by Prit Buttar
Many people in the Baltic States, particularly the significant non-Baltic populations that were left in the three countries as a result of Soviet post-war population movements, are uncomfortable with the denigration of the Red Army, which sacrificed so much to expel the Germans from the Baltic States. The large numbers of Russians in Estonia and Latvia, forming 26 per cent and 20 per cent of their respective populations, have had a particularly difficult time adapting to the new status of the three countries. Recently, the Russian population of Latvia tried unsuccessfully to have Russian recognised as an official language in the country.
Despite these ambivalent attitudes to the past, it seems that, for the moment at least, the three Baltic States are firmly embedded in the Western World. Recent economic events have shown that this is not always a blessing. Nevertheless, people living in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania today can share a future with prospects of far greater liberty and safety from persecution than almost any preceding generation. For this future, the price that they pay – wrestling with a controversial and difficult past – is perhaps a small one.
APPENDIX 1: PLACE NAMES
In an area where borders have moved frequently, and even within each state there have been markedly different ethnicities, place names can be very confusing.
Wherever possible, the policy in this book has been to use current place names in preference to names that might have been used in the past. The exceptions to this rule have been where some locations have had names that were in almost universal use at the time. For example, the city currently known as St Petersburg was known as Petrograd at the end of the First World War, and Leningrad during the Second World War; given the resonance of the latter name, it would have been inappropriate to use the current name in preference.
Brest-Litovsk Brest (Belarusian)
Daugava (river) Düna (German), Western Dvina (Russian)
Gatchina known during the Soviet era as Krasnogvardeisk
Gdansk Danzig (German)
Jelgava Mitau (German)
Jurbarkas Georgenburg (German)
Kaunas Kauen (German), Kowno (Polish), Kovno (Russian), Kovne (Yiddish)
Kingisepp Yamburg (German)
Königsberg renamed Kaliningrad (Russian) after the war
Liepāja Libau (German)
Livonia Livland (German)
Mežaparks Kaiserwald (German)
Palanga Polangen (German)
Paneriai Ponary (Polish), Ponar (Yiddish)
Priekule Preekuln (German)
Priekulė Prokuls (German)
Pskov Pleskau (German)
Rezekne Rositten (German)
Schneidemühl renamed Piła (Polish) after the war
Šiauliai Schaulen (German), Szawle (Polish), Shavel (Yiddish)
Šilutė Heydekrug (German)
Tallinn Reval (German)
Tannenberg Stębark (Polish)
Tilsit renamed Sovetsk (Russian) after the war
Ukmergė Wilkomierz (German)
Vilijampolė Viriampol (German)
Vilnius Wilna (German), Wilno (Polish), Vilna (Russian), Vilne (Yiddish)
APPENDIX 2: RANKS
Brigadeführer SS rank equivalent to brigadier
Feldwebel Wehrmacht rank equivalent to staff sergeant
Gefreiter Wehrmacht rank equivalent to lance-corporal
Generalfeldmarschall Wehrmacht rank equivalent to field marshal
Generalkommissar senior rank in German occupation administration
Generalleutnant Wehrmacht rank equivalent to major-general
Generalmajor Wehrmacht rank equivalent to brigadier
Generaloberst Wehrmacht rank equivalent to general
Gruppenführer SS rank quivalent to major general
Hauptmann Wehrmacht rank equivalent to captain
Hauptscharführer SS rank equivalent to company sergeant-major
Hauptsturmführer SS rank equivalent to captain
Kapitänleutnant Kriegsmarine rank equivalent to lieutenant
Leutnant Wehrmacht rank equivalent to 2nd lieutenant
Major Wehrmacht rank equivalent to major
Oberfeldwebel Wehrmacht rank equivalent to company sergeant-major
Obergruppenführer SS rank equivalent to lieutenant general
Oberleutnant Wehrmacht rank equivalent to lieutenant
Oberst Wehrmacht rank equivalent to colonel
Oberstleutnant Wehrmacht rank equivalent to lieutenant colonel
Obersturmbannführer SS rank equivalent to lieutenant colonel
Rittmeister Wehrmacht (originally cavalry) rank equivalent to captain
