1941

Meeting of German troops.

Lithuania. Vilna. July 1941

Lithuanian militia Kovno July 1941.

Kaunas, Lithuania, June-July 1941. Lithuanian police escort Jews to the Seventh Fort, which served as a site of massacres.

At the beginning of August 1941, there were groups of Soviet underground workers in Lithuania with a total number of 36 people under the command of Albertas Slapsys. In the same month, underground workers released 11,000 tons of fuel and lubricants into the Viyolka River at the Siauliai oil depot.

On September 5, near Kaunas, Soviet partisans attacked and burned down a food warehouse. In the same month, all underground workers were arrested or killed.

Executed partisans. Vilnius. Autumn 1941

And the organs of the State Security Committee of the NKVD shot the prisoners in Panevezys.

The Germans began to form units from the Lithuanians.

From the Lithuanian nationalist formations, 22 self-defense rifle battalions were created (numbers from 1 to 15 from 251 to 257), the so-called. "schutzmanschaftbattalions" or "Shum", each numbering 500-600 people.

The total number of servicemen of these formations reached 13 thousand, of which 250 were officers. In the Kaunas region, all Lithuanian police groups of Klimaitis were united in the Kaunas battalion, consisting of 7 companies.

In the summer of 1944, on the initiative of two Lithuanian officers, Yatulis and Chesna, the "Fatherland Defense Army" (Tevynes Apsaugos Rinktine) was formed from the remnants of the Lithuanian battalions of the Wehrmacht, commanded by a German, a Wehrmacht colonel and holder of the Knight's Cross with diamonds Georg Mader.
Lithuanian policemen (noise) were also gathered there, "noted" in Vilna, where they destroyed Lithuanian Jews, Poles and Russians in Ponary, who burned villages in Belarus, Ukraine and Russia. The President of modern Lithuania V. Adamkus also served in this unit.

SS Standartenführer Jäger reported in his report of December 1, 1941: "Since July 2, 1941, 99,804 Jews and communists have been exterminated by Lithuanian partisans and Einsatzgruppe A operations teams..."

Lithuanian police in ambush.

The Lithuanian Schutzmannschaft was armed with captured Soviet small arms. The uniform was a mixture of elements of the Lithuanian army and German police uniforms.
Wehrmacht uniforms were also present. As in other national units, a sleeve yellow-green-red patch with a combination of the colors of the national flag of Lithuania was used. Sometimes the shield had the inscription "Lietuva" in its upper part.

Lithuanian battalions took part in punitive actions on the territory of Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine, in the executions of Jews in Upper Paneriai, in executions in the IX Kaunas fort, where 80 thousand Jews died at the hands of the Gestapo and their helpers, in the VI fort (35 thousand victims), in VII forte (8 thousand victims).
During the first pogrom in Kaunas, on the night of June 26, Lithuanian nationalists (a detachment led by Klimaitis) killed more than 1,500 Jews.

The 2nd Lithuanian battalion "Noises" under the command of Major Antanas Impulevicius was organized in 1941 in Kaunas and was stationed in its suburb - Shentsy.
On October 6, 1941, at 5 o'clock in the morning, a battalion consisting of 23 officers and 464 privates left Kaunas for Belarus in the region of Minsk, Borisov and Slutsk to fight Soviet partisans. Upon arrival in Minsk, the battalion came under the command of the 11th police reserve battalion, Major Lechtgaller.
In Minsk, the battalion killed about nine thousand Soviet prisoners of war, in Slutsk five thousand Jews. In March 1942, the battalion left for Poland and its personnel were used as guards at the Majdanek concentration camp.
In July 1942, the 2nd Lithuanian security battalion took part in the deportation of Jews from the Warsaw ghetto to the death camps.

Lithuanian policemen from the 2nd Schuma Battalion lead Belarusian partisans to be executed. Minsk, October 26, 1941

In August-October 1942, Lithuanian battalions were located on the territory of Ukraine: the 3rd - in Molodechno, the 4th - in Stalin, the 7th - in Vinnitsa, the 11th - in Korosten, the 16th - in Dnepropetrovsk, 254- th - in Poltava, and the 255th - in Mogilev (Belarus).
In February-March 1943, the 2nd Lithuanian battalion participated in the large anti-partisan action "Winter Magic" in Belarus, interacting with several Latvian and 50th Ukrainian Schutzmannschaftbattalions.
In addition to the destruction of villages suspected of supporting partisans, Jews were executed. The 3rd Lithuanian battalion took part in the anti-partisan operation "Swamp Fever "South-West", carried out in the Baranovichi, Berezovsky, Ivatsevichi, Slonim and Lyakhovichi regions in close cooperation with the 24th Latvian battalion.

Soldiers of the 13th Lithuanian battalion, which was stationed in the Leningrad region.

Soldiers of the 256th Lithuanian battalion near Lake Ilmen.

On November 26, 1942, by order of the USSR State Defense Committee, the Lithuanian headquarters of the partisan movement was created, headed by Antanas Sniečkus ((Antanas Sniečkus).

Partisans of the "Death to the invaders" detachment Sara Ginaite-Rubinson (1924) and Ida Vilenchuk (Pilovnik) (1924)
The partisan detachment "Death to the invaders" took part in the liberation of Vilnius, operating in the southeastern part of the city.

By April 1, 1943, 29 Soviet partisan detachments with a total of 199 people were operating on the territory of the general district "Lithuania" (Generalkommissariat Litauen). The personnel of the detachments consisted almost entirely of Jews who fled to the forests (primarily to Rudnitskaya Pushcha) from ghettos and concentration camps.
Among the commanders of the Jewish partisan detachments, Heinrich Osherovich Zimanas and Abba Kovner stood out for their activity. By the summer of 1944, there were up to 700 people in Jewish partisan detachments.

Abba Kovner

Partisan Patrol. Vilnius, 1944

On December 18, 1941, at the request of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (b) of Lithuania and the government of the Lithuanian SSR, the USSR State Defense Committee decided to begin the formation of the 16th Lithuanian Rifle Division (16-oji Lietuviškoji šaulių divizija).
By January 1, 1943, the 16th Lithuanian Rifle Division consisted of 10,250 soldiers and officers (Lithuanians - 36.3%, Russians - 29%, Jews - 29%). On February 21, 1943, the 16th Lithuanian Rifle Division first entered the battle near Alekseevka, 50 km from the city of Orel. Her attacks were not successful, the division suffered heavy losses and was withdrawn to the rear on March 22.

Machine gunner of the 16th Lithuanian Rifle Division E. Sergeevaite in the battle near Nevel. 1943

From July 5 to August 11, 1943, the 16th Lithuanian Rifle Division took part in the defensive and then offensive battles of the Battle of Kursk, where it suffered heavy losses (4,000 killed and wounded) and was withdrawn to the rear.
In November 1943, the 16th Lithuanian Rifle Division, despite heavy losses (3,000 killed and wounded), repulsed the German offensive south of Nevel.

Red Army soldiers from the 16th Lithuanian division, July 1944.

In December 1943, the division, as part of the 1st Baltic Front, participated in the liberation of the city of Gorodok. In the spring of 1944, the 16th Lithuanian Rifle Division fought in Belarus, near Polotsk. On July 13, 1944, Soviet troops, including a Lithuanian division, liberated Vilnius.

Maxim's calculation crosses Vilnius street.

German soldiers surrender in Vilnius.

In August 1944, conscription into the Red Army began from the territory of Lithuania. In total, in August 1944 - April 1945, 108,378 people were called up.
In this regard, the number of Lithuanians in the 16th Lithuanian Rifle Division increased from 32.2% on July 1, 1944 to 68.4% as of April 27, 1945. In September - October 1944, the 16th Lithuanian Rifle Division the division distinguished itself in the battles near Klaipeda, for which in January 1945 it received the name "Klaipeda".

Antanas Snechkus (left), 1st Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (b) of Lithuania, among the fighters of the 16th Lithuanian Rifle Division. Klaipeda, January 28, 1945

Felix Rafailovich Baltushis-Zhemaitis Major General, Brigadier General of the Lithuanian People's Army, teacher of the Military Academy. Frunze and the Academy of the General Staff, candidate of military sciences, associate professor, in 1945-47. head of advanced training courses for senior officers of the Soviet Army.

Lieutenant General Lithuanian Vincas Vitkauskas.

"Forest brothers" appeared in Lithuania, or as the locals simply called them "forest brothers".

Until 1947, the Lithuanian Freedom Army was actually a regular army - with a headquarters and a single command. Numerous units of this army in 1944-1947. often entered into open and trench battles, using the fortified areas created by her in the forests, with regular units of the Red Army, the NKVD and the MGB.
According to archival data, in total, about 100 thousand people participated in Lithuanian partisan resistance to the Soviet system during the years of the post-war partisan war in 1944-1969.

