Between Giants

by Prit Buttar

  By June 1947, Saaliste and others had united several disparate groups into a united and organised movement, the Relvastadud Voitluse Liit (‘Armed Resistance League’ or RVL). The movement continued to hope for western intervention, as its declaration made clear: ‘The organisation is preparing an armed uprising against the Soviet regime at such a time when England and the United States go to war against the Soviet Union, or when a political coup occurs in the Soviet Union itself.’6

  As a consequence of this aim, attacks on the Soviet authorities and pro-Soviet Estonians diminished, as the RVL attempted to preserve and develop further its network, in readiness for future action. Nor did the RVL attempt to absorb all the Forest Brothers into its ranks; rather, it tried to maintain links with resistance groups throughout the country. Nevertheless, combat against the Red Army continued. In Pärnumaa County, railway and other lines of communications were disrupted 22 times in just three months.7

  Estonian resistance reached its maximum impact in 1947. In many parts of the countryside, the RVL and local Forest Brothers effectively controlled not only the forests, but also the villages and smaller towns, particularly at night. For much of the time, Soviet supply columns could only move if escorted by substantial bodies of troops. Some individuals in the resistance movement achieved considerable fame. One such person was Ants Kaljurand, known to ordinary Estonians as Hirmus Ants (‘Ants the Terrible’). He was both a Forest Brother and a member of the RVL, and had fought for the Germans against the Soviet Union. He was one of many Estonians who chose to stay in their country as the Wehrmacht retreated. He was promptly captured, but succeeded in escaping and rapidly established a reputation for daring ventures. He allegedly rescued his girlfriend from captivity in Soontagana by visiting the town hall secretary in the middle of the night and demanding the keys to the cells at gunpoint, and was responsible for many attacks on Soviet and pro-Soviet Estonian personnel.8

  With the country apparently slipping from their control, the Soviet authorities took stern measures. There were widespread arrests and sweeps of forests, and repeated attempts to infiltrate the RVL. Late in 1947, a failed attempt by a group of RVL fighters to seize a shipment of money resulted in the capture of a driver who had worked with many of the RVL’s senior figures, and a series of attacks followed, in which many RVL hideouts and bunkers were destroyed, and a small number of RVL officers were either captured or killed; many took their own lives rather than fall into Soviet hands. Throughout 1948, RVL and Forest Brothers activity diminished, and General Boris Kumm, the Minister for State Security in the government of the Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic, declared – a little prematurely – that the RVL was no longer a functioning organisation. Fighting continued in 1949, and on 14 December, Richard Saaliste was killed when his bunker was overrun. Over the next two years, coordinated action by the RVL and Forest Brothers effectively ceased. Although a few individuals managed to continue to resist, the dreams of a mass uprising supported by the Western Powers rapidly faded. Ants Kaljurand was betrayed to the authorities in 1951. He was arrested, tried, and executed in Tallinn on 13 March.9

  Soviet accounts tried to blame the resistance upon counter-revolutionaries, western spies and ‘Kulaks’, but the reality was that they enjoyed widespread support, though this fell away as Soviet arrests of all those who had any link with the resistance fighters detained ever-growing numbers of people. Partly in an attempt to destroy support for the Forest Brothers and the RVL, and partly to smooth the way for collectivisation of agriculture, the communist authorities in all three Baltic States took part in an operation codenamed Priboi (‘Coastal surf’ or ‘Breaker’). The decision to implement a wave of mass deportations was taken in January 1949 by the Council of Ministers of the USSR, and additional forces were deployed specifically for the task. Arrests began on 25 March, and the operation lasted for three days. By the time it ended, nearly 20,000 Estonians had been deported to Siberia. Unlike the deportations of 1941, families were not forcibly separated, but all deportees were required to sign a declaration stating that they were ‘special settlers’ in Siberia, and faced arrest and hard labour if they attempted to return to their homelands.10

