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After the German invasion of the Soviet Union, the Baltic states were under military occupation by Nazi Germany from 1941 to 1944. Initially, many Estonians, Latvians, and Lithuanians considered the Germans liberators from the Soviet Union.
The Germans agreed to leave the Baltic states, except for Lithuania (which was later ceded in exchange for oil-rich regions of Poland), under the Soviet sphere of influence in the 1939 German–Soviet Pact. The Germans lacked concern for the fate of the Baltic states, and initiated the evacuation of the Baltic Germans. Between October and December 1939 the Germans evacuated 13,700 people from Estonia and 52,583 from Latvia, and resettled them in Polish territories incorporated into Nazi Germany. The following summer [1940], the Soviets occupied and illegally annexed all three states. On 22 June 1941 the Germans carried out Operation Barbarossa. The Soviets had already implemented sovietization earlier, including the first mass deportation on 14 June, just eight days earlier, so the majority of Balts welcomed the German armed forces when they crossed the frontiers of Lithuania. [1]
In Lithuania, a revolt broke out on the first day of the war, and a provisional government was established. As the German armies approached Riga and Tallinn, there were attempts to re-establish national governments. It was hoped that the Germans would re-establish Baltic independence. Such political hopes soon evaporated and Baltic cooperation became less forthright or ceased altogether. [2] A growing proportion of the local populations turned against the Nazi regime as Germany turned the Baltic states—except for the Memel (Klaipėda) region annexed into Greater Germany in 1939—and most of Belarus into the Reichskommissariat Ostland, a colony in all but name in which the four predominant nationalities had little role in governance. Hinrich Lohse, a German Nazi politician, was Reichskommissar until he fled in the face of the Red Army's advance in 1944. Furthermore, Nazi Germany rejected the recreation of the Baltic states in any form in the future, as it unilaterally declared itself the legal successor to all three of the Baltic countries, as well as the Soviet Union, which it expected would collapse due to the German invasion. [3]
Germans immediately initiated anti-Jewish persecution by deploying its mobile death squads, the Einsatzgruppen. The remainder of the Baltic peoples were deemed by the Nazis to be "a dying race" that needed to be "replaced by a more dynamic people", meaning Germans. [4] The main Nazi plan for the colonization of conquered territories in the east, referred to as Generalplan Ost, called for the wholesale deportation of some two thirds of the native population from the territories of the Baltic states in the event of a German victory. The remaining third were either to be exterminated in situ, used as slave labour, or Germanized if deemed sufficiently "Aryan", while hundreds of thousands of German settlers were to be moved into the conquered territories. As Adolf Hitler explained in a conference on 16 July 1941, the Baltic states were to be annexed to Germany at the earliest possible moment, [5] and some Nazi ideologists suggested renaming Estonia as Peipusland and Latvia as Dünaland and integrating them as German provinces. [4] During the course of the war, the main thrust of Nazi racial policies was directed against the Jews, not so much the majority Baltic peoples. [6]
Towards the end of the war, once it became clear that Germany would be defeated, many Balts and Estonians joined the Germans once again. It was hoped that by engaging in such a war the Baltic countries would be able to attract Western support for the cause of independence from the USSR. [7] In Latvia an underground nationalist Central Council of Latvia was formed on 13 August 1943. An analogous body, the Supreme Committee for the Liberation of Lithuania, emerged on 25 November 1943. On 23 March 1944, the underground National Committee of the Estonian Republic was founded.
After Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941, the Wehrmacht reached Estonia in July.
Although initially the Germans were perceived as liberators from the USSR and its repressions by most Estonians who hoped for the restoration of the country's independence, it was soon realized that they were merely another occupying power. Germans pillaged the country for the war effort and unleashed the Holocaust. Estonia was incorporated into the German province of Ostland. That made many Estonians unwilling to side with the Nazis to join the Finnish army to fight against the Soviet Union. The Finnish Infantry Regiment 200 (soomepoisid – 'Boys of Finland') was formed out of Estonian volunteers in Finland. 70,000 Estonians were recruited to the German armed forces (including Waffen-SS). Most of them joined in 1944, when the threat of a new invasion of Estonia by the Red Army had become imminent and it was clear that Germany would not win the war.
By January 1944, the front was pushed back by the Red Army almost all the way to the former Estonian border. Narva was evacuated. Jüri Uluots, the last legitimate Prime Minister of the Republic of Estonia (according to the constitution of Estonia) before its fall to the Soviet Union in 1940, delivered as a private citizen a radio address that implored all able-bodied men born from 1904 through 1923 to report for military service. (Before this, Uluots had opposed Estonian mobilization.) The call drew support from all across the country: 38,000 volunteers jammed registration centers. Several thousand Estonians who had joined the Finnish army came back across the Gulf of Finland to join the newly-formed Territorial Defense Force, assigned to defend Estonia against the Soviet advance. It was hoped that by engaging in such a war Estonia would be able to attract Western support for the cause of Estonia's independence from the USSR and thus ultimately succeed in achieving independence. [7]
By 10 July 1941, the German armed forces had occupied all of Latvia's territory. Latvia became a part of Nazi Germany's Reichskommissariat Ostland as the Province General of Latvia (Generalbezirk Lettland). Anyone who was disobedient to the German occupation regime or had co-operated with the Soviet regime was killed or sent to concentration camps.
