Between Giants

by Prit Buttar

  Voldemars Veiss, who had been a Latvian army officer between the wars, was the Latvian officer who was effectively second-in-command of the brigade. He was awarded the Iron Cross during the fighting in September 1943, and in January 1944 became the first Latvian to earn the Knight’s Cross, after successfully defending Nekokhovo from repeated Soviet attacks. He was killed in April 1944 after suffering wounds from a grenade explosion.

  There continued to be friction between the Germans and Latvians. In addition to the 2nd SS Brigade, efforts were made to convert the Latvian Legion into a new formation, 15th SS Waffen-Grenadier Division (1st Latvian), in March 1943. The Latvians complained that there were insufficient NCOs and officers for this new division, and that attempts to bring it up to strength were constantly undermined by the transfer of troops to the 2nd SS Brigade. The division was also hampered by shortages of equipment; in some cases, men were issued with weapons that were different from those that they had used in their often inadequate training. In November 1943, even though the division was, in the opinion of its officers, not ready for combat, it was committed to the front line near Leningrad, and performed well in defensive fighting. Some battalions of the division were assigned to ad hoc battlegroups, as was normal practice in the Wehrmacht, and on many occasions, the German units in the battlegroups seized the new machine guns and other equipment of the Latvians, further adding to the tension between the two sides.

  Towards the end of 1943, it was decided to upgrade the 2nd SS Brigade into a division. Designated the 19th SS Waffen-Grenadier Division (2nd Latvian), it was created in January 1944. As will be discussed later, it soon found itself in the thick of the fighting to the south of Leningrad.

  Of the three countries, Lithuania provided the smallest military contingent to the German cause. Initially, the country’s classification as being the least ‘worthy’ of the three countries – its population was largely Catholic, and was perceived by the National Socialist leadership as heavily tainted with Polish and Slav blood – meant that there was little question of Lithuanians being asked to serve in the Reich’s armed forces. It was only as the war situation began to deteriorate, and Germany was desperate for manpower, that the issue was revisited. By then, there was even less enthusiasm than ever amongst Lithuanians to fight for Germany.

  During the German occupation, the Lithuanian police formed a total of 25 battalions. These units should be distinguished from regular police units in towns and cities; they existed specifically for internal security purposes, such as protecting military installations and combating insurgents and partisans. The first battalions were formed from the Lithuanian Activist Front volunteers who fought the retreating Red Army in Kaunas, and from Lithuanians who deserted from the Red Army; these men came primarily from the Soviet 29th Corps, and were based in and around Varėna. At first, it had been the intention of the Lithuanians to organise these men into a fledgling army, but the Germans refused to allow this to happen, and on 9 July 1941, most of the units that had been given provisional army names were renamed Selbstschutzeinheiten (‘self defence units’). Over the next few years, the battalions went through a variety of name changes before they were finally given the title ‘police battalions’.

  One of the first units to be formed was the Tautos Darbo Apsauga (‘National Labour Service Battalion’ or TDA) in Kaunas. Colonel Jurgis Bobelis, who had been appointed by the self-proclaimed Lithuanian interim government, called for volunteers to come forward on 28 June 1941, and by 4 July he had over 700 men at his disposal. Two companies were immediately assigned to Einsatzkommando 3A at Fort VII. One company was tasked with guarding the Jews who were brought there in a steady stream, while the other company carried out the executions, under German supervision. As the killings continued, both in Kaunas and through the activities of Hammann’s Rollkommando, almost all of the personnel of the TDA were directly involved.23

  The reaction of the Lithuanian soldiers to their gruesome tasks was varied. One of the junior officers of the battalion was Lieutenant Juozas Barzda, who had been a member of the Lithuanian Army prior to the Soviet occupation. He commanded 3 Company of the TDA, and was involved in several of the major massacres of Jews during 1941. He also took part in killings of Jews and Soviet prisoners in Belarus, but by 1944, he had joined the Lietuvos Laisvės Armija (‘Lithuanian Freedom Army’ or LLA), fighting against the returning Red Army. He was killed in December 1944 when, while taking part in a parachute drop, he drowned in a lake. Bronius Norkius, a former air force officer, was also a lieutenant in the TDA. He achieved fame for raising the Lithuanian flag over Kaunas Cathedral on 23 June 1941, but like Barzda he was implicated in many of the killings in that year. He died in an accident in the Soviet Union in 1943. A third lieutenant, Anatolijus Dagys, was also a member of 3 Company, and like the other two was noted to perform with distinction during the mass executions of Jews.24 It is characteristic of the ambiguity with which many in Lithuania regard their past that in view of Norkius’ act of defiance of the Soviet authorities in June 1941, his grave has been proposed as a national monument, despite his involvement in the killings later that year.

  Other members of the TDA were shocked and demoralised by what they were required to do. Many requested permission to leave the battalion, and by 11 July 1941, less than two weeks after the establishment of the TDA, 117 men had been discharged. Captain Bronius Kirkila, commander of 1 Company, committed suicide on 12 July, and a steady stream of men simply deserted. Four of the battalion’s lieutenants submitted their resignations and were dismissed.25 None of these events had the slightest effect on the pace of the killings.