  Like the Estonians, many Latvians also took up arms against the Soviet occupation. The total number of those involved may have been as high as 40,000, with perhaps a maximum of 10,000–15,000 active at any time.11 In addition to Latvian nationals, the ranks of the resistance fighters included a small but significant number of German soldiers. Planning for a resistance movement began before the return of the Red Army. As has been discussed, the Latvians created the Latvijas Centrālā Padome (‘Latvian Central Council’ or LCP) in 1943, following the German defeat at Stalingrad, to coordinate nationalist movements. From the start, the LCP opposed all foreign occupation, German or Soviet, and worked for a free and democratic Latvia.12 The leader, Konstantīns Čakste, ensured that the organisation contained significant numbers of those who had been associates of the pre-war Ulmanis regime, but he also tried to incorporate all extremes of opinion. Previous sworn enemies such as the Pērkonkrusts and the Social Democrats, who had fought street battles during the 1930s, now found themselves within the same organisation. When the Red Army entered Latvian territory in 1944, many members of the LCP sought to leave the country, and despite German attempts to stop them, about 2,500 succeeded in fleeing to the Swedish island of Gotland. Here, they attempted to establish and build links with the Western Allies.

  Back in Latvia, many of those who had hated the German occupation were now faced with a resumption of the even more hated Soviet occupation. General Kurelis created a volunteer force, initially with the approval of the Germans, who authorised Frontaufklärungskommando 212, a special part of General Gehlen’s Fremde Heere Ost, the Wehrmacht’s intelligence service in Eastern Europe, to train the Latvians.13 Some of the Germans involved were impressed with their new recruits, with one describing them as ‘most valuable … many useful and satisfactory men, who sat purposelessly in the woods, [and now] once more could be involved in legitimate action’.14 But as the ‘Kurelis Army’ developed, the Germans became increasingly aware of the anti-German sentiments of most of its personnel, and attempted to disband the Latvian force. This resulted in armed conflict between the two sides in mid-December 1944 in northern Courland, with German ‘anti-partisan’ sweeps that rivalled the brutality of similar operations in the territories to the east of the Latvian-Soviet border prior to the German retreat.

  At the same time that the ‘Kurelis Army’ was developing, other elements of the German administration were taking part in Operation Zeppelin, a plan to establish anti-Soviet partisans throughout East Europe as the Wehrmacht fell back. The Latvian component of this plan, Operation Wildkatze (‘Wildcat’) was organised by the SS, using Latvian associates of the security police. The leader of the Latvians involved in Wildkatze was Boriss Jankavs, a former member of the Arājs Kommando. With many members of the Pērkonkrusts in its ranks, including a number specifically released from German imprisonment so that they could take part, the organisation run by Jankavs grew to incorporate groups such as Latvijas Sargi (‘Latvian Guards’), which were then armed by the Germans in September 1944. It was a sign of the rapidly shifting political landscape that Latvijas Sargi, which was originally an anti-German group, was now armed by its former enemies.15

  After the surrender of Army Group Courland, over 3,000 of the Latvians still serving alongside the Germans joined one or other of the active resistance movements in Latvia.16 The movements had loose contacts both with each other and with similar organisations in Lithuania and Estonia. In addition to producing newsletters and other propaganda material, the groups attacked Latvian representatives of the communist authorities as well as Red Army and NKVD units. One such Latvian group, which included Talrids Krastiņš, a former member of a reconnaissance unit of 19th SS Waffen-Grenadier Division (2nd Latvian), attempted to assassinate Vilis Lācis, the head of the communist regime in Latvia. Acting on information
from a Latvian woman who worked for the communist authorities, the group fired on a convoy of cars, but shot at the wrong vehicle. Undaunted, they recruited another female collaborator who also worked for the government to obtain intelligence that could be used in a future attack, but on this occasion, the woman turned out to be an agent of the NKVD. The group was arrested, and executed in 1948.17 As in Estonia, activity in Latvia probably peaked in late 1946 and early 1947, and declined only after the mass deportations of Priboi, which resulted in nearly 42,000 Latvians being shipped to Siberia. Small groups continued to resist, both passively and actively, well into the 1950s, but with diminishing effect. The last fighters to surrender formally to the authorities handed themselves in as late as 1957; it is likely that others simply drifted back into civilian life.