According to Soviet data, the "forest brothers" in Lithuania killed more than 25 thousand people. They were mostly Lithuanians who were killed for cooperation (real or imaginary) with the Soviet authorities, along with their families, relatives, sometimes with young children. According to Mindaugas Pocius, "If the communists demonized the partisans, today they can be said to be angelized."

A significant blow to the underground was dealt in 1949 as a result of a particularly massive deportation of the so-called. fists. Then the social basis was knocked out from under the partisan movement. After this point in 1949, it declines.

The killed "forest brothers" were photographed with weapons for presentation to the judicial authorities. 1945

The 1955 amnesty put an actual end to the mass resistance, but individual Lithuanian partisan detachments held out until 1960, and individual armed partisans - until 1969, when the last known Lithuanian partisan Kostas Luberskis-Žvainis (1913-1969) died in battle with a KGB special group. ).
Another legendary partisan Stasis Guyga is "Tarzanas" (a fighter of the Grigonis-Pabarzhis detachment, the Tiger squad, Vytautas district). He died of illness in 1986, in the village of Chinchikay, Shvenchensky district, near Onute Chinchikaite. In total, he spent 33 years in the partisan underground, from 1952 to 1952.

Badges, emblems and chevrons of the Lithuanian Liberation Army.

And Lithuania followed the path of socialism.

Soviet Lithuania. Klaipeda and Neringa. Soviet color photos: http://www.kettik.kz/?p=16520

Latvia and Lithuania: from the Soviet "abroad" to the backyard of the European Union: http://ria.ru/analytics/20110112/320694370.html

Conducted by the Soviet leadership and local communists in 1940 - 1941. in Lithuania, socio-economic reforms, accompanied by mass repressions by the state security agencies of the USSR and persecution of Catholicism, caused a sharp rejection of a significant part of the population of the republic. The invasion of the German army into the USSR was regarded by him as an act of national liberation. At the same time, unlike the Latvians and Estonians, the Lithuanians were not considered perfect allies by the German Nazis. Their cultural and historical closeness to the Poles and devout Catholicism (i.e., loyalty to the Throne of Rome) became a condition for the German authorities to introduce a tougher occupation regime in Lithuania than in Estonia and Latvia. Thus, Germany did not set itself the task of restoring the Lithuanian state sovereignty, which determined the entire algorithm of actions of the occupying authorities. In turn, the Lithuanian public did not try to counteract this by force of arms, considering the Soviet Union as its main enemy.

On June 22, 1941, in the 29th Lithuanian Territorial Rifle Corps of the Red Army, the killings of commanders (not Lithuanians) and mass desertion began: out of 16,000, 2,000 retreated with units of the Red Army. An uprising began throughout Lithuania, led by members of the Front of Lithuanian Activists ( Lietuvos Aktyvistų Frontas). The rebels (about 100,000 people), who formed "self-defense units", took control of railways, bridges, communication centers, food and equipment depots, and also occupied the settlements left by the Soviet troops. The population of Lithuanian towns and villages greeted the German troops as liberators.

Lithuanian peasant women joyfully greet German soldiers. June 1941

Juozas Ambrazevicius

Stasys Zhakevicius

Kazys Shkirpa

On June 23, the armed formations of the Front of Lithuanian Activists, having started fighting with the retreating units of the Red Army, occupied Vilnius and announced on the Kaunas radio the creation of the Provisional Government of Lithuania ( Lietuvos laikinoji Vyriausybė). Juozas Ambrazevičius, professor of philology at Kaunas University, became the prime minister of the new government. Juozas Ambrazevicius-brazaitis). Parallel power structures arose on the ground - the administrations of the Provisional Government of Lithuania and the German military commandant's offices.

The powers of the Provisional Government of Lithuania did not extend to the Vilna region. In Vilnius, an independent Civil Committee of the Vilnius County and City was formed ( Vilniaus miesto ir srities piliečių komitetas) headed by professor of law at Vilnius University Stasis Žakevičius ( StasysZakevicius).

On the same day, Lithuanian rebels, led by a member of the Lithuanian Activists Front, journalist Algirdas Klimaitis ( Algirdas Klimaitis), staged a three-day Jewish pogrom in Kaunas, which killed 4,000 people.

On June 25, in Berlin, the Gestapo arrested the head of the Front of Lithuanian Activists, created in Germany in October 1940, the former Lithuanian ambassador to Germany, Kazys Shkirpa ( Kazys Skirpa). Until 1944 he was under house arrest.

Archbishop of the Roman Catholic Church in Lithuania Joseph Skvirekas

On June 26, Soviet troops left Panevezys and on the same day were forced out by German troops from the territory of Lithuania. In battles with units of the Red Army, the Lithuanian rebels lost about 4,000 people killed.

June 29 The Provisional Government of Lithuania decides to create Jewish ghettos in Lithuanian cities.

On the same day in Kaunas, the Archbishop of the Roman Catholic Church in Lithuania, Joseph Skvirekas ( JuozapasSkvireckas) declared full support for Germany's struggle against Bolshevism. The German authorities declared their desire to cooperate with the Roman Catholic Church in Lithuania.

On the same day, the Civil Committee of the Vilnius County also issued a decree on the establishment of a Jewish ghetto in Vilnius.

Jews arrested by Lithuanian rebels. Summer 1941

Since July 1941, mass executions of Lithuanian Jews began in construction pits near the village of Ponary. In total, by the summer of 1943, about 100,000 people (Jews, Poles, Soviet prisoners of war) were killed here.

On July 2, 1941, the Provisional Government of Lithuania annulled all legal acts adopted since June 15, 1940, and announced that all re-established institutions and services must operate on the basis of the laws of the Republic of Lithuania adopted before June 15, 1940.

Metropolitan Sergius of Vilna and Lithuania

Petras Babickas

On July 4, Metropolitan Sergius of Vilna and Lithuania received permission from the German authorities for the activities of parishes of the Russian Orthodox Church in Lithuania, which were given back all the rights canceled in the summer of 1940 when Lithuania joined the USSR.

On the same day, the archbishop of the Catholic Church in Lithuania, Joseph Skvyrekas, addressed the Lithuanians on the radio with an appeal to support Germany in its struggle against the Bolsheviks.

July 9, 1941 in Kaunas, in the building of the Military Museum of Vytautas the Great, on the initiative of the famous Lithuanian poet and publicist Petras Babickas ( Petras Babickas) was organized by the Museum of the Red Terror, which contained 160,000 exhibits (mainly documents, photographs, etc.).

On July 23, a military coup took place in the structures of Lithuanian self-government, as a result of which power was seized in them by the underground nationalist organization "Iron Wolf" ( Gelezinis vilkas) led by former Lithuanian Air Force Major Jonas Piragius ( JonasPyragius). Democratic figures in the administration and the police were pushed aside by radical Lithuanian nationalists.

Ionas Piragus

Theodor Adrian von Renteln

Petras Kubiliunas

On July 28, the German military commandant's offices in Lithuania transferred their powers to the German civil occupation administration.

On the same day, theological faculties were restored at Lithuanian universities.

On the same day, Lithuania was included in the Reichskommissariat "Ostland" ( Reichskommissariat Ostland) as the General District "Lithuania" ( Generalkommissariat Litauen). The general district "Lithuania" was headed by a Ph.D. and former head of the section of trade and crafts of the German Labor Front ( Deutsche Arbeitsfront) of the German Ministry for Eastern Territories Commissioner General Theodor Adrian von Renteln ( Theodor Adrian vonRenteln). His residence was located in Kaunas.

The Lithuanian administration of the general district "Lithuania" was headed by the former lieutenant general of the Lithuanian army Petras Kubilyunas ( Petras Kubiliunas).

On July 30, the Civil Committee of the Vilnius County and the city issued a regulation stating that laws adopted before June 15, 1940, “if they do not contradict the wartime order,” are in force on the territory of the county.

On August 5, 1941, the Provisional Government of Lithuania was dissolved by the German occupation authorities. The laws issued by him were annulled - in particular, his acts abolishing the nationalization of land, as well as dissolving collective farms and state farms, were not recognized. Lithuanian state flags were removed from city streets.

On August 13, the German authorities in Lithuania established the Jewish police, which was obliged to maintain law and order on the territory of the Jewish ghettos. Ordinary policemen were armed with rubber sticks, and officers with pistols and hand grenades.

Jewish and Lithuanian police at the entrance to the Vilnius ghetto.

On September 3, 1941, the German occupation authorities dissolved the Civil Committee of Vilnius County.