  The 2nd Lithuanian Police Battalion, confusingly later renamed as the 12th Battalion, was formed on 7 August 1941 under the command of Major Antanas Impelivičius, using a cadre of men from the TDA. At first, the battalion was stationed at the Šančiai Barracks in Kaunas, and was responsible for guard duties, but in October, under the supervision of the German Major Lechthaler, it moved to Minsk. Here, working in cooperation with 707th Infantry Division, it was responsible for pacification. The commander of 707th Infantry Division, Generalmajor Gustav Freiherr von Bechtolsheim, later reported that the Lithuanians helped his men execute 630 ‘suspicious elements’ in the second week of October – mainly those deemed to be communists or Jews – and were also involved in the killing of about 1,300 people in the nearby towns of Kliniki and Smilovichi.26 By the end of the month, with help from elements of Einsatzkommando 3 and the German personnel that had accompanied its deployment from Kaunas, the Lithuanian 2nd Police Battalion had killed over 14,000 people.27

  The killings of Jews in the town of Sluck shocked even the local German military. The local commandant wrote to Minsk in protest:

  Referring to the ways of performing the operation, I had to regret that it equalled to sadism. The town itself looked horrible during the operation. Indescribably cruel German police officers, and particularly the Lithuanian partisans, forced the Jews, including Belarusians, out of their homes and pushed them into one place. Firing was heard throughout the town, and in certain streets piles of the Jewish victims appeared … protect me from this police battalion in future!28

  The pace of killing continued. On 9 and 10 November, the battalion killed 8,000 people, mainly Jews, in Borissov. Three days later, another 3,000 were killed in Kleck. By the end of the year, when the battalion returned to guard duties, it had either killed or aided in the killing of 46,000 people, the great majority of them Jews.29

  Several Lithuanian battalions spent periods of time in the Ukraine, where they were frequently involved in mass killings. The 4th Police Battalion, created in Kaunas on 25 August 1941, later renamed the 7th Battalion, was sent to the Ukraine in mid-1942. Here, the battalion’s personnel were involved in the slaughter of Jews in Vinica and Nemirovo. Several of the battalions in the Ukraine found themselves sent to the front line as an increasingly desperate Wehrmacht attempted to shore up its defences, and suffered heavy casualties in combat.

/>   It is estimated that ten of the 25 Lithuanian police battalions were involved in large-scale killings of Jews. Their personnel are thought to have killed some 78,000 individuals.30

  In February 1943, partly to offset the losses suffered by Germany at Stalingrad, the SS-Führungshauptamt called for the creation of new SS divisions to help address the widespread manpower shortage. It was proposed that both Lithuania and Latvia would contribute a division. Brigadeführer Wysocki, who was the Höhere SS- und Polizeiführer (‘senior SS and police commander’ or HSSPf) for Lithuania, was instructed to raise a body of volunteers to form the new unit. He approached two former Lithuanian colonels, Anatanas Reklaitis and Oskaras Urbonas, and invited them to become commanders of two of the new division’s regiments. They declined to take part, and the number of volunteers coming forward remained woefully inadequate, numbering barely 200, not least because the Lithuanian administration successfully hindered the process. Wysocki lost his post and was replaced by Brigadeführer Harm, but he had just as little success, and the planned division was never created. Humiliated by their failure, the Germans declared that Lithuanians were not fit to wear SS uniforms, and threatened to force all able-bodied male Lithuanians to work in labour camps, but the Lithuanians continued to refuse to cooperate; they did not object to the creation of a Lithuanian division, but insisted that it should remain entirely under the control of Lithuanians. Furthermore, they insisted, the division should not serve outside Lithuania.

  Negotiations dragged on into early 1944, when the demands on German manpower were even more severe. In February, the Germans agreed to the Lithuanian demands, and a further call for volunteers was made. Somewhat to the surprise of everyone, both Lithuanian and German, some 19,000 came forward. Immediately, the Germans decided to use the men – far in excess of their expectations – as replacement drafts for existing Wehrmacht units, in direct contravention of what had been agreed with the Lithuanian administration, but after further negotiations, the volunteers were all organised into 13 police battalions and a reserve unit.

  In late March 1944, Generalfeldmarschall Walter Model, commander of Army Group North, announced a requirement for 15 Lithuanian units to act as guards at airfields across Lithuania. There was consternation amongst the Lithuanians, who feared that these units would not be under Lithuanian command. In May, the Germans announced a general mobilisation of manpower, explicitly stating that the new units would be under German command. There was widespread unrest amongst the units created in February, and to avoid the possibility of such a large number of armed men breaking free of German control, the German authorities disbanded all 14 units. Of their manpower, about 3,000 agreed to remain in service, and were assigned to flak formations.

  In late summer 1944, as the Red Army reached the eastern parts of Lithuania, there was a final attempt to raise troops to fight for the ailing German cause. Generalmajor Helmuth Mäder was commander of Army Group North’s Waffenschule (weapons school), a training establishment created to remedy inadequate training amongst new recruits, and used the personnel of the school in the defence of Šiauliai. With two Lithuanian captains, Izidorius Jatulis and Jonas Cesna, he attempted to organise two infantry regiments and an artillery regiment from the remnants of police battalions and elements of the newly created Tevynes Apsaugas Rinktine (‘Fatherland Defence Force’ or TAR, akin to the German Home Guard or Volkssturm). Poorly trained and equipped, the battalions of the new formation fought in the last battles on Lithuanian soil.

