“Completely changes our ideas”: the historian published materials on the cooperation of the Lithuanian special services and the Third Reich

February 20, 1940 in the building of the General Directorate of Imperial Security of Germany (RSHA), a meeting of representatives of the special services of the Third Reich and the Republic of Lithuania took place. About this with reference to unique archival materials, the search and study of which was devoted seven years, said the historian Alexander Dyukov. On the agenda of this meeting was an exchange of information and a joint struggle with the communist movement and a number of other forces. The negotiations lasting several days also discussed the prospects for establishing a protectorate of the Third Reich over Lithuania, Dyukov said.

German "friends"

On February 16, 1918, Lithuania, which was under German occupation at that time, announced the creation of a state independent of Russia, and since the beginning of the 1920s, leading European powers have actively used its territory for intelligence activities against the Soviet Union. Germany was no exception, also trying to increase its political and economic influence in the Baltic states.

After the outbreak of World War II, Adolf Hitler considered the possibility of turning Lithuania into a protectorate of the Reich, however, the Soviet leadership, who was afraid of the Nazi presence on the borders of the USSR, at the negotiations in September 1939 forced Berlin to abandon these plans.

On October 10, 1939, the “Agreement on the transfer to the Republic of Lithuania of the city of Vilna and the Vilnius Region and on mutual assistance between the Soviet Union and Lithuania” was signed. Moscow handed over to the Lithuanian side the city of Vilno (present-day Vilnius), occupied by Poland in 1920-1922, and insisted on the introduction of the 20,000-strong contingent of Soviet troops into the republic.

However, the growth of Soviet influence did not like some of the Lithuanian elites.

“As subsequent events showed, the political leaders of Lithuania were ready to sacrifice the independence of the republic in order to maintain their position in society and avoid Sovietization,” said Nikolai Mezhevich, president of the Russian Baltic Research Association, in an interview with RT.

Archival documents

Several years ago, Russian historians discovered documents in the archives testifying to the active cooperation of politicians and representatives of the Lithuanian special services with the Nazis in 1940.

“In 2013, I published the materials of the investigation file of Augustinas Povilaitis, head of the Lithuanian State Security Department, found in the collections of the Special Archive of Lithuania,” Alexander Dyukov, director general of the Historical Memory Foundation, told RT.

The confessions of the head of the Lithuanian state security given to them by the NKVD investigators in 1940–41 contained previously unknown data regarding the cooperation of the republic’s authorities with Nazi Germany. Therefore, according to Dyukov, he published them with a scientific commentary, emphasizing the need to verify the facts stated in the documents.

• Head of Lithuanian State Security Department Augustinas Povilaitis
• © en.wikipedia.org

“It was necessary to attract independent sources that would confirm or refute the testimony of Povilaitis. First of all, it was supposed to be the documents of the German special services - it is impossible to suspect of their fake the NKVD. It took me and my colleagues seven years to study the documents stored in about fifty funds in eight countries, ”the historian said.

The result of this scientific work was the discovery of a number of documents that directly testify to the cooperation between the RSHA and the Department of State Security of Lithuania (DGB). The relevant information was contained in the work diary of the head of the 1st Directorate of the RSHA, Werner Best, an information note by the head of the RSHA, Reinhard Heydrich, for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Germany and summaries of the Hitler special services. All these materials are summarized in the book Dyukova "Documents open the doors of mystery."

On the way to the protectorate

So, according to the published data, on February 20, 1940 in Berlin, the head of the RSHA Reinhard Heydrich, the head of the 1st Directorate of the RSHA Werner Best, the head of the Gestapo Heinrich Müller, the head of the Sixth Directorate of the RSHA (foreign intelligence) Heinz Jost, the German intelligence officers Paul von Fitingof-Shel and Heinz Gref, as well as the head of the State Children's Hospital of Lithuania, Augustinas Povilaitis, and the inspector of the State Children's Hospital, Povilas Meshkauskas.

During the meeting and subsequent joint events, the Nazi and Lithuanian secret services exchanged information about the Communists and Polish underground, criticized the international positions of England and France.

• Pages of V. Best's work diary with notes on meetings with Povilaitis
• © Bundesarchiv

Following the meeting on February 20, 1940, an official agreement was signed between the Lithuanian and German intelligence services. The document itself has not yet been found, but historians continue its search in the archives. Nevertheless, its general content is known: it dealt with issues of the struggle against the Polish underground and espionage activities against the USSR.

“One of the topics discussed during Povilaitis’s visit to Berlin in February 1940 was the possibility of transferring Lithuania to the German protectorate. That is, it was a direct violation of the agreements that existed with the Soviet Union, ”Dyukov emphasized.

According to the historian, Jost, who survived the war in the 1970s, personally confirmed that the conversation about the protectorate of the Reich over Lithuania was conducted. This is also evidenced by a number of RSHA documents prepared in the spring of 1940.

