TheLithuanian Security Police (LSP), also known asSaugumas (Lithuanian:Saugumo policija), was a local police force that operated inGerman-occupied Lithuania from 1941 to 1944, incollaboration with the occupational authorities.[1] Collaborating with the NaziSipo (security police) andSD (intelligence agency of theSS),[2] the unit was directly subordinate to the GermanKripo (criminal police).[3] The LSP took part in perpetratingthe Holocaust in Lithuania, persecuting thePolish resistance and communist underground.
WhenSoviet Union occupied Lithuania on 15 June 1940, the LithuanianMinistry of Internal Affairs was liquidated and replaced by the SovietNKVD. Many former employees of the Ministry were arrested and imprisoned as "enemies of the people". Foreseeing theNazi invasion of the Soviet Union, Lithuanians organized theJune Uprising, hoping to regain Lithuanian independence in the clash of the two powers. They drew up plans to restore pre-Soviet state institutions under aProvisional Government of Lithuania. On 24 June 1941, the Provisional Government recreated the pre-war Ministry of Internal Affairs with three departments – State Security, Police, and Prisons.[3] The State Security Department was headed byVytautas Reivytis [lt]. The government asked all those who had worked there prior to 15 June 1940 to report back for duty. Many of them had just been released from Soviet prisons.[3]
After the German took Lithuania, it became apparent that they had no intention of granting autonomy to Lithuania. Instead, on 25 July 1941, they established a civil administration known asGeneralbezirk Litauen underGeneralkommissarAdrian von Renteln, and dissolved the Provisional Government on 5 August 1941. But they found the police and intelligence agencies created in the transitional period useful and incorporated them into theGerman security system. The former State Security Department was reorganised into the Lithuanian Security Police.[3]
The police in German-occupied Lithuania consisted of separate German and Lithuanian units. The most important German police organizations were the SiPo (security police,German:Sicherheitspolizei) and SD (security service,German:Sicherheitsdienst), commanded byKarl Jäger and headquartered in Kaunas, and the public police (German:Schutzpolizei).[4] The major Lithuanian police organisations were the Public Police, Lithuanian Security and Criminal Police (combined at the end of 1942 into one force),Lithuanian Auxiliary Police Battalions (LithuanianSchutzmannschaft), Railway Police and Fire Police. Lithuanian police organizations were subordinate to their respective German counterparts.[4] Neighboring Latvia and Estonia did not have an equivalent to LSP.[5]
The LSP was dependent on the German SiPo and SD. It had the authority to sentence suspects to up to three years.[4] Longer sentences had to be reviewed and approved by Karl Jäger, who always increased the sentences.[5]Wilhelm Fuchs, the new commander ofEinsatzkommando 3, wanted to liquidate LSP and incorporate it into the German police,[5] but Stasys Čenkus wrote him a letter defending LSP's usefulness and it was left undisturbed.[3]
The head of the Lithuanian Security and Criminal Police wasStasys Čenkus [lt], an agent of theAbwehr. He kept this position until the end of the German occupation. His deputy assistants were head of the Security Police Kazys Matulis and his personal secretary Vytenis Stasiškis. Petras Pamataitis headed the Criminal Police.[3]
The LSP had a staff of approximately 400 people, 250 of them inKaunas[3] and about another 130 inVilnius.[6] Many of its members came from the fascistIron Wolf organisation.[2] For comparison, as of December 1943, the German SiPo and SD had 112 employees in Kaunas and 40 employees in Vilnius.[3] The combined Lithuanian Security and Criminal Police had 886 employees in 1943.[3]
LSP was headquartered inKaunas. The headquarters were divided onto several departments: Organization (recruitment and employee selection), Economical and Financial (general administration), and Information (reports from other departments and agencies, registry of state enemies, archive).[3]
LSP had six regional branches in Kaunas (headed by Albinas Čiuoderis),Vilnius (Aleksandras Lileikis),Šiauliai (Juozas Pakulis),Ukmergė (Aleksandras Braziukaitis),Marijampolė (Petras Banys) andPanevėžys (Antanas Liepa). Regional branches usually had seven commissariats:[3]
Regional branches sometimes had different set of commissariats, for example Kaunas's branch had a separate commissariat forright-wing organizations.[3]
The initial task of LSP was to identify and arrest Communists. In the first months of German occupation, the Communist Commissariat of the Vilnius branch, headed byJuozas Bagdonis, was especially active. In 1941 documents this commissariat is sometimes referred to as the Communist-Jewish section (Lithuanian:Komunistų-žydų sekcija). It was responsible for spying on, arresting and interrogating Communists, members ofKomsomol, former Soviet government workers,NKVD collaborators, Jews and supporters of Jews.[4] In Kaunas, the LSP arrested about 200 Communists; about 170 of them were on a list of known Communists. On 26 June 1941, this group was transferred to theSeventh Fort and executed. The next day Germans forbade Lithuanians to order executions independently.[4]
As the war continued, the focus shifted to operations againstSoviet partisans and thePolish resistance, particularly active in eastern Lithuania.[4] In February 1942, the SiPo and SD mandated registration of Polishintelligentsia (cf.proscription list).[5]
In the first weeks of German occupation, the LSP focused on persecuting Communists regardless of their nationality. At the time, Jews were persecuted only if they were involved in Communist activities.[4] Members of the LSP collected at least some evidence to support the charge. However, that quickly changed and Jews became persecuted solely because of their ethnicity. The LSP targeted Jews and suspected Jews, supporters of Jews, people evading imprisonment in the ghettos, escapees from ghettos,[7] or those who violated theNazi racial laws.[4]
The activities of the LSP offices in major cities (Vilnius, Kaunas) and in the provinces differed in principle.[4] LSP officers in major cities would most often study more complicated cases of political and strategic character, and so did not directly participate in mass killings of Jews. After interrogation, Jews were handed over either to theGestapo or to theYpatingasis būrys, which then transported them to the mass murder site atPaneriai or another places of mass execution.[8][9] The LSP offices in the provinces took an active role in the Holocaust and, altogether, were more active. Here, the LSP officials would not only conduct interrogations, but also organize mass arrests, transport Jews to their imprisonment or execution, and carry out their execution.[4]
At the end of the war many members of the Lithuanian Security Police fled toWestern Europe, notably to Germany.[6] In 1955, the former commander of its Vilnius branch,Aleksandras Lileikis, emigrated to the United States, where he obtained citizenship, of which he was stripped in 1996.[1] In Lithuania, Lileikis's trial was postponed several times due to his poor health; he died at age 93 without having been tried.[10] Lileikis gave interviews to the press and published a memoirPažadinto laiko pėdsakais (ISBN 9789986847281) in which he denied any wrongdoing.[4]
Kazys Gimžauskas, Lileikis' deputy, returned to Lithuania after US authorities began to investigate him in 1996, and was convicted in 2001 of participation in genocide.[11] In 2006,Algimantas Dailidė was convicted in Lithuania of persecuting and arresting two Poles and 12 Jews while he was a member of Lithuanian Security Police.[12][13]
{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)