Rottenführer SS rank equivalent to corporal
Stabsfeldwebel Wehrmacht rank equivalent to regimental sergeant-major
Standartenführer SS rank equivalent to colonel
Sturmbannführer SS rank equivalent to major
Unterscharführer SS rank equivalent to sergeant
Untersturmführer SS rank equivalent to 2nd lieutenant
APPENDIX 3: ACRONYMS
AK Armia Krajowa (‘home army’), the Polish resistance army supported by the Western Powers
AOK Armee Oberkommando (Army High Command), e.g. AOK Ostpreussen
BDO Bund Deutscher Offiziere (League of German Officers)
EVR Eesti Vabariigi Rahvuskomitee (Estonian Republic National Committee)
FPO Fareynikte Partizaner Organizatsye (United Partisans Organisation)
GPU Gosudarstvennoye Politicheskoye Upravlenie (State Political Directorate), Soviet, a part of the NKVD
HKP Heeres Kraftfahr Park (Army Freight Vehicle Pool), German
HSSPf Höhere SS- und Polizeiführer (senior SS and police commander), German
LAF Lietuvos Aktyvistų Frontas (Lithuanian Activist Front)
LCP Latvijas Centrālā Padome (Latvian Central Committee)
LKNS Latviju Kareivju Nacionālā Savienība (National Federation of Latvian Fighters)
LLA Lietuvos Laisvės Armija (Lithuanian Freedom Army)
LLKS Lietuvos Laisvės Kovos Sąjūdis (Union of Lithuanian Freedom Fighters)
LVR Lietuvos Vietinė Rinktinė (Lithuanian Defence Force)
NKFD Nationalkomitee Freies Deutschland (National Committee for a Free Germany)
NKVD Narodnyy Komissariat Vnutrennikh Del (People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs), the Soviet Secret Police
OKH Oberkommando des Heeres (German Army High Command)
OKW Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (Wehrmacht High Command)
RHSA Reichssicherheitshauptamt (Reich Main Security Administration), German
RVL Relvastadud Voitluse Liit (Armed Resistance League), Estonian
SA Sturmabteilung (Storm Detachment), German, the pre-war paramilitary wing of the National Socialist Party
SD Sicherheitsdienst (Security Administration), German
STAVKA Soviet High Command
TAR Tevynes Apsaugas Rinktine (Fatherland Defence Force), Lithuanian
TDA Tautos Darbo Apsauga (National Labour Service Battalion), Lithuanian
APPENDIX 4: FOREIGN TERMS
Abwehr the German military intelligence branch
Auftragstaktik military concept centered on achievement of a mission, which allowed junior officers to take decisions, in contrast to older, more rigid command and control systems
Freikorps volunteer military organisations assembled from former German army personnel in the Baltic States and Germany in the aftermath of the First World War
Judenrat lit. ‘Jewish council’, the Jewish administrative body responsible for organising the Jewish communities in the occupied territories
Komjautnatne Latvian youth organisation
Komsomol Soviet youth organisation
Ostministerium Common abbreviation for the Reichsministerium für die besetzten Ostgebiete (‘Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories’)
Omakaitse Originally the Estonian ‘Home Guard’ after the First World War; re-established as a militia group after the German inv
asion in 1941
Pērkonkrusts lit. ‘Thunder Cross’, a Latvian extreme nationalist group, with links to the RSHA and to Einsatzgruppe A
SS-Führungshauptamt the headquarters of the non-combat elements of the SS, based in Berlin
ENDNOTES
Introduction
1. Misiunas, R., Taagepera, R. (1993) The Baltic States – Years of Dependence 1940–1990, London: Hurst, p.6
2. Henry Nevinson, quoted in Eksteins M. (1999) Walking Since Daybreak, New York: Mariner, pp.42–43
3. Bleiere, D., Butulis, I., Zunda, A., Stranga, A., Feldmanis, I. (2006), History of Latvia: the 20th Century, Riga: Jumava, p.68
4. Czernin von und zu Chudenitz, O. (1920) In the World War, New York and London: Harper & Brothers, pp.245–46
5. Davies, N. (2003) White Eagle, Red Star: the Polish-Soviet War, 1919–20, London: Pimlico
6. Volkogonov, D. (1994) Lenin: Life and Legacy, London: Harper Collins, p.482
7. Naumann, F. (1915) Mitteleuropa, Berlin: Georg Reimer
8. Madajczyk, C. (1961) Generalna Gubernia w planach hitlerowskich. Studia, Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN, pp.88–89