On September 25, the Archbishop of the Catholic Church in Lithuania, Joseph Skvyrekas, met with General Commissioner Theodor Adrian von Renteln. At this meeting, the parties agreed on cooperation in the fight against Bolshevism.

In October 1941, former members of the Lithuanian Provisional Government formed the underground organization Lithuanian Front ( Lietuvių frontas), which set as its goal the restoration of Lithuanian statehood, without resorting to armed struggle against Germany. The Front included 10,000 people. The former Prime Minister of the Provisional Government of Lithuania, Juozas Ambrazevicius, became the head of the organization. 6,000 former officers of the Lithuanian army joined the paramilitary detachments of the Kyastus.

By October 29, 1941, 71,105 Jews were exterminated in Lithuania, of which 18,223 were shot in the forts of the Kaunas fortress alone.

On November 19, 1941, the German occupation authorities left only the medical, veterinary, agronomic, forestry and technical faculties in the higher educational institutions of Lithuania.

In November 1941, the German occupation authorities formed an Honorary Committee ( Garbės komitetas), which included rectors of Lithuanian universities, famous cultural figures, heads of the Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox communities of Lithuania. The committee performed consultative and advisory functions under the German administration.

In November 1941, the Lithuanian self-defense units were reorganized by the German occupation authorities into the Lithuanian auxiliary police. In total, by 1944, 22 Lithuanian police battalions were formed with a total number of 8,000 people. In addition to Lithuania, these battalions carried out security service and participated in anti-partisan and punitive actions in the Leningrad region, Belarus, Ukraine, Poland, Italy, France and Yugoslavia, and were also used by the German command in various sectors of the Eastern Front. In total, in 1941 - 1944. 20,000 people served in various Lithuanian police formations.

Lithuanian police in Vilnius. 1941

On December 17, 1941, under the leadership of the Lithuanian Front, the underground Lithuanian Liberation Army was created ( Lietuvos laisves armija), which did not take active actions against the German authorities and the Wehrmacht, but set as its task the strengthening of its organization and the accumulation of forces for the further struggle for the independence of Lithuania.

On January 26, 1942, the Red Terror Museum organized thematic exhibitions in various cities of Lithuania. Until October of that year, 500,000 people visited them.

In total, by the end of January 1942, as a result of mass executions, death from cold and hunger, 185,000 Jews died in Lithuania (80% of the victims of the Holocaust in Lithuania). The rest of the Jews were imprisoned in the ghetto. During this period, there were about 20,000 Jews in the Vilnius ghetto, 17,000 in Kaunas, 5,000 in Siauliai, and about 500 in Sventsyan.

In January - July 1942, 16,300 German colonists arrived in Lithuania under the German resettlement program. In total, by 1944, about 30,000 people had moved from Germany and the Netherlands to Lithuanian territory.

On March 5, 1942, with the permission of the German authorities, the Central Old Believer Council, which was dissolved by the government of the Lithuanian SSR in August 1940, was restored. Boris Stepanovich Leonov became the head of the Council.

On March 7, the German authorities allowed the formation of Lithuanian self-government bodies, which performed the functions of local administration, law enforcement, management of educational and healthcare institutions, as well as criminal justice and the organization of the supply of German troops. Lithuanian courts had no right to examine criminal cases concerning the Germans and resolve issues under the articles of the Criminal Code, where the punishment would exceed six years in prison.

On April 1, 1942, the German authorities annexed two regions of Belarus populated mainly by Lithuanians to the general district "Lithuania".

On April 18, the Commissariat of the General District "Lithuania" subordinated the activities of the Lithuanian police to local authorities of Lithuanian self-government.

In May 1942, in Panevezys, the Lithuanian police arrested an underground group of Lithuanian communists (48 people). All members of the group were shot.

Lithuanian police on the Eastern Front. 1942

On May 6, 1942, the Commissariat of the General District "Lithuania" forbade the German civil authorities to interfere in the affairs of the Lithuanian police.

On May 27, a census of the population of the general district "Lithuania" was carried out, according to which 2.9 million people lived in it (Lithuanians - 81.1%, Poles - 12.1%, Russians - 3.0%, Belarusians - 2.9 %). Lithuanian Jews, who at that time numbered about 40,000 in the ghetto, were not included in this census.

On November 26, 1942, by order of the USSR State Defense Committee, the Lithuanian headquarters of the partisan movement was created, headed by Antanas Snechkus. By the summer of 1944, about 10,000 Soviet partisans and underground fighters were operating in Lithuania.

In January 1943, the German authorities, represented by the head of the SS and police of Lithuania, Brigadeführer Lucian Vysotsky ( Lucian Wysocki) made an attempt to organize a legion of the SS from Lithuanian volunteers. However, this event ended in failure. In response, the German authorities closed most of the higher educational institutions and made arrests among the Lithuanian intelligentsia, which was made responsible for the disruption of mobilization measures and anti-German propaganda among the youth.

In the same month, all Jews in the Sventsyan ghetto were exterminated.

On January 28, with the permission of the German authorities, the Central Old Believer Council was reorganized into the Supreme Old Believer Council of the General District "Lithuania" headed by Boris Arsenievich Pimenov.

On January 30, the Commissariat of the General District "Lithuania" forbade the Lithuanian police to take any action against the German military.

On February 18, 1943, the German occupation authorities decided to return to their owners in Lithuania all the goods confiscated by the Soviet government in 1940-1941. private property.

On the night of March 16-17, 1943, due to the unwillingness of Lithuanian youth to join the SS troops, the German occupation authorities closed Kaunas and Vilnius universities, which at that time had 2,750 students. Among the 48 prominent figures of culture and science of Lithuania, the Gestapo arrested several university teachers.

By April 1, 1943, 29 Soviet partisan detachments with a total of 199 people were operating on the territory of the general district "Lithuania". The personnel of the detachments consisted almost entirely of Jews who fled to the forests from the ghetto.

On June 23, 1943, the Kaunas and Siauliai ghettos of Lithuania were transformed into concentration camps.

In July 1943, in connection with the failure of the mobilization campaign in Lithuania, the German occupation authorities banned the activities of all political parties in it.

On September 8, 1943, Metropolitan Sergius of Vilna and Lithuania was excommunicated for cooperation with the German authorities by the decision of the Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church in Moscow.

On September 23, 1943, the vast majority of the inhabitants of the Vilnius ghetto were sent to labor camps in Latvia and Estonia, and the elderly and children to Auschwitz.

On November 25, 1943, the Central Committee for the Liberation of Lithuania was formed ( Vyriausiasis Lietuvos išlaisvinimo komitetas), which united nationalists, Christian Democrats and Social Democrats and acted as an underground government of Lithuania, oriented towards Great Britain and the United States. The Committee was headed by Professor Stefanas Kairis ( Steponas Kairis). The goal of the Central Committee for the Liberation of Lithuania was to restore Lithuanian statehood with the help of the United States and Great Britain after the war.

In February 1944, the Lithuanian self-government bodies, with the support of the Lithuanian Front, formed the Local Squad of Lithuania ( Lietuvos Vietinė rinktinė), which received the status of an ally of the Wehrmacht. It was headed by the Lithuanian General Povilas Plechavicius ( Povilas Plechavicius). 12,000 people were selected for the corps of 30,000 Lithuanian volunteers. The goal of the Lithuanian Local Guard was to protect Lithuanian independence from the Red Army and the Polish Home Army.

Lithuanian volunteers sign up for the Lithuanian Local Squad. March 1944

On March 1, 1944, general mobilization into the Wehrmacht was announced in Lithuania. Construction units were formed from Lithuanians ( Litauische Bau-Abteilungen), which included 3,000 people.

From March 15 to September 20, 1944, 1012 Lithuanian youths were called up to the auxiliary services of the German Air Force.

In April 1944, units of the Lithuanian Local Squad took part in the battles against the Polish partisans of the Home Army, during which 21 people were killed and 60 wounded.

On April 28, Metropolitan Sergius of Vilna and Lithuania was killed by unknown persons near Vilnius. According to one version, the killers were employees of the Gestapo, according to another - Soviet partisans.

In May 1944, the Lithuanian local squad was disbanded by the Wehrmacht command due to the alleged unreliability of its personnel. About 100 soldiers and officers of the Druzhina were shot and another 110 were sent to the Stutthof concentration camp. General Povilas Plechavicius was sent to Latvia, to the Kurtenhof concentration camp near Salaspils, but then released and evacuated to Germany. From some parts of the corps, two regiments were formed, which entered the Fatherland Defense Army ( Tevynes Apsaugos Rinktine) under the command of Wehrmacht Colonel Helmut Meder ( Hellmuth Mader).