“This completely changes our ideas about the events of 1940. Placing these documents in a historical context, we understand the motives of the Soviet authorities in relation to Lithuania, ”said Dyukov.

Povilaitis, according to his own confessions, acted on behalf of the President of Lithuania Antanas Smetona. It is reported that he was ready to surround the Lithuanian forces and disarm the few Soviet garrisons before entering the Wehrmacht and SS forces in Lithuania.

During the Berlin negotiations, the Nazis encouraged Povilaitis, saying that the issue of Hitler's protectorate over Lithuania could be resolved before September 1, 1940. Returning to Lithuania, Povilaitis reported on the results of the visit to the leadership of the republic, dwelling separately on the experience of the Nazis using concentration camps.

In the following months, the Lithuanian Children's Security Bureau actively collaborated with the Nazi intelligence agencies, sharing information with Berlin and issuing the Gestapo for the massacre of Polish underground workers. So, according to the historian Yaroslav Volkonovsky, in the spring of 1940, the Lithuanian side transferred four vehicles with Polish prisoners to the Nazis. Many of them died in the Nazi concentration camps.

However, thanks to the work of Soviet foreign intelligence, which had a high-ranking agent in the leadership of the Lithuanian police, Moscow in time received information about the Lithuanian-German negotiations.

• President of Lithuania Antanas Smetona
• © en.wikipedia.org

Red lines

According to Dyukov, such activity of the Lithuanian authorities forced the Soviet leadership to take retaliatory measures.

“Smetona went beyond the red lines that led to the Soviet ultimatum, the introduction of new troops and, ultimately, the accession of the Baltic States to the Soviet Union,” the historian says.

On June 14, 1940, the Soviet government presented an ultimatum to Lithuania, followed by Latvia and Estonia. The leadership of the Baltic republics was accused of gross violation of the agreements that existed with the USSR. In particular, the ultimatum of the Republic of Lithuania said that the government “flagrantly violated the Soviet-Lithuanian Mutual Assistance Treaty, which prohibits both parties from“ entering into any alliances and participating in coalitions directed against one of the contracting parties. ”

Moscow demanded the formation of governments capable of enforcing the treaties and agree to the introduction of additional troops. Ultimatums have been accepted. On June 15, additional Red Army forces entered Lithuania. Smetona fled to Germany.

The new governments of the Baltic states lifted pre-existing prohibitions on activities in the countries of the pro-communist forces, and the left parties won the elections on July 14, 1940. The newly elected parliaments adopted declarations on joining the USSR.

“Now in the Baltics these events are called occupation, but objectively it was not occupation, but incorporation, followed by the process of Sovietization of the republics,” Nikolai Mezhevich said.

• Soviet troops in Lithuania, June 1940
• © Wikimedia Commons

Augustinas Povilaitis was arrested and transferred to Moscow, where he testified, which is now confirmed by German documents. He was sentenced to death. The sentence was executed on July 12, 1941.

After the start of World War II, a number of employees of Lithuanian state bodies and members of nationalist organizations supported Nazi aggression against the Soviet Union. Even before the Nazi troops entered the Lithuanian populated areas, they started mass murders of Jews, and then continued them under the leadership of the Nazi “Einsatzgruppe A”.

Of the Lithuanian collaborators, 22 battalions of auxiliary police were formed, 500-600 people each. They took an active part in the Holocaust and Hitler's punitive operations against the civilian population in Lithuania and in other Soviet republics.

In total, on the territory of Lithuania, the Nazis and collaborators destroyed about 350 thousand inhabitants of the republic, among which 200 thousand were Jews, as well as 230 thousand Soviet prisoners of war. At the same time, tens of thousands of Lithuanians joined the Red Army and partisan detachments, in the ranks of which they fought against Nazism.

• Victims of the Kaunas pogrom, June 1941
• © Wikimedia Commons

“Over time, Lithuania has developed a difficult situation for perception. Teachers who did not like the USSR quietly for years silently told their students a version of the story that was different from the official one. And the Soviet leadership, for reasons of preserving the Soviet community, did not focus on the fact that not only Germans were hiding under the uniforms of Hitler's punishers. So we got what we have today, ”said Nikolai Mezhevich.

“Of course, with the exception of certain marginals, Lithuanian officials do not praise the SS and do not raise their hands in Nazi salutes. But unofficially, at the level of literature, magazines, plaques, a continuity is formed with political practice that took place in 1941-1944, ”the historian noted.

According to Alexander Dyukov, if the Lithuanian leadership did not conduct secret negotiations with Nazi Germany about the protectorate, history could have turned out differently.

“You need to understand that if there hadn’t been that meeting on February 20, 1940, the Baltic states would most likely have maintained their independence. Perhaps they would have entered the Soviet zone of influence and the Warsaw Pact Organization, but precisely as sovereign states, ”summed up Dyukov.