9. Lower, W. (2009) Empire, Colony, Genocide: Conquest, Occupation and Subaltern Resistance in World History, New York: Berghahn, p.301
10. See Erichsen, C., Olusoga, D. (2010) The Kaiser’s Holocaust: Germany’s Forgotten Genocide and the Colonial Roots of Nazism, London: Faber & Faber
11. Holborn, H. (1969) A History of Modern Germany, New York: Knopf, p.429
12. Eidintas, A., (1997) Restoration of the State, in Eidintas, A., Žalys, V., Senn, A. Lithuania in European Politics: The Years of the First Republic 1918–1940, Basingstoke: Macmillan, pp.220–21
13. Davies, N. p.50
14. President Wilson’s Message to Congress, January 8, 1918; Records of the United States Senate; Record Group 46
Chapter 1
1. Emelianov, Y. (2007) Priybaltika: Mezhdoo Stalinim I Hitlerom, Moscow: Izdatel’ Bystrov, p.157
2. Emelianov, p.158
3. Nekrich, A., Ulam, A., Freeze, G. (1997) Pariahs, Partners, Predators: German–Soviet Relations, 1922–1941, New York: Columbia University Press, p.110
4. Sebag Montefiore, S. (2004) Stalin, The Court of the Red Czar, London: Vintage, p.40
5. Quoted in Sebag Montefiore, p.310
6. Resis, A. (2000) ‘The Fall of Litvinov: Harbinger of the German–Soviet Non-Aggression Pact’ in Europe-Asia Studies 52 (1), p.35
7. Emelianov, p.161
8. Emelianov, p.163
9. Sebag Montefiore, p.314
10. Emelianov, p.165
11. Quoted in Sebag Montefiore, p.318
12. Halder, F., Diaries, Imperial War Museum, 22 August 1939
13. USSR DVP, 22/1, p.632
14. Lietuvos Okupacija ir Aneksija 1939–40 (1993), Vilnius: Mintis, p.65
15. Eesti NSV Ajalugui III (1971), Tallinn, p.365
16. Sebag Montefiore, p.321
17. Hiden, J., Salmon, P. (1994) The Baltic Nations and Europe (revised edn), Harlow: Longman, p.110
18. Tarauskas, E. (1990) Lietuvos Nepriklausomybės Netenkant, Kaunas: Sviesa, p.74
19. Urbšys, J. (1990) Atsiminimai, Kaunas: Spindulys, quoted in Senn, A. (2007) Lithuania 1940, Revolution from Above, New York: Rodopi, p.17
20. Senn, p.18
21. Senn, p.20
22. The Winter War was fought between Finland and the Soviet Union between November 1939 and March 1940 in the narrow neck of land to the north and west of Leningrad.
23. Myllyniemi, S. (1979) Die Baltische Krise 1938–41, Stuttgart: Deutsche, pp.114–17
24. Felder, B. (2009) Lettland im Zweiten Weltkrieg, Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, p.45
25. Zotov’s telegrams form part (Reel 1, Container 1) of the Volkogonov Collection of the US Library of Congress
26. Quoted in Felder (2009), p.44
27. Felder (2009), p.79
28. Nollendorfs, V. (2005) Battle for the Baltic. Yearbook of the Museum of the Occupation of Latvia 2004, Riga, p.162
29. Štiemanis, J. (2002) History of the Latvian Jews, New York: East European Monographs, p.115
30. Komplektov, G. (1990) Polpredy Soobshchaiut, Moscow: Meshdunarodnye Otnosheniia, p.140
31. Rudis, G., quoted in Senn, p.74
32. Emelianov, p.167
33. Senn, p.97
34. Misiunas, R., Taagepera, R. (1993) The Baltic States – Years of Dependence 1940–1990, London: Hurst, p.201
35. Senn, pp.106–07
36. Felder (2009), p.32
37. Brīvā Zeme, 17/6/40
38. NKVD Report of 25/10/40 in Latvijas Valsts Arhīvs, Riga, PA-101/1/35, 3
39. Lejiņš, J. (1971) Mana Dzimtene: Atmiņu un Pārdomu Atspulgā, Vasteras: ICA bokförlag, p.180
40. Misiunas and Taagepera, p.21
41. Third Interim Report of the Select Committee on Communist Aggression, 83rd Congress, 2nd Session, Washington 1954, p.458
42. Misiunas and Taagepera, pp.28–29
43. Uustalu, E. (1952) The History of the Estonian People, London: Boreas, p.242
44. Nicholas, L. (2006) Cruel World: The Children of Europe in the Nazi Web, New York: Vintage, pp.194–205
45. Third Interim Report, p.471
46. Latvijas Valsts Arhīvs, PA-101/2/32, 35
47. Hoover Institution of War, Peace and Revolution Archive, Stanford, 89/18/1
48. Felder (2009), p.162
49. Misiunas and Taagepera, p.42
50. Felder (2009), pp.158–59, Misiunas and Taagepera, p.43
51. Pakalniškis, A. (1980) Plungė, Chicago: Spaudė M. Morkūno spaustuvė, p.45
52. Kuromiya, H., Pepłoński, A. (2009) Między Warszawą a Tokio, Toruń: Wydawnictwo Adam Marszałek, pp.470–85
53. Swain, G. (2004) Between Stalin and Hitler, London: Routledge, p.28