Immediately after the installation of German authority (the beginning of July 1941) a process of eliminating the Jewish and Gypsy population began, with many killings taking place in Rumbula. The killings were committed by Einsatzgruppe A , the Wehrmacht and Marines (in Liepāja), as well as by Latvian collaborators, including the 500–1,500 members of the infamous Sonderkommando Arajs (or Arajs Kommando), which alone killed around 26,000 Jews and the 2,000 or more Latvian members of the SD. [8] [9] By the end of 1941 almost the entire Jewish population had been exterminated. In addition, some 25,000 Jews were brought from Germany, Austria and the present-day Czech Republic, of whom around 20,000 were killed.
Latvia's population perished not only on the battlefield. During the years of Nazi occupation special campaigns exterminated 18,000 Latvians, approximately 70,000 Jews and 2,000 Gypsies – in total about 90,000 people. The Latvians among these were mostly civilians whose political convictions were unacceptable to the German occupation force. Jewish and Gypsy civilians were eliminated as a result of Nazi Germany's racial policy. Persecutions were mostly carried out by special German units (Einsatzgruppe A, Sicherheitsdienst, or SD) and police units. The German occupation regime attempted to involve the local population in war crimes. Thus, Latvian self-defence units, security police units, and SD auxiliary units were created and included volunteers who carried out part of the terror campaign.
In 1943 and 1944 two divisions of Waffen SS were formed from Latvian volunteers to fight against the Red Army.
A large number of Latvians resisted the German occupation.[ citation needed ] The Latvian resistance movement was divided between the pro-independence units under the Latvian Central Council and the Soviet partisan units under the Central Staff of the Partisan Movement in Moscow. Their Latvian commander was Arturs Sproģis.
The occupation of Lithuania by Nazi Germany refers to the period from the start of the German invasion of the Soviet Union to the end of the Battle of Memel (22 June 1941 – 28 January 1945). At first the Germans were welcomed as "liberators" from the repressive Soviet regime.[ citation needed ] In the hope of re-establishing independence or at least gaining autonomy, Lithuanians organized their Provisional Government.
The Baltic states or the Baltic countries is a geopolitical term encompassing Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. All three countries are members of NATO, the European Union, the Eurozone, Council of Europe, and the OECD. The three sovereign states on the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea are sometimes referred to as the "Baltic nations", less often and in historical circumstances also as the "Baltic republics", the "Baltic lands", or simply the Baltics.
The Reichskommissariat Ostland was established by Nazi Germany in 1941 during World War II. It became the civilian occupation regime in Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and the western part of Byelorussian SSR. German planning documents initially referred to an equivalent Reichskommissariat Baltenland. The political organization for this territory – after an initial period of military administration before its establishment – involved a German civilian administration, nominally under the authority of the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories led by Nazi ideologist Alfred Rosenberg, but actually controlled by the Nazi official Hinrich Lohse, its appointed Reichskommissar.
The occupation of the Baltic states was a period of annexation of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania begun by the Soviet Union in 1940, continued for three years by Nazi Germany after it invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, and finally resumed by the Soviet Union until its dissolution in 1991.
In the course of Operation Barbarossa, Nazi Germany invaded Estonia in July–December 1941, and occupied the country until 1944. Estonia had gained independence in 1918 from the then-warring German and Russian Empires. However, in the wake of the August 1939 Nazi-Soviet Pact, the Soviet Union had invaded and occupied Estonia in June 1940, and the country was formally annexed into the USSR in August 1940.
The military occupation of Latvia by Nazi Germany was completed on 10 July 1941, by Germany's armed forces. Initially, the territory of Latvia was under the military administration of Army Group North, but on 25 July 1941, Latvia was incorporated as Generalbezirk Lettland, subordinated to Reichskommissariat Ostland, an administrative subdivision of Nazi Germany. Anyone not racially acceptable or who opposed the German occupation, as well as those who had cooperated with the Soviet Union, was killed or sent to concentration camps in accordance with the Nazi Generalplan Ost.
After the occupation of Latvia by the USSR in June 1940, much of the previous Latvian army was disbanded and many of its soldiers and officers were arrested and imprisoned or executed. The following year Nazi Germany occupied Latvia during the offensive of Army Group North. The German Einsatzgruppen were aided by a group known as Arajs Kommando in the killing of Latvian Jews as part of the Holocaust. Latvian soldiers fought on both sides of the conflict against their will, and in 1943 180,000 Latvian men were drafted into the Latvian Legion of the Waffen-SS and other German auxiliary forces.