In June 1944, the Gestapo carried out a series of arrests of members of the Central Committee for the Liberation of Lithuania. Part of the leadership of the Committee moved to Germany and Finland. Nevertheless, the main structures of the organization remained in Lithuania, which began to prepare in advance for a guerrilla war against Soviet power.

On October 7, 1944, Soviet troops in a battle near the village of Papile defeated the Fatherland Defense Army, the surviving soldiers and officers of which partly retreated with the Wehrmacht to East Prussia, partly joined the detachments of the "forest brothers" ( misko broliai), continuing the armed struggle with the Red Army on the territory of Lithuania. The Lithuanians who retreated to East Prussia were enrolled in the German army and, along with other European volunteers, took part in the defense of Berlin. Three more Lithuanian police battalions were blockaded by Soviet troops in Courland and, together with German troops, offered armed resistance until May 1945.

By October 22, the Red Army completely liberated the territory of the Lithuanian SSR from German troops.

During the period of German occupation 1941-1944. more than 370,000 local residents (of which 220,000 Jews) and 229,000 Soviet prisoners of war died in Lithuania; about 160,000 people were taken to work in Germany.

Nazi occupation in Lithuania. Vilnius, 1966.
Stankeras P. Lithuanian Police Battalions 1941 - 1945 M., 2009.
Lithuanian tragedy. M., 2006.

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6.10. Behind the right flank. The actions of the troops of the 11th army. The capture of Kaunas and Vilna by the enemy. Breakthrough of Manstein's motorized corps at the junction of the 11th and 8th armies. Exit of the 57th motorized corps of the enemy to the Lida direction. The advancement of the reserves of the Western Front to the area of ​​the city of Lida

In the strip of the 11th Army of the Baltic Military District (North-Western Front), the army corps of the 9th and 16th field armies and parts of the G. Goth tank group continued to develop success. The divisions of the 1st line of the army retreated to the Neman and partially crossed to the eastern bank: the 5th division - west of Kaunas, the 126th division - to Prienai. In Kaunas, despite the transfer of the capital to Vilnius, the Supreme Council and the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Lithuania continued to remain. On June 22, the poetess Salome Neris spoke at the Writers' Union with a call to arm and defend the city. The communists received old German rifles from the arsenal, but at 20:00, commander V.I. Morozov told the 1st secretary of the Central Committee Snechkus: Kaunas must be left. A.Yu. Snechkus proposed blowing up the radio center and military warehouses, but the NKVD representative replied that there were no explosives or people. Chairman of the Supreme Council Yu.I. Paleckis barely managed to arrange Salome and her son Saulius on the train in Rezekne. Shortly after leaving the city, the radio center was captured by the rebels, and the well-known political and public figure Liaonas Prapuolenis addressed the people with a call for an uprising. On the morning of June 23, organized anti-Soviet actions of armed underground formations began in Kaunas, Siauliai and other cities of Lithuania (Izvestia of the Central Committee of the CPSU, 1990, No. 10, p. 136).

As N. Pozdnyakov, temporary charge d'affaires of the USSR in Lithuania, recalled, on the morning of June 23, the column of the Central Committee of the CPL and the Supreme Council was already in Utenai. As in Ukmergė, the new stopping point was not guarded in any way. At about eight o'clock the city center, where the county committee of the party was located and those who arrived from Kaunas were located, was fired upon by enemy fighters. Then the column headed towards Zarasai, the last Lithuanian city before the Lithuanian-Latvian border; Having crossed the Western Dvina in Dvinsk, the leadership of Lithuania became a kind of "government in exile".

On June 23 in Kaunas, the self-proclaimed Provisional Government of Lithuania from the captured radio center announced the restoration of state independence. The 188th Rifle Division retreated northeast of Kaunas in the direction of Jonava; On the streets of Kaunas, heavy battles began between units of the 5th and 33rd divisions of the 16th corps with enemy troops and detachments of Lithuanian collaborators. With the outbreak of hostilities, the paramilitary organizations that had previously been underground, which had not been discovered before the war by the state security agencies of the republic, openly opposed the units of the Red Army. According to the KGB of the USSR, in Lithuania in 1940-1941. there were the following rebel organizations: FLA (“Front of Lithuanian Activists”), “Shaulu Sayunga” (Union of Riflemen), “Penkton Column” (5th column), “Shaulu Myrties Battalas” (Arrows of the Death Battalion), “Iron Wolf”. This is how the leaders of the FLA described their “exploits” in their “Memorandum on the situation in Lithuania of German civil power” dated September 15, 1941: “After the start of the war, the FLA, together with the remnants of the Lithuanian army, began an uprising, completed a number of tasks, agreed with the German military command(highlighted by me. - D.E.). About 100 thousand partisans participated in the uprising. The number of Lithuanian youth who died in the fight against the Bolsheviks exceeds 4,000 people” (VIZH, 1994, No. 5, p. 48). Among the signatories of the Memorandum is Division General S.I. Pundzyavichus, the first commander of the 179th Infantry Division of the 29th Corps, the former Chief of the General Staff of the Lithuanian Army. It is noteworthy that this document was drawn up by the “Flasians” (it seems that it turned out to be a good word) due to the fact that the German authorities did not treat Lithuania as an ally in the common struggle, but considered it just a part of the occupied territory of the USSR and were not at all going to give the Lithuanians the opportunity restoration of statehood. Reichsleiter A. Rosenberg wrote in his letter to Reichskommissar H. Loose dated July 11: “The creation of the Baltic states is unacceptable - which, however, should not be declared publicly ... As for cultural life, it is necessary to stop attempts to create our own Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian universities and higher education institutions” (Izv. TsK… No. 10, p. 135). Moreover, according to the so-called. "racial theory" the Lithuanian people were not Aryan and, therefore, could not count on the favor of Berlin. The well-known expert on “racial issues”, Dr. Erhard Wetzel, noted: “Most of the population is not suitable for Germanization ... Racially undesirable parts of the population should be deported to Western Siberia. Checking the racial composition of the population should not be portrayed as racial selection, but disguised as a hygienic examination or something like that, so as not to cause concern among the population ”(ibid., p. 137). Well, at least to Siberia, and not to Treblinka. On August 5, 1941, the occupation authorities dissolved the Provisional Government. The humanly understandable resentment of the Lithuanians was so great that sabotage began. It ended with the fact that the Germans carried out mass arrests of the Lithuanian intelligentsia, including the Catholic clergy, and all those who disagreed with the policy of the occupying authorities (up to 80 thousand people, 5 times more than the NKVD-NKGB arrested) were sent to concentration camps outside republics. Lithuania was the only one of the Soviet Baltic republics in which not a single national part of the SS troops was formed, which cannot be said about Latvia and Estonia.

During the fighting on June 23, German troops again broke through the defenses in the zone of the 11th Army and on the left flank of the 8th Army, the mechanized units of the enemy reached the line of the Minija River, Rietavas, Skaudvile, Raseiniai, Kaunas by the end of the day. The reconnaissance group on tanks, sent by the commander of the 84th motorized division, established that columns of tanks and vehicles with enemy motorized infantry were advancing north of Kaunas, from Yurburg (Jurbarkas), through the viaduct in Aregal in the direction of Jonava. These were units of the 56th Motorized Corps of the 4th Panzer Group GA "North" under the command of Erich von Manstein. In addition to the actual army 8th tank, 3rd motorized and 290th infantry divisions, the elite motorized SS division Totenkopf (Dead Head) was subordinate to him. On the evening of June 23, the 84th MD left the occupied line and headed for Jonava in several columns. On the march, the 41st Motorized Regiment of Major Ivanovsky was subjected to artillery fire and suffered serious losses.

On June 23, the 224th engineer battalion of the 119th division of the Siberian Military District, which was at the construction of fortifications, withdrew from the border and was subordinated to the division commander. The 23rd SD, the 1st motorcycle regiment of the 3rd mechanized corps and other Soviet units fought hard for the crossings on the Neman and for Kaunas. The 1st battalion of the 89th SP destroyed several hundred enemy soldiers; The 106th PTO division disabled eight tanks, four armored personnel carriers and destroyed up to a company of enemy soldiers. In the afternoon, the 56th MK of the enemy went to the Ukmerge region, and the divisions of the 2nd Army Corps entered into battle crossed the Neman and captured Kaunas. The 23rd division withdrew to the line of Kashyanai, Safarka, having the task of preventing the Germans from breaking through to the city of Ionava.