  Lithuania, which had provided the fewest combatants for the German cause during the war, proved to be the most active area for anti-Soviet resistance. In Estonia and Latvia, the Lutheran church tended to be identified with the Baltic Germans, and played little part in the resistance movements, but by contrast in Lithuania, the Catholic clergy were heavily involved, providing shelter and support to the fighters. The core of the movement came from personnel of the Lietuvos Vietinė Rinktinė (‘Lithuanian Defence Force’ or LVR) created by the Germans under the command of General Povilas Plechavičius in 1944. As was the case with the ‘Kurelis Army’ in Latvia, the LVR’s strong nationalist tendencies had made the Germans increasingly nervous, and attempts were made to impose greater control on the group; at one stage it was proposed that it should become part of the SS, and in addition to taking a personal oath to Hitler, all members would have to use the Nazi salute. Plechavičius rejected these demands and pre-empted any German move to disband his group, ordering its members to disperse and take to the countryside; he was arrested in May 1944 and sent to a concentration camp, but about half of the LVR continued to function, mainly as small groups. Armed with a variety of weapons, ranging from small arms to mortars, the partisans established an organisation that extended throughout the country.

  The LVR and other related groups fought against both the Soviet occupying forces and the local communist regime. The Soviet authorities reported that their own annual losses throughout 1945, 1946 and 1947 exceeded 8,700; during the same period, they claimed to have killed over 13,000 partisans, most of these during 1945. As was the case with anti-partisan operations conducted by the Germans during the war, this latter figure probably includes a significant number of civilians who were killed during Soviet anti-partisan sweeps. Over a thousand ‘pro-Soviet civilians’ also died during these years.18 In 1949, with annual losses on both sides continuing to exceed 1,000, Jonas Žemaitis united the various Lithuanian groups under the title of Lietuvos Laisvės Kovos Sąjūdis (‘Union of Lithuanian Freedom Fighters’, or LLKS). The new High Command published a declaration calling for a restoration of democratic government and declaring the Communist Party an illegal organisation.

  But the tide was turning against the anti-Soviet fighters throughout the region. As happened in Estonia and Latvia, Priboi greatly weakened the support base of the resistance fighters in Lithuania, with nearly 26,000 people being deported. Although the Western Powers showed interest in the resistance movements of all three countries, their attempts to provide support proved to be disastrous. Soviet infiltrators, both in the Baltic States and in the countries of the west, regularly provided detailed information to their controllers in Moscow, allowing the NKVD and its successor organisations to disrupt and destroy the partisan groups. Žemaitis suffered a stroke in 1951, and was captured in 1953; a year later, he was executed in Moscow. Adolfas Ramanauskas, his successor as commander of the LLKS, attempted to move the remnants of his organisation away from armed warfare and towards passive resistance. He was arrested in 1956 after he was betrayed by a former school friend, and brutally interrogated. In October, he was transferred to hospital, where a report was compiled showing how appallingly he had been treated. He had been stabbed at least six times through his right eyelid with a wire or nail, destroying the eye itself. His scrotum was badly torn, and both testes had been ripped out.19 He survived until the following year, when he was sentenced to death and executed. His wife was sent to a labour camp in Siberia for eight years.

  The last anti-Soviet partisan to be killed was Pranas Končius. In July 1965, he was involved in an exchange of fire with Soviet forces, and was either killed or shot himself. Remarkably, he was not the last partisan. In 1971, Benediktas Mikulis, who had been in hiding for an astonishing 27 years, during which he fought against both the Germans and the Soviets, decided to return to his family and attempted to slip back into normal society. A few years later, he was arrested and imprisoned. Other partisans, who escaped arrest, may have been active even later than Mikulis.