Chapter 2
1. Cecil, R. (1972) The Myth of the Master Race: Alfred Rosenberg and Nazi Ideology, New York: Dodd Mead, pp.42–43
2. Hitler, A. (1971) Mein Kampf, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, p.646
3. Rössler, M., Schleiermacher, S. (1996) ‘Hauptlinien der nationalsozialistischen Planungs- und Vernichtungspolitik’ in Central European History Journal, Vol. 29, 2, pp.270–74
4. Speer, A. (1970) Inside the Third Reich: Memoirs by Albert Speer, London: Macmillan, p.115
5. Dallin, A. (1957) German Rule in Russia 1941–45, London: Macmillan, p.102
6. Trials of the Major War Criminals before the International Military Tribunal 1947–49, Vol. XXVI, pp.610–27, US Library of Congress
7. Führer Naval Conferences (1947) US Library of Congress, p.120
8. Quoted in Madajczyk, C. (1994) Vom Generalplan Ost zum Generalsiedlungsplan: Dokumente, Munich: Saur, p.24
9. Kay, A. (2006) Exploitation, Resettlement, Mass Murder: Political and Economic Planning for German Occupation Policy in the Soviet Union, New York: Berghahn, p.211
10. Snyder, T. (2011) Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin, London: Vintage, pp.161–162
11. Kay, p.164
12. Trials of the Major War Criminals, Vol. XXXVIII, pp.86–94
13. Raun, T. (2002) Estonia and the Estonians (Studies of Nationalities), Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, p161
14. Quoted in Kangeris, K. (2008) Latvijas Vēsturnieku Komisijas Raksti, Riga: Latvijas vēstures institūta apgāds, p.241
15. Eberhardt, P. (2006) Political Migrations in Poland, Warsaw: Studium Europy Wschodniej UW, p.26
16. Shirer, W. (1960) The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, New York: Simon & Schuster, p.647
17. Führer Directive 21, 18 December 1940: Office of the United States Chief of Counsel For Prosecution of Axis Criminality
18. Quoted in Widder, W. (2002) ‘Auftragstaktik and Innere Führung: Trademarks of German Leadership’ in Military Review Sept–Oct 2002, p.4
19. Rhodes, R. (2002) Masters of Death: The SS-Einsatzgruppen and the Invention of the Holocaust, New Yor
k: Alfred A. Knopf, p.9
20. Hillgruber, A. War in the East and the Extermination of the Jews in Marrus, M. (ed.) (1989) The Nazi Holocaust Part 3, The ‘Final Solution’: The Implementation of Mass Murder, Munich: Saur, pp.94–95
21. Rees, L. (1997) The Nazis: a Warning From History, London: BBC, p.177
22. Ries, T. (1988) Cold Will: The Defence of Finland, London: Brassey’s Defence Publishers, pp.77–78
23. Glantz, D. (2002) The Battle for Leningrad, Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, p.22
24. Sewell, S. (1998) ‘Why Three Tanks?’ in Armor, Jul–Aug 1998, p.24
25. Glantz (2002), p.23
26. Gorkov, I., Semin, N. (1996), ‘Konets global’noi Ishi: Na sovetskom severozapade – Operativnye plany zapadhykh prigranichnykh okrugov 1941 godasvidetel’-stvuiut: SSSR ne gotovilsia knapadeniiu na Germaniiu’ in Voenno-istoricheskii zhurnal 6 (Nov–Dec 1996): 2, pp.3–4
27. Quoted in Schneider, J. (1994) The Structure of Strategic Revolution: Total War and the Roots of the Soviet Warfare State, Novato: Presidio Press, p.178
28. Tukhachevsky, M. (1924) Questions of Higher Command, Moscow, p.88
29. Tukhachevsky, M. New Problems in Warfare, quoted in McPadden, C. (2006) Mikhail Nikolayevich Tukhachevsky (1893–1937): Practitioner and Theorist of War, Land Warfare Papers 56, Institute of Land Warfare, Arlington
30. Tukhachevsky, M. (1936) Vremmenyi Polevoi Ustav RKKA, Moscow, p.42
31. Lukes, I. (1996) Czechoslovakia Between Stalin and Hitler: The Diplomacy of Edvard Beneš in the 1930s, Oxford: Oxford University Press, p.95
32. Glantz, D. in Krause, M., Phillips, R. (eds) (2006) Historical Perspectives of the Operational Art, Washington: Center of Military History, p.247
33. Quoted in Sebag Montefiore, S. (2004) Stalin, The Court of the Red Czar, London: Vintage, p.341
34. Quoted in Sebag Montefiore, p.347
Chapter 3
1. Haupt, W. (1997) Army Group North, Atglen: Schiffer, p.28
2. Jones, M. (2008) Leningrad: State of Siege, London: John Murray, p.12
3. Conze, W. (1953) Die Geschichte der 291 iInfanterie-Division, Bad Neuheim: Podzun, p.119