Subdivisions of the 14th Air Defense Brigade, which was in the process of being formed, also took part in the fleeting battles for Kaunas (commander - Colonel P.M. Barsky, chief of staff - Major A.F. Osipenko). On the morning of June 22, 1941, the brigade was alerted, its batteries, which had materiel, took up battle order to cover the city; during the day, anti-aircraft gunners shot down seven enemy aircraft. On June 23, Commander-11 V.I. Morozov orally conveyed: air defense units to remain in place until the last moment and be ready to repel enemy tank attacks. By noon in June, some batteries came under rifle and machine-gun fire; wired communication with units located on the left bank of the river was broken. Neman and on the right bank of the river. Viliya. Shortly thereafter, the 2nd, 4th and 6th batteries of the 743rd Anti-Aircraft Artillery Regiment (regiment commander Major I.S. Alinnikov), who occupied positions on the left bank of the Neman, were attacked by enemy infantry with the support of tanks. There were no means of traction on the batteries, moreover, in the afternoon the bridge across the Neman was blown up, so they could not retreat and fought until last chance. After they were surrounded by enemy tanks and infantry, the cannons and remaining ammunition were blown up; the personnel, having suffered heavy losses, fought their way out of the encirclement and swam across to the right bank of the Neman.

In the very south of Lithuania, pushing the 5th Panzer Division away from Alytus, the 39th Motorized Corps moved even further into the depths of Soviet territory, trying to reach the Molodechno region. At the junction of the North-Western and Western fronts, a gap was formed about 130 km wide. Almost unhindered crossing the Neman in Merkin (the bridge across the river was guarded by the garrison of the 7th company of the 84th railway regiment of the NKVD numbering 21 people, including the head of the garrison, junior lieutenant G.K. Pasechnik), parts of the 57th motorized corps entered the territory of Belarus to the north lanes of advance of the 8th Army Corps of the 9th Army. The commander of the 2nd company of the 84th Railway Regiment reported: “The Spangle garrison of 357 km of type 1 gave the last report at 11.20 on 23.6.41 that the Merkis garrison was destroyed, with the exception of one kr-tsa, which retreats with its garrison of 357 km in the direction of Lentvaris from parts of the Red Army. Thus, from the Merkys Garage 350 km on 23.6.41, 2 kr-tsa remained alive. One is now with the company headquarters, and the second is still unknown [where].” Units of the 21st Rifle Corps, the 24th and 50th Rifle Divisions and the 8th Anti-tank Brigade continued to move towards the 57th MK. It was a fatal mistake. Instead of organizing front-line defense reserves in the Minsk and Molodechno directions, the front command advanced a significant part of them to the Volkovysk and Lida areas.

By this decision on the 47th and 21st corps, taken by D.G. Pavlov, their fairly well-trained and well-knit divisions, as well as formations that were not part of them, were doomed to defeat in parts during unfavorable for them oncoming battles with enemy armored forces. The command of the Western and Northwestern fronts did not conduct air reconnaissance beyond the Alytus-Varena-Vilnius triangle at all and missed the breakthrough of the Wehrmacht motorized corps towards Lida and Molodechno, although on the morning of June 22, the tanks of the 57th corps were not only discovered, but also attacked by a long-range aviation.

Colonel G.G. Skripka recalled that on the evening of June 23, the commander of the 21st Corps, V.B. Borisov, arrived in the Lida region with the operational group of his headquarters. In pursuance of the last order received by the front command, he ordered the advancement of the 17th division in the direction of Radun (north-west of Lida), an important road junction where the roads to Grodno, Lida, Vilnius, Shchuchin converged. On the night of June 24, having left the temporary camp in the forest near Ivye, the 55th Infantry Regiment, in a forced march, reached the western outskirts of Lida by morning, and then turned to the northwest. To the right, along the Lida-Radun highway, two other rifle regiments of the division were to advance.

The political instructor of the regimental school of the 55th joint venture, A.Ya.Rogatin, recalled that trains with KV-2 and T-34 tanks, intended for the 11th mechanized corps, stood at the station. All tanks were filled with fuel, but there were no crews. The division commander, Major General T.K. Batsanov, ordered to find among the soldiers and junior command staff those who could take on the role of driver-mechanics, but only a few former tractor drivers were found. The tanks were lowered from the platforms, driven to the places chosen by the command and buried in the ground, turning them into fixed firing points; due to poor handling, several cars were overturned. At the same time, as can be seen from the published German photographs, many tanks remained at the station, including on the platforms. Meanwhile, some tankers of the 11th MK fought on light battle tanks, while others, whom the war found "horseless", moved on foot to the rear, but not to Lida, but to Minsk.

On the second day of the war, the commander of the 245th GAP of the 37th division, which unloaded at the Gavya station, Colonel Merkulov managed to establish contact with the headquarters of the formation. By order of the command, the personnel of the regiment began to transfer their 122-mm howitzers to the Gutno railway station, which is located east of Lida. The guns were horse-drawn, as a result of which the speed of movement was low. In general, the concentration of the corps was slow, with great difficulty due to the lack of 2 echelons of units, with a lack of ammunition, fuel, food and fodder.

K.N. Osipov recalled that on the morning of June 23, a car loaded with barrels of gasoline returned from Lida. The elder said that there was a complete mess in Lida. In warehouses they are waiting for instructions from their superiors on the release of military equipment, but there are no orders. So many cars accumulated near the warehouses that the head of the fuel and lubricants warehouse, seeing such a situation, under his own responsibility, without any waybills, began to release gasoline. The equipment was refueled, the division was put on alert. Then an order was received: together with the rifle regiment, to act to eliminate the airborne assault. At 9 o'clock the column moved in the direction of Lida. In the afternoon, reconnaissance discovered enemy paratroopers, the regiment turned into battle formation. But it turned out that the landing was somehow “wrong”, with tanks and armored vehicles (probably, this was exactly the case when the advance detachment of the German tank division was mistaken for paratroopers). Howitzer batteries opened fire, but in the course of the battle, the shooters quickly melted away their very meager supply of cartridges, and delivery was not organized. The battalions withdrew to the firing positions of the division, forming strongholds. The Germans attacked our defense three times under the cover of tanks, but each time they rolled back, leaving the dead and wounded. Eight tanks were knocked out. When it began to get dark, a new order was received: to retreat to Oshmyany.

At the end of the day, over parts of the 37th division, anti-aircraft gunners shot down a Luftwaffe reconnaissance aircraft, apparently a light one, since it was called a "dragonfly". The pilot landed at the location of the 68th ORB and was captured. They tried to interrogate him, but the German did not know Russian, and there were no German experts. M.T. Ermolaev recalled: “Yes, here again the rumble of vultures with crosses on their wings was heard. Not far from our positions, a fascist landing force was detected, which our neighbors-artillerymen helped us to liquidate. Before the morning of June 24, the landing force was destroyed. The surviving fascist warriors surrendered." Here, most likely, there were real paratroopers without heavy weapons.

6.11. 29th territorial. The result of the experiment on the "remake" of the Lithuanian army in the corps of the red army

As for the PribOVO troops themselves, there really were no forces in southern Lithuania that could not only stop, but at least delay for some time the advance of the enemy to the flank of their neighbor. General G. Got wrote in his memoirs: “Reports received during the day gave reason to believe that the Lithuanian army corps of the enemy, courageously defending on June 22, began to disintegrate. Separate groups, driven by German aircraft into the forests, in some places tried to attack our marching columns, but there was no longer a centralized control of these groups. From an analysis of the available sources, it absolutely does not follow that the 29th Corps could "courageously defend itself" at all. If the Germans came across captured, and not surrendered themselves, Lithuanians, then, most likely, only in the general mass of Soviet prisoners of war.

By the end of the day on June 22, the 184th TSD occupied a defensive line along the eastern bank of the Oranka River, the command and corps were in the forest near Cape Kamenka. At 19:00, the command of the division received an order, secret for the Lithuanians, to withdraw the unit to the territory of the USSR, to the Polotsk region; then it was decided to withdraw towards Vilnius.

A former soldier of the division recalled that on the morning of June 22, radio operators from a separate communications battalion picked up a radio transmission in Lithuanian from Germany; it was an appeal to the inhabitants of Lithuania and the Lithuanian soldiers. The appeal was immediately circulated among the Lithuanian servicemen. At about 1 pm on June 22, P.Pilvinis, a private of the 615th artillery regiment, and other Lithuanians heard an appeal from the Klaipeda radio station to the soldiers of the 29th corps, urging them to send weapons against Russian commissars and Soviet activists. At about 20:00 Lieutenant B. from the 297th Infantry Regiment, the regiment duty officer ordered to bring sniper soldiers and their equipment from the shooting range. A truck near the cemetery at Varena 1st was fired from a German machine gun, another machine gun fired from the direction of the cardboard factory, and guards from the 2nd Battalion of the 262nd Infantry Regiment fired from a heavy machine gun from a railway embankment. When the truck returned without bringing anyone, the political officers called the Lithuanians counter-revolutionaries. At about 11 p.m., an unknown major said that a message had been received that German troops had occupied Merkin and that they were 30 km from the Varena camp. On the night of June 23, a mutiny began in most parts of the 184th TSD: the Lithuanians cut off the lines of communication to the headquarters, obtained ammunition, and agreed on the organization of interaction. The headquarters could not get through to the units, the Lithuanian signalmen sent to repair the lines did not return. At 6 am on June 23, the order was given to retreat in the direction of Valkininkai.

