Nazi collaboration occurred in every country occupied byNazi Germany during theSecond World War, including theBaltic states. The three Baltic republics ofEstonia,Latvia andLithuania, wereoccupied 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 theByelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic of theSoviet Union (modernBelarus), into theReichskommissariat Ostland.[1] Collaborators with Germany participated in theEastern Front against the Soviet Union, as well as inthe Holocaust, both in and outside of the Baltic states. This collaboration was done through formalWaffen-SS divisions and police battalions, as well as through spontaneous acts during the opening of the war.
In German plans, Estonia was to become an area for future German settlements, as Estonians themselves were considered high on the Nazi racial scale, with potential for Germanization.[2] Unlike the other Baltic states, the seizure of Estonian territory by German troops was relatively long, from July 7 to December 2, 1941. This period was used by the Soviets to carry out a wave of repression against Estonians. It is estimated that theNKVD's subordinatedestruction battalions killed some 2,000 Estonian civilians,[3] and 50–60,000 people were deported deep into the USSR.[4] 10,000 of them died in the GULAG system within a year.[4] Many Estonians fought against Soviet troops on the German side, hoping to liberate their country. Some 12,000Estonian partisans took part in the fighting.[5] Of great importance were the 57Finnish-trained members of theErna group, who operated behind enemy lines.[5]
Resistance groups were organised by Germans in August 1941 into theOmakaitse (lit. 'Self-defence'), which had between 34,000[6] and 40,000 members,[7] mainly based on theKaitseliit, dissolved by the Soviets.[6] Omakaitse was in charge of clearing the German army's rear ofRed Army soldiers, NKVD members, and Communist activists. Within a year its members killed 5,500 Estonian residents.[8] Later, they performed guard duty and fought Soviet partisans flown into Estonia.[8] From among Omakaitse members were recruited Estonian policemen, members of theEstonian Auxiliary Police and officers of the Estonian20th Waffen-SS Division.[9]
The Germans formed a puppet government, theEstonian Self-Administration, headed byHjalmar Mäe. This government had considerable autonomy in internal affairs, such as filling police posts.[9] TheSecurity Police in Estonia (SiPo) had a mixed Estonian-German structure (139 Germans and 873 Estonians) and was formally under the Estonian Self-Administration.[10] Estonian police cooperated with Germans in rounding upJews,Roma, communists and those deemed enemies of existing order or asocial elements. The police also helped toconscript Estonians forforced labor andmilitary service under German command.[11] Most of the small population of Estonian Jews fled before the Germans arrived, with only about a thousand remaining. All of them were arrested by Estonian police and executed by Omakaitse.[12] Members of theEstonian Auxiliary Police and20th Waffen-SS Division also executed Jewish prisoners sent to concentration and labor camps established by the Germans on Estonian territory.[13]
Immediately after entering Estonia, the Germans began forming volunteer Estonian units the size of a battalion. By January 1942, six Security Groups (battalions No. 181-186, about 4,000 men) had been formed and were subordinate to the Wehrmacht 18th Army.[14] After the one-year contract expired, some volunteers transferred to the Waffen-SS or returned to civilian life, and three Eastern Battalions (No. 658-660) were formed from those who remained.[14] They fought until early 1944, after which their members transferred to the20th Waffen-SS Division.[14]
Beginning in September 1941, the SS and police command created four Infantry Defence Battalions (No. 37-40) and a reserve and sapper battalion (No. 41-42), which were operationally subordinate to the Wehrmacht. From 1943 they were called Police Battalions, with 3,000 serving in them.[14] In 1944 they were transformed into two infantry battalions and evacuated to Germany in the fall of 1944, where they were incorporated into the20th Waffen-SS Division.[14]
In the fall of 1941, the Germans also formed eight police battalions (No. 29-36), of which only Battalion No. 36 had a typically military purpose. However, due to shortages, most of them were sent to the front near Leningrad,[15] and were mostly disbanded in 1943. That same year, the SS and police command created five new Security and Defense Battalions (they inherited No. 29-33 and had more than 2,600 men).[16] In the spring of 1943, five Defence Battalions (No. 286-290) were established as compulsory military service units. The 290th Battalion consisted of Estonian Russians. Battalions No. 286, 288 and 289 were used to fight partisans in Belarus.[17]
On Aug. 28, 1942, the Germans formed the volunteerEstonian Waffen-SS Legion. Of the approximately 1,000 volunteers, 800 were incorporated into Battalion Narva and sent to Ukraine in the spring of 1943.[18] Due to the shrinking number of volunteers, in February 1943 the Germans introduced compulsory conscription in Estonia. Born between 1919 and 1924 faced the choice of going to work in Germany, joining the Waffen-SS or Estonian auxiliary battalions. 5,000 joined the Estonian Waffen-SS Legion, which was reorganized into the3rd Estonian Waffen-SS Brigade.[17]