Estonia declared neutrality at the outbreak of World War II (1939–1945), but the country was repeatedly contested, invaded and occupied, first by the Soviet Union in 1940, then by Nazi Germany in 1941, and ultimately reinvaded and reoccupied in 1944 by the Soviet Union.
The three Baltic countries, or the Baltic states – Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania – are held to have continued as independent states under international law while under Soviet occupation from 1940 to 1991, as well as during the German occupation in 1941–1944/1945. The prevailing opinion accepts the Baltic thesis that the Soviet occupation was illegal, and all actions of the Soviet Union related to the occupation are regarded as contrary to international law in general and to the bilateral treaties between the USSR and the three Baltic countries in particular.
The Soviet occupation of Latvia in 1940 refers to the military occupation of the Republic of Latvia by the Soviet Union under the provisions of the 1939 Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact with Nazi Germany and its Secret Additional Protocol signed in August 1939. The occupation took place according to the European Court of Human Rights, the Government of Latvia, the United States Department of State, and the European Union. In 1989, the USSR also condemned the 1939 secret protocol between Nazi Germany and herself that had led to the invasion and occupation of the three Baltic countries, including Latvia.
The military occupation of Lithuania by Nazi Germany lasted from the German invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, to the end of the Battle of Memel on January 28, 1945. At first the Germans were welcomed as liberators from the repressive Soviet regime which had occupied Lithuania. In hopes of re-establishing independence or regaining some autonomy, Lithuanians organized a Provisional Government that lasted six weeks.
Relevant events began regarding the Baltic states and the Soviet Union when, following Bolshevist Russia's conflict with the Baltic states—Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia—several peace treaties were signed with Russia and its successor, the Soviet Union. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, the Soviet Union and all three Baltic States further signed non-aggression treaties. The Soviet Union also confirmed that it would adhere to the Kellogg–Briand Pact with regard to its neighbors, including Estonia and Latvia, and entered into a convention defining "aggression" that included all three Baltic countries.
The timeline of the occupation of the Baltic states lists key events in the military occupation of the three countries – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – by the Soviet Union and by Nazi Germany during World War II.
The Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic, Soviet Estonia, or simply Estonia, was a union republic of the Soviet Union (USSR), covering the occupied and annexed territory of Estonia in 1940–1941 and 1944–1991. The Estonian SSR was nominally established to replace the until then independent Republic of Estonia on 21 July 1940, a month after the 16–17 June 1940 Soviet military invasion and occupation of the country during World War II. After the installation of a Stalinist government which, backed by the occupying Soviet Red Army, declared Estonia a Soviet constituency, the Estonian SSR was subsequently incorporated into the Soviet Union as a union republic on 6 August 1940. Estonia was occupied by Nazi Germany in 1941, and administered as a part of Reichskommissariat Ostland until it was reconquered by the USSR in 1944.
The background of the occupation of the Baltic states covers the period before the first Soviet occupation on 14 June 1940, stretching from independence in 1918 to the Soviet ultimatums in 1939–1940. Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia gained independence in the aftermath of the Russian revolutions of 1917 and the German occupation which in the Baltic countries lasted until the end of World War I in November 1918. All three countries signed non-aggression treaties with the Soviet Union in the 1920s and 1930s. Despite the treaties, in the aftermath of the 1939 German–Soviet pact, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were occupied, and thereafter forcibly incorporated into the Soviet Union, in 1940.
The three Baltic states – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – were re-occupied in 1944–1945 by the Soviet Union (USSR) following the German occupation. The Baltic states regained independence in 1990–1991.
The Soviet occupation of the Baltic states covers the period from the Soviet–Baltic mutual assistance pacts in 1939, to their invasion and annexation in 1940, to the mass deportations of 1941.
The Soviet Union (USSR) occupied most of the territory of the Baltic states in its 1944 Baltic Offensive during World War II. The Red Army regained control over the three Baltic capitals and encircled retreating Wehrmacht and Latvian forces in the Courland Pocket where they held out until the final German surrender at the end of the war.
Generalbezirk Estland was one of the four administrative subdivisions of Reichskommissariat Ostland, the 1941-1944 civilian occupation regime established by Nazi Germany for the administration of the three Baltic countries and the western part of the Byelorussian SSR.
Generalbezirk Lettland was one of the four administrative subdivisions of Reichskommissariat Ostland, the civilian occupation regime established by Nazi Germany for the administration of the Baltic States and the western part of the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic.
Wartime collaboration occurred in every country occupied by Nazi Germany during the Second World War, including the Baltic states. The three Baltic republics of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, were occupied by the Soviet Union in the summer of 1940, and were later occupied by Germany in the summer of 1941 and then incorporated, together with parts of the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic of the Soviet Union, into the Reichskommissariat Ostland. Collaborators with Germany participated in the Eastern Front against the Soviet Union, as well as in the Holocaust, both in and outside of the Baltic states. This collaboration was done through formal Waffen-SS divisions and police battalions, as well as through spontaneous acts during the opening of the war.
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