The 1st battalion of the 297th regiment, without the 1st company, which did not obey the order and remained in the old place, left the camp, but on the way, Sergeant K. from the 616th artillery regiment shot the Soviet commanders, after which the battalion returned back. 2nd Battalion, retreating along the Mal. Poruchay, Yakanchay, Puodzhyai, ​​reached Valkininkai, where he rebelled and also destroyed the command staff of the Red Army. On the march, single fighters and commanders began to scatter from the battalion, in particular, Lieutenant V. Chivas. In the vicinity of the village of Yurgelenis and other places, there were battles between German troops and Soviet troops. The battalion stopped in the Dugnai forest; here the Lithuanians dug in and decided not to retreat further east. The initiators of the uprising were captain P.Pochebutas, lieutenants P.Aushyura, A.Lyauba, K.Zaronskis and others. At 23:20 on June 23, at the prearranged signal “Step March”, the rebels began to disarm political workers, their deputies, Red Army soldiers, Komsomol members and other activists loyal to the Soviet government. There was a short battle with the resisting Red Army. The commander of the battalion, Captain Tyapkin, political commissars Krasnov and Zakharov, deputy political commissar Garienis and Golshtein were killed. When the battalion met with the commander of the 616th artillery regiment, some Lithuanian soldier stabbed him with a bayonet and threw him off his horse, as the Soviet commander pulled his saber from its scabbard. Junior Lieutenant Uagintas shot the commissar with a pistol. They also killed the Red Army signalmen they met. On the way, political instructor Volkov from the 8th company of their regiment met, he was also killed. At half past one in the night of June 24, on the highway Rudishkes - Khazbievichi, 2 km northeast of Rudishkes, the 4th and 5th companies of the 297th joint venture joined the Germans. The 3rd battalion, having destroyed the authorized 3rd division, the Red Army soldiers and their commanders, retreated north of the Bobriskes-Valkininkai road.

It was possible to establish that from the Varena camps the main forces of the 184th TSD retreated to the northeast, but did not reach Vilnius. They gathered in the Valkininkai region and were surrounded by the Germans there. Here, her combat path actually ended: those divisions of the division that remained loyal fought their way out of the encirclement and moved to the east (some to Vilnius, some towards the Belarusian border - to Smorgon and Molodechno), but most of them surrendered without resistance. The soldiers and officers who surrendered, for the most part, joined various police and punitive units that were formed by the Nazis in the occupied territory. In particular, the 12th Lithuanian police battalion, commanded by the former major of the Lithuanian army Antanas Impulyavichus, left a gloomy glory. The blood trail of this battalion stretched across the Jewish ghettos in Lithuania and Belarus, there is evidence that the punishers "inherited" in Katyn, where. in addition to Polish officers, the Germans and their henchmen killed many Jews and non-Jews (Soviet prisoners of war and ordinary civilians). In 1962, in Kaunas, at an open trial in the case of the mass murder of Jews during the Second World War, 8 former punishers from the 12th battalion were sentenced to capital punishment (execution), but the battalion commander Major A. Impulyavichus, who had taken refuge in the United States , was not issued to the Soviet side (it was also not issued to the authorities of independent Lithuania). Sparsely, but in the Soviet-Russian sources there is not even this. However, having received several references from Lithuanian historians on the 184th division, after some time I remembered that there was still one publication on Lithuanian punishers somewhere. The Military Historical Journal (No. 2, 1990) published an excerpt from the book of the former employee of the Telsiai district department of the NKGB of Lithuania, later an entrepreneur from Israel, I. Damba "In a bloody whirlwind." Yekhil Damba sent his documentary novel, dedicated to the Holocaust of the Jewish population in Lithuania and Belarus, to the editors, in fact, for review, because he wanted to make adjustments to it, as he was afraid that some episodes could be used for anti-Soviet propaganda. VIZH gave the novel an exceptionally high rating, comparing it with the famous work "In August 44th". But, most importantly, the above excerpt from the book was dedicated to just one of the "actions" of the same 12th police battalion, so to speak, on the road, in the Belarusian town of Slutsk. The German Commissar of Slutsk in his letter (with the stamp "Secret") to the General Commissar of Minsk dated October 30, 1941 describes in detail the atrocities committed by the Lithuanians in Slutsk, destroying its entire Jewish community in two days and plundering their property. Then, at the same time, the Belarusians also got it. The commissioner writes: “Many Belarusians who trusted us are very alarmed after this Jewish action. They are so frightened that they do not dare to openly express their thoughts, but voices are already being heard that this day did not bring honor to Germany and it will not be forgotten ... On the night of Tuesday to Wednesday, this battalion left the city. They left in the direction of Baranovichi. The people of Slutsk are very happy with this news.” And in the end: "I ask you to fulfill only one of my desires: in the future to protect me from this police battalion." So, no more, no less: I ask you to protect.

During the passage of Vilnius, the retreating columns were fired upon by teams of Lithuanian soldiers guarding the winter quarters of the 179th division and the 615th corps artillery regiment. The 615th KAP, in clashes with the rebels, lost up to 200 personnel and almost all materiel (31 guns and 32 tractors) while passing through the city. In total, no more than 2,000 Lithuanians entered the territory of Belarus from the 29th TSK (18,000 people), although in general, the Lithuanian citizens who left together with the retreating Red Army were enough to form a full-fledged rifle division from them in 1942, number 16 .

After the 184th showed its complete unsuitability, the command of the 11th army did not dare to throw the 179th territorial rifle division into battle (commander - Colonel A.I. Ustinov). Until the spring of 1941, it was also commanded by the Lithuanian Major General Albinas Chepas, but he was also replaced. As the former detective of the Special Department of the NKVD for the 234th Infantry Regiment, Colonel E.Ya. Yatsovskis, recalled, on the night of June 23, the division was in the Pabrade area, 50 km northeast of Vilnius. Its 618th Light Artillery Regiment, whose personnel remained loyal, on the night of June 23, by order of Divisional Commander Ustinov, took up defensive positions on the heights southwest of Pabrade. On this, the actions of the Soviet units in the zone of the 11th Army on the second day of hostilities ended.

The fate of the reconnaissance squadron of the Lithuanian corps is indicative. It was armed with 13 aircraft of the former Lithuanian military aviation and flying club. Deputy Commander Major B. Brazis recalled that the squadron had nine ANBO-41s, three ANBO-51s and one Gloucester Gladiator I. The ANBO-41 scouts wore Lithuanian Air Force camouflage: olive top and blue bottom. Several vehicles wore dark green camouflage. Wing struts and landing gear are black. The engine hood is unpainted, metal, with a frosty finish. Identification marks of the Soviet Air Force were applied to the fuselage, wings and vertical tail; the old side numbers were not painted over. About 50 pilots and pilots of the national squadron began their service in it in the autumn of 1940. Several of them, being ethnic Germans, repatriated to Germany in February 1941, and on June 14–16, 11 pilots were arrested by the NKVD.

According to the memoirs of veterans, it was possible to restore the picture of the last days of the Lithuanian squadron. On June 22, an alarm sounded at the airfield near Ukmergė. There was no connection with the headquarters of the corps, the commander Y. Kovas decided to send the plane to the headquarters of the 179th division. Lieutenants A. Kostkus and V. Stankunas flew in Pabrade on ANBO-41. Due to a small breakdown, they returned with a package from the division commander only late in the evening. Early in the morning of June 23, all ANBOs were lifted into the sky, left the airfield according to the order and headed for Pabrade. After landing, they found that the division had already gone east. At 9 o'clock in the morning there was an air raid, two "forty-first" were seriously damaged.

The aviators decided to fly to Belarus, but there were no flight cards. Major Kovas ordered the squadron navigator, Major P.Masis, to fly to ANBO-41 with Sergeant J.Astikas in Ukmergė for maps. A few hours later, without waiting for Masis with the maps, the squadron took off. Two ANBO-41s and three ANBO-51s headed towards Ukmerge and landed on a clover field near Sesikay. Three cars flew towards Gomel. Already over the territory of Belarus, Lithuanian aircraft, unknown to Soviet anti-aircraft gunners and therefore unidentified, were fired upon from machine guns. The plane with senior lieutenant Yarchuk and squadron commander Kovas crashed near Oshmyany. The car with political officer Zaiko and Lieutenant Kalasiunas went missing. They probably died too. The third plane, with Lieutenant A. Kostkus and Captain V. Zhukas, returned to Pabrade. At the airport they were met by the crews of two damaged aircraft. The aviators could do nothing more. They dug parachutes, flight clothes in the forest and went home. But what happened to the rest of the crew?

When one ANBO landed in Ukmergė, Major Masis went to the headquarters for maps, while Sergeant Astikas remained waiting for him in the plane with the engine running. Seeing him running towards him stranger with a gun, he got scared and took off. Landed somewhere in East Prussia, where he was captured. The crew of Sosikae and Major Masis were captured by German motorcyclists on 24 June. Sergeant A. Guya recalled: “A military bus took us to Koenigsberg. After finding out who we were, we were offered to join the German army. We refused. We were taken by train to Bavaria, and then to East Prussia ... In early October 1941, we were taken to Kaunas, we still wore the old Lithuanian uniform of military pilots. After the war, many Lithuanian pilots of the 29th, despite their refusal to cooperate with the Germans, were arrested and sentenced to 5–10 years in labor camps. Some have emigrated to the US and Australia.

In the already mysterious history of the 29th OKAE, there is another "blank spot". According to reports of irretrievable losses of the Air Force of the front, on June 27, the crew of the commander of the 29th squadron, Lieutenant P.M. Belokhvostov, did not return from a flight to the Dvinsk region. How he got there is unknown.

sad result short life The 29th TSC is quite natural. The corps was formed on the basis of units of the regular army of the bourgeois Republic of Lithuania with all the ensuing consequences. It was an army with established traditions, with a reactionary and nationalist officer corps. Also, very religious. Lithuania was converted to Latin rite Christianity by European standards very late, in 1387. As a result, the piety of the people was high, and even the persecution of Catholics during the entry into Russian empire didn't have much success. On December 17, 1926, as a result of a military coup, that is, by the forces of the army, a fascist regime was actually established in Lithuania, headed by A. Smetona. He was a graduate of St. Petersburg University, a Catholic, a nationalist, a bright publicist, a skilled diplomat, enjoyed the full support of the reactionary Tautininkai Sayunga (Union of Nationalists, or Tautinniki) party, what else can be said about him? He hated the left with fierce hatred, all left-wing organizations, including the Communist Party, were banned, everyone who was engaged in underground activities and was “discovered” was in concentration camps, including in the forts of the Kovno fortress. In the summer of 1940, new realities were brought to Lithuania on the armor and tracks of Soviet tanks, and the political vector shifted, as it should, to the left. The presence of the Red Army on the territory of Lithuania, even in the event of its complete non-interference in the internal affairs of the country, could not but cause a rise in anti-Smetonian sentiments. This time, the Armed Forces of the Republic of Lithuania, actually blocked by the "limited contingent" of the Red Army, did not take part in the political struggle; as a result of mass protests, the dictatorship fell, Smetona fled to Germany, and then to the USA. All political prisoners were released, the Communist Party was legalized. Soviet power was restored in Lithuania, the army was reorganized into the Lithuanian People's Army with the establishment of the institution of political officers in it. A career Soviet officer was appointed commander, but an ethnic Lithuanian, brigade commander F.R. Baltushis-Zemaitis.

After voluntarily joining Soviet Union(precisely voluntary, because the legitimacy of the Supreme Soviet of the Lithuanian SSR was no different from the legitimacy of the “sample” of the 20s recognized by the League of Nations Seimas of the Vilna Territory) formations and parts of its People’s Army became part of the Red Army in the form of the 29th Lithuanian TSK. But in a year it was not possible to turn the national army of an independent state into a tactical unit loyal to the Soviet regime. Neither the purges, nor the arrests, nor the brainwashing helped. Aggressive atheism, planted by the new authorities, brought even greater harm. For conservative Lithuanians, the ban on confession of faith was unacceptable, and for many, even those who sympathize with communist ideas, it was an unpleasant surprise. But Stalin knew how to learn from his own mistakes. When during the war the Polish Army was created from two combined arms armies, in its units, by analogy with the Polish armed forces of the "model", until September 1, 1939, the institution of chaplains - military priests was introduced.

The article “What People in Vilnius Don't Like to Remember” (04/29/14) spoke about those pages of the history of Lithuania in 1939-1941, which are purposefully and stubbornly hushed up by the official Vilnius. No less rich in such events was the next period in the history of Lithuania, when for three long years - from 1941 to 1944 - it was in the strong embrace of the Nazi Third Reich.

"June Uprising"

The repressive operation carried out by the Soviet secret services against members of the pro-German Front of Lithuanian Activists (FLA) just a few days before the attack on the USSR by Nazi Germany and its satellites was a serious blow to the anti-Soviet underground. However, it was not possible to completely eliminate it. And as soon as in the early morning of June 22, 1941, the artillery cannonade heralded the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, the surviving members of the FLA began to act.

One should not be surprised at such promptness: the so-called June uprising, the 70th anniversary of which was widely celebrated in Lithuania in 2011, was inspired not by anyone, but by the German secret services. True, the organizers of the celebrations modestly kept silent about this. In Vilnius, they don’t like to remember the cooperation of the Lithuanian “fighters for independence” with the Nazis at all. It can be assumed that the leadership of the Lithuanian Front of Activists did not have information about the exact date of the German invasion of the USSR - it was kept secret by the Germans. But there is no doubt that the founder of the FLA Kazys Shkirpa and his entourage were well aware that the wait was not long, and did everything to meet the day of the start of the war in full combat readiness.

The Blitzkrieg in Lithuania went according to plan, and by the end of the first week of the war, this Soviet republic was completely occupied by Nazi Germany. A feasible contribution to the success of the enemy was also made by Lithuanian nationalists, who committed sabotage in the Soviet rear and shot at the backs of the Red Army. The Chief of the General Staff of the German Land Forces, Colonel-General Franz Halder himself stated with satisfaction in his diary: “In Kaunas, large food warehouses and private processing plants Food Industry. They were guarded by Lithuanian self-defense units.”

Later, in the Memorandum of the so-called Provisional Government of Lithuania, Lithuanian nationalists reminded the German occupation authorities of some of their other merits to the Third Reich:

“In Kaunas, one partisan prevented the explosion of the bridge over the Neris only by jumping onto the bridge and cutting off the burning cord while 30 bullets pierced his body. Many more examples of such courage and self-sacrifice could be cited. So, for example, in Panemün, 15 partisans defended themselves against a whole Red battalion. The result of this unequal battle: 6 killed partisans and 20 killed Red Army soldiers. Such examples are not isolated, for 36,000 activists and about 90,000 partisans took part in the battles.

Only in the battles for the mountains. Kaunas killed 200 people, 150 wounded are now in the infirmary. There are more than 2,000 partisans killed in all of Lithuania…”

We do not know whether the Germans believed the data that appeared in the "progress report" of the self-proclaimed Provisional Government of Lithuania. But it is well known that the initiative to create this very "government" in Berlin was categorically not approved. After all, Lithuanian activists began to establish their own rules immediately after the departure of the Red Army, without enlisting the consent of the Germans. It got to the point that one of the leaders of the Front of Lithuanian Activists, Leemas Prapuoljanis, speaking on local radio in Kaunas, expressing gratitude to Hitler "for the liberation of Lithuania", immediately announced the creation of the Provisional Government of Lithuania. Juozas Ambrazevičius was announced as Acting Prime Minister until the arrival from Germany of the founder of the Front of Lithuanian Activists, Colonel Kazys Shkirpa, and Šlepetis as Minister of the Interior.

The German invaders, confident that a quick defeat of the Soviet Union was inevitable, did not allow even their accomplices to be so self-willed in the summer of 1941. The Nazis severely suppressed unauthorized actions on the part of those who fought on their side against the Red Army. Soon, the Provisional Government of Ambrazevicius repeated the fate of the "government" of "independent Ukraine" headed by Stepan Bandera's deputy Yaroslav Stetsko. Both "governments" were dissolved by the German occupation authorities. And on September 26, 1941, they also banned the activities of the Front of Lithuanian Activists. The Germans did not allow Shkirpa to come to Lithuania, and Prapuolianis was arrested. Thus, the occupying German authorities indicated to the Lithuanian collaborators the place allotted to them. In accordance with racial theory, it was unenviable - at least lower than that of Estonians and Latvians.

However, Adolf Hitler was not going to discuss the future of Lithuania with the Lithuanian "subhumans". By his decree of July 17, 1941, Lithuania, together with Latvia, Estonia and Belarus, entered the Reichskommissariat "Ostland" formed by the Germans. All four occupied Soviet republics received the status of general commissariats. Two months later, Hitler declared: “... It was we who created the Baltic countries and Ukraine in 1918. But today we have no interest in preserving the Baltic states…”.

"Self-government of Lithuania"

Heinrich Lohse was appointed Reichskommissar for Ostland. On July 25, 1941, he entered Kaunas. Four days earlier, the Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories, Alfred Rosenberg, instructed his subordinate Lohse: “... the Reichskommissariat Ostland must prevent any encroachments on the creation of Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian states independent of Germany. It is also necessary to constantly make it clear that all these areas are subject to the German administration, which deals with peoples, and not with states ... ".

This directive was strictly implemented during all three years of the German occupation of the three republics of the Soviet Baltic.

On August 8, it was announced that Theodor Adrian von Renteln had been appointed Commissioner General of Lithuania. According to the recall of the head of the SS and police of the Reichskommissariat "Ostland" SS Gruppenführer Friedrich Jeckeln, "he deeply despised the Lithuanian people and looked at the country and people only as an object for exploitation." Renteln directly said that the Lithuanians themselves are not capable of independently managing the work of self-government bodies.

As the leaders of the Reichskommissariat expected, after receiving a slap in the face from the Nazis, the Lithuanian “subhumans” began to serve Hitler with even greater zeal. From among the Lithuanian collaborators, the German occupiers scooped personnel into the "Lithuanian Self-Government" created by Rentelny, which was headed by the former chief of staff of the pre-war army of Lithuania, General Petras Kubiliunas. In his reports, Renteln spoke of him as a man who was ready to cooperate unconditionally with the German occupation authorities. Appointments to the "Lithuanian Self-Government" were made by the Germans.

Lithuanian historian Petras Stankeras writes: “The territory of Lithuania was divided into four regional commissariats - Vilnius, Kaunas, Panevezys and Siauliai and into two city commissariats - Vilnius and Kaunas, into 25 counties and 290 volosts. At the head of each regional commissariat were regional (or city) commissars (Gebietskommissar) subordinate to the general commissar. SS-Sturmbannführer Horst Wulf was appointed Regional Commissar of Vilnius… The main function of the German civil administration in Lithuania was to look after the Lithuanian self-government.”

Soon, under the leadership of Renteln, the colonization of Lithuania began. Already during the first year of occupation, 16,300 German settlers arrived here. There were no protests from the Lithuanian Self-Government.

Today in Vilnius they do not like to remember that many “fighters for the independence of Lithuania” during the war were accomplices of the Nazis, going to serve in self-defense units, police and security units. “In total, 24 battalions (including 1 cavalry division) were formed, 500-600 people each, with a total number of 250 officers and 13,000 soldiers. The battalions were given German communication groups consisting of 1 officer and 5 - 6 senior non-commissioned officers. Armament, mainly small arms, was of Soviet or German production. The activity of some battalions was connected with the war crimes of the Nazis: for example, the 2nd battalion under the command of Major A. Impulevicius took part in the mass executions in the 7th fort of Kaunas,” historian Sergei Drobiazko stated.

Lithuanian nationalists and the solution of the Jewish question

Both during the short existence of the Provisional Government of Lithuania, and after its dissolution, Lithuanian nationalists carried out reprisals against Jews. This page in the history of Lithuania is also very disliked in Vilnius.

The massacres of Jews began on the very first day of the war. And five days later, on June 27, the minutes of the meeting of the Provisional Government of Lithuania recorded a message from the Minister of Public Utilities Vytautas Landsbergis-Zhemkalnis (father of the famous Lithuanian politician Vytautas Landsbergis) “about the extremely cruel abuse of Jews in Kaunas.”

The first results of the massacres of Jews were summed up by the Germans in the report of the Security Police and the SD of July 11, 1941:

“After the departure of the Red Army, the population of Kaunas in a spontaneous outburst killed about 2,500 Jews. Another large number of Jews were shot by the police auxiliary service (partisans)… In Kaunas, a total of 7,800 Jews have now been killed, partly during pogroms, partly by execution by Lithuanian teams.”

Today in Vilnius they do not like to remember that it was the Provisional Government of Lithuania, under the leadership of Ambrazevicius, who already on June 30 decided to create the first concentration camp for Jews in the territory of the Soviet Union occupied by the Nazis. In this matter, zealous Lithuanian nationalists managed to get ahead of even the highly experienced punitive structures of the Third Reich!

And the way Lithuanian nationalists massacred Jews, communists and Red Army soldiers sometimes shocked even the Germans. One of them recalled: “A young man ... was armed with an iron crowbar. A man from a nearby group of people was brought to him, and he killed him with one or more blows to the back of the head. Thus, in less than an hour, he killed all 45-50 people. After everyone was killed, the young man put the crowbar aside, went for the accordion and climbed onto the bodies of the dead lying nearby. Standing on the mountain, he played the Lithuanian national anthem. The behavior of the civilians standing around, among whom were women and children, was incredible - after each blow with a crowbar they applauded, and when the killer played the Lithuanian anthem, the crowd picked it up ... ".

The bacchanalia of brutal murders “according to the accordion” disgusted even many of the Nazis, who preferred to carry out reprisals quietly and in a more organized manner - with German pedantry. They did not like the fact that the Lithuanian punishers appropriated the property of their victims. But the Germans considered it to belong to the Third Reich.

Already on October 31, 1941, SS Brigadeführer Walter Stahlecker stated: "The total number of Jews liquidated in Lithuania amounted to 71,105 people."

It is also noteworthy that official Vilnius prefers to hush up the very fact of massacres of Jews, communists and Red Army soldiers, rather than refute it.

Ponary

Current Lithuanian politicians do not like to remember that in 1941 near Vilnius in the town of Ponary (Poneriai) a special camp appeared, where several hundred Lithuanian "fighters for independence" served. Under their vigilant supervision, over 100,000 Soviet citizens were killed in Ponar within three years.

After the crushing defeat at Stalingrad, the Nazis and their Lithuanian accomplices began to cover up the traces of their numerous crimes. This was done by the hands of the prisoners. Julius Farber, who managed to escape from the concentration camp, revealed the technology of hiding monstrous crimes:

“Let's go to work. A pit with a diameter of up to 100 meters is covered with sand. If you remove a couple of shovels of sand, you will find ... decomposed corpses of people; according to German terminology “figures“. A hearth was built next to the foundation pit... The "figures" burn for more than three days - until a pile of ashes with burnt bones remains. These bones are crushed with rammers to the state of powder. The powder is thrown with shovels through fine iron nets so that the ashes do not contain a single large particle. The sifted ash is mixed with big amount sand so that the sand does not even change color, and is poured into the pit, from which all the “figures” have already been extracted ...

In the period up to April 15, 1944, according to the testimony of the author of these lines, “38 thousand “figures” were burned, how many of them still remain is unknown ... In total, 80 people worked in the Ponar crematorium recently ... The stench of several thousand decomposing corpses was unbearable. The “figures” of 1941 decomposed to the state of a mushy mass. You take it by the head - the skull falls apart and the hands are covered with human brains. You take your hand - it crawls like jelly, and breaks away from the body. Legs almost to the knees fall into the mass of rotting remains ... Many found wives, children, parents.

Instead of a conclusion

In 1946, at a trial in Riga, the former head of the SS and police of the Ostland Reichskommissariat, SS Obergruppenführer Friedrich Jeckeln, testified: “I often had to deal with the leaders of the Latvian “self-government” Dankers and Bangerskis, the Lithuanian “self-government” Kubiliunas and the Estonian “self-government” Dr. Mäe . I must say that they were all great friends of the Germans. These people were guided only by German interests and did not at all think about the fate of their peoples. From the conversations I understood that they want to destroy the Bolsheviks no less, and perhaps more than we Germans. It was people who thought that even if Germany lost the war, it would still be very good, because we would liquidate all Soviet patriots, all communists. And without patriots and communists, it will be much easier for them to sell their peoples to other strong powers.”

What collaborators from the “self-governments” of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia failed to do in the 1940s was fully realized by their spiritual and political heirs after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Lithuanian politicians, at the turn of 1980-1990, who called for the struggle for the independence of Lithuania, now sing completely different “songs”. They are not at all embarrassed by the fact that today the former Soviet republic has essentially been turned into a colony of the West. On the contrary: the official Vilnius is quite satisfied with dependence on Washington and Brussels, and they tend not to remember the unpleasant pages of their long and recent history.

Oleg Nazarov