As the Red Army advanced, a general mobilization was announced, officially supported by Estonia's last Prime MinisterJüri Uluots. By April 1944, 38,000 Estonians had been drafted. Some went into the 3rd Waffen-SS Brigade, which was enlarged to division size (20th Waffen-SS Division: 10 battalions, more than 15,000 men in the summer of 1944) and also incorporated most of the already existing Estonian units (mostly Eastern Battalions).[19] Younger men were conscripted into other Waffen-SS units. From the rest, six Border Defense Regiments and four Police Fusilier Battalions (Nos. 286, 288, 291, and 292).[20]
The Estonian Security Police and SD,[21] the 286th, 287th and 288thEstonian Auxiliary Police battalions, and 2.5–3% of the EstonianOmakaitse (Home Guard)militia units (between 1,000 and 1,200 men) took part in rounding up, guarding or killing of 400–1,000 Roma and 6,000 Jews in concentration camps in thePskov region of Russia and theJägala,Vaivara,Klooga andLagedi concentration camps in Estonia.
Guarded by these units, 15,000 Soviet POWs died in Estonia: some through neglect and mistreatment and some by execution.[22]
Deportations and murders of Latvians by the SovietNKVD reached their peak in the days before the capture of Soviet-occupiedRiga by German forces.[23] Those that the NKVD could not deport before the Germans arrived were shot at the Central Prison.[23] TheRSHA's instructions to their agents to unleash pogroms fell on fertile ground.[23] After theEinsatzkommando 1a and part of Einsatzkommando 2 entered the Latvian capital,[24]Einsatzgruppe A's commanderFranz Walter Stahlecker made contact withViktors Arājs on 1 July and instructed him to set up a commando unit. It was later namedLatvian Auxiliary Police orArajs Kommandos.[25] The members, far-right students and former officers were all volunteers, and free to leave at any time.[25]
The next day, 2 July, Stahlecker instructed Arājs to have the Arājs Kommandos unleashpogroms that looked spontaneous,[23] before the German occupation authorities were properly established.[26] Einsatzkommando-influenced[27] mobs of former members ofPērkonkrusts and other extreme right-wing groups began pillaging and making mass arrests, and killed 300 to 400 Riga Jews. Killings continued under the supervision of SSBrigadeführer Walter Stahlecker, until more than 2,700 Jews had died.[23][26]
The activities of the Einsatzkommando were constrained after the full establishment of the German occupation authority, after which the SS made use of select units of native recruits.[24] German General Wilhelm Ullersperger andVoldemārs Veiss, a well known Latvian nationalist, appealed to the population in a radio address to attack "internal enemies". During the next few months, theLatvian Auxiliary Security Police primarily focused on killing Jews, Communists and Red Army stragglers in Latvia and in neighbouring Byelorussia.[25]
In February–March 1943, eight Latvian battalions took part in the punitive anti-partisanOperation Winterzauber near theBelarus–Latvia border, which resulted in 439 burned villages, 10,000 to 12,000 deaths, and over 7,000 taken forforced labor or imprisoned at theSalaspils concentration camp.[28] This group alone killed almost half of Latvia's Jewish population,[29] about 26,000 Jews, mainly in November and December 1941.[30]
The creation of the Arājs Kommando was "one of the most significant inventions of the early Holocaust",[29] and marked a transition from German-organisedpogroms to systematic killing of Jews by local volunteers (former army officers, policemen, students, andAizsargi).[26] This helped with a chronic German personnel shortage and provided the Germans with relief from the psychological stress of routinely murdering civilians.[26] By the autumn of 1941, the SS had deployed theLatvian Auxiliary Police battalions to Leningrad, where they were consolidated into the2nd Latvian SS Infantry Brigade.[31] In 1943, this brigade, which later became the19th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (2nd Latvian), was consolidated with the15th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (1st Latvian) to become theLatvian Legion.[31] Although the Latvian Legion was a formally volunteerWaffen-SS unit, it was voluntary only in name; approximately 80–85% of its men were conscripts.[32]
Prior to the German invasion, some leaders inLithuania and in exile believed Germany would grant the country autonomy, as they had theSlovak Republic. The German intelligence serviceAbwehr believed that it controlled theLithuanian Activist Front, a pro-German organization based at the Lithuanian embassy inBerlin.[33] Lithuanians formed theProvisional Government of Lithuania on their own initiative, but Germany did not recognize it diplomatically, or allow Lithuanian ambassadorKazys Škirpa to become prime minister, instead actively thwarting his activities. The provisional government disbanded, since it had no power and it had become clear that the Germans came as occupiers not liberators from Soviet occupation, as initially thought.
Units underAlgirdas Klimaitis and supervised by SSBrigadeführer Walter Stahlecker started pogroms in and aroundKaunas on 25 June 1941.[34][35] Lithuanian collaborators killed hundreds of thousands of Jews, Poles andGypsies.[36] According to Lithuanian-American scholar Saulius Sužiedėlis, an increasingly antisemitic atmosphere clouded Lithuanian society, and antisemitic LAF émigrés "needed little prodding from 'foreign influences'".[37] He concluded that Lithuanian collaboration was "a significant help in facilitating all phases of the genocidal program . . . [and that] the local administration contributed, at times with zeal, to the destruction of Lithuanian Jewry".[38] Elsewhere, Sužiedėlis similarly emphasised that Lithuania's "moral and political leadership failed in 1941, and that thousands of Lithuanians participated in the Holocaust",[39] though he warned that "[u]ntil buttressed by reliable accounts providing time, place and at least an approximate number of victims, claims of large-scale pogroms before the advent of the German forces must be treated with caution".[40]
In 1941, theLithuanian Security Police was created, subordinate to Nazi Germany's Security Police and Criminal Police.[41] Of the 26Lithuanian Auxiliary Police Battalions, 10 were involved inthe Holocaust.[clarification needed] On August 16, the head of the Lithuanian police,Vytautas Reivytis [lt], ordered the arrest of Jewish men and women with Bolshevik activities: "In reality, it was a sign to kill everyone."[42] TheSpecial SD and German Security Police Squad inVilniuskilled 70,000 Jews in Paneriai and other places.[41][clarification needed] InMinsk, the 2nd Battalion shot about 9,000 Soviet prisoners of war, and inSlutsk it massacred 5,000 Jews.
In March 1942, in Poland, the2nd Lithuanian Battalion guarded theMajdanek concentration camp.[43] In July 1942, the 2nd Battalion participated in the deportation of Jews from theWarsaw Ghetto toTreblinka extermination camp.[44] In August–October 1942, some of the Lithuanian police battalions were in Belarus and Ukraine: the 3rd inMolodechno, the 4th inDonetsk, the 7th inVinnytsa, the 11th inKorosten, the 16th inDnepropetrovsk, the 254th inPoltava and the 255th inMogilev (Belarus).[45][unreliable source?] One battalion was also used to put down theWarsaw Ghetto Uprising in 1943.[43]
The participation of the local populace was a key factor in theHolocaust in Nazi-occupied Lithuania[46] which resulted in the near total decimation ofLithuanian Jews living in theNazi-occupied Lithuanian territories. From 25 July 1941, participation was under theGeneralbezirk Litauen ofReichskommissariat Ostland. Out of approximately 210,000[47] Jews, (208,000 according to the Lithuanian pre-war statistical data)[48] an estimated 195,000–196,000 perished before the end of World War II (wider estimates are sometimes published); most from June to December 1941.[47][49] The events happening in the USSR's western regions occupied byNazi Germany in the first weeks after the German invasion (including Lithuania –see map) marked the sharp intensification of the Holocaust.[50][51][52]
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