  The scale and intensity of the resistance to Soviet rule, and its durability, was an unwelcome development for the Soviet regime. Stalin categorised all of the anti-Soviet partisans as ‘fascists’, and the attempts by the Western Powers to exploit the groups merely played into Soviet hands. But after Stalin’s death in 1953, the Soviet authorities made attempts to bring the insurgency to an end. An amnesty was offered to all resistance fighters, and many took up the offer, a further factor in the weakening of the resistance movement.

  Soviet control of the three countries was achieved through local communist parties, but although the First Secretaries of the three parties were local citizens, their deputies and other major figures were often Russians. As had been the case in previous occupations, a shortage of suitable local personnel at middle and lower tiers hamstrung the administrations of the three countries, a factor that was worsened by Soviet insistence that only those who had spent a minimum of 20 years in the Soviet Union undergoing ‘Sovietisation’ were entirely reliable. Although there were significant numbers of ethnic Estonians and Latvians who had lived in the Soviet Union prior to the war, they were regarded with contempt by their compatriots when they returned to take power under Soviet control. In the case of Lithuania, the pool of Lithuanians who were living in the Soviet Union was very limited, and in order to administer the country, large numbers of Russians moved into Lithuania; in 1947, 32 per cent of all government ministers were Russians. Similarly, the membership of the communist parties of the three countries was dominated by non-Balts. Until the end of the 1940s, only in Latvia did membership by Latvians approach 50 per cent, and this was largely due to the return to Latvia of large numbers of ethnic Latvians from the Soviet Union. Despite the use of Russians to try to ensure compliance in the three states, Moscow continued to be dissatisfied with arrangements, and in 1951, the Estonian Communist Party was heavily purged. The exact reasons are not clear, but widespread reluctance in the administration to embrace communist policies, particularly the collectivisation of agriculture, probably played a part.

  The German and Latvian soldiers who surrendered in Courland in 1945 had been assured of good treatment and a swift return home at the end of the war. Like other Wehrmacht soldiers who surrendered to the Red Army in 1945, they were systematically robbed of their personal possessions, and in a few cases roughly treated. However, it appears that the determined resistance of the Wehrmacht in Courland had impressed the soldiers and officers of the Red Army, and there are many examples of the soldiers being treated with respect. The swift return to their homeland, however, did not materialise. The Soviet Union had suffered major losses, and was desperately short of manpower. The prisoners were transported east, and set to work in a variety of roles, ranging from clearing rubble to building factories and working in mines and fields. By 1949, many had been allowed to return home, but large numbers remained in captivity. Some, but by no means all, of these detainees had been charged with and convicted of a variety of crimes, and were no longer termed prisoners of war. The crimes they had allegedly committed varied hugely; in some cases, they included attacks on civilians and maltreatment of prisoners, but in other cases, the charges were absurd. O
ne Luftwaffe pilot was sentenced to several years’ hard labour for the crime of destroying Soviet state property – the property in question being the Soviet aircraft that he had shot down during the war. The death rate amongst those who were detained the longest was considerable, with fewer than 50 per cent surviving until 1956, when the German Chancellor, Konrad Adenauer, succeeded in negotiating their release during a momentous visit to Moscow.20

  The German and Baltic soldiers who had succeeded in escaping to Sweden in the closing days of the war had an unpleasant shock awaiting them. At first, they were treated well, receiving payment for any work they undertook, but the Swedish government came under increasing pressure from Moscow. In June 1945, a formal demand was issued, requiring Sweden to hand over all former German combatants – including citizens of the Baltic States – who had fled to Sweden from the Eastern Front. The Swedish government was in a difficult position. Whilst many in Sweden, particularly the church and the military, were opposed to any such transfer, there were precedents for the handover of Germans. At the end of any war, former combatants were to be handed over to the controlling authority in their homeland, and as Germany had been divided into zones of occupation by the victorious Allies, this could be interpreted as requiring the Swedes to transfer Germans to whichever power they had fought against during the war. Consequently, some 3,000 Germans were handed over to the Soviet Union. Many attempted self-mutilation or even suicide as a means of avoiding extradition; once they had recovered from their injuries, they were extradited anyway.