  The initial euphoria throughout the Baltic States after the arrival of the Wehrmacht evaporated in a matter of weeks, as it became abundantly clear to everyone that the Germans came as occupiers, not liberators. Under the control of the occupation authorities, the newspapers produced a steady stream of articles encouraging everyone to show more gratitude to Germany for the expulsion of the hated Bolsheviks, to little avail. Underground newspapers in all three countries highlighted German connivance in Stalin’s seizure of the region in 1939 and 1940, and a Dutch visitor to the area in June 1942 found almost nobody who could be regarded as a genuine Germanophile.31 One of the Lithuanian underground newspapers, Nepriklausoma Lietuva, compared the Nazis directly with the Bolsheviks, speculating on which were responsible for the murders of the most innocents.32

  As cynical resignation replaced the euphoria of the expulsion of the Red Army, people began to consider how to resist the German occupation. Armed resistance seemed out of the question – there was little desire to assist the Red Army in overcoming the Wehrmacht and restoring Soviet rule. However, there were small groups of pro-Soviet partisans who were active from the outset. Antanas Sniečkus had been First Secretary of the Communist Party of Lithuania during the Soviet occupation, and was also head of the Department of National Security. He played a leading role in the organisation of the mass deportations of 1941, even having his own brother and his brother’s family deported. In November 1942, the Lietuvos Partizaninio Judėjimo Štabas (‘Lithuanian Partisan Movement’) was created in Moscow to coordinate activity in Lithuania, with Sniečkus at its head. In practice, this proved to be largely a figurehead organisation, formed in an attempt to show that there was a large number of Lithuanians who wished to fight for the return of Soviet rule. In reality, although a few thousand Lithuanians did take part in partisan attacks against German targets, many of the partisans were members of the Red Army who had been left behind during the chaotic retreat, or Soviet personnel who infiltrated into the area during the war. In addition, there were small but significant Jewish partisan cells active in the forests around Vilnius, including one led by Abba Kovner, who attempted to organise an armed rising in the Vilnius ghetto. His Fareynikte Partizaner Organizatsye (‘United Partisans Organisation’ or FPO), which adopted the slogan ‘We will not let them take us like cattle to the slaughter’, was opposed by the Judenrat, which was under constant pressure from the Germans – Jacob Gens, the leader of the Judenrat, was told that unless he brought the organisation to an end, the entire ghetto would be liquidated. Under pressure from the rest of the ghetto population, the FPO disarmed. Some of its members were arrested, while others fled to the forests. Yitzhak Wittenberg, who had been arrested and then rescued by the FPO, handed himself over to the Gestapo, but was found dead in his cell. It is believed that he was poisoned, possibly using poison that Gens gave him before he was handed over to the Germans.33

  The Lithuanian Activist Front, which had organised the Lithuanian Provisional Government at the beginning of the German invasion, continued to press for at least a degree of autonomy, if not complete independence. The Germans rejected all such suggestions, and in September 1941, Leonas Prapuolenis, the leader of the LAF, was sent to Dachau. Two groups of those opposed to German rule were then formed in Lithuania, the Lietuvių Frontas (‘Lithuanian Front’) and the Laisvės Kovotojų Sajunga (‘Union of Freedom Fighters’). These came together towards the end of 1943 to form the Vyriausiasis Lietuvos Išlaisvinimo Komitetas (‘Supreme Committee for the Liberation of Lithuania’), which managed to maintain contact with Sweden and the west. The intention of the committee was to await a suitable moment to reassert Lithuanian independence; there was a hope that, as had been the case in 1918, the end of the war might provide a moment of opportunity. Unfortunately for the committee, the Gestapo was aware of similar moves in Estonia, and in 1944 moved to intercept a suspected Estonian courier. The person arrested was Colonel Kazimieras Amraziejus, a member of the Lithuanian group, and eight members of the committee were then identified and rounded up.34

  In Latvia, anti-German partisan activity was at first limited almost exclusively to the eastern parts of the country, which had a large ethnic Russian population. Many of these partisans were initially trained in the Soviet Union, and then infiltrated into Latvia. The Soviet occupation had left most of Latvia with a strongly anti-Soviet sentiment, and the small number of Latvian communists had in the main left with the Red Army; most of those who stayed behind were denounced and handed over to th
e Germans, and shot. Some of those infiltrated back into Latvia were Latvian soldiers who had been conscripted into the Red Army, and had retreated with their parent regiments into the Soviet Union. Many now volunteered to return to Latvia as partisans, and whilst some may have been motivated by a desire to fight the Germans, most simply used it as a means of returning home, and disappeared within days of being parachuted into Latvia. A 250-strong unit of Latvian partisans attempted to work their way through the front line south of Lake Ilmen and then to move across country to Latvia, but was intercepted and easily destroyed by the Germans, who commented: