Provisional Government of Lithuania

Session of the Provisional Government of Lithuania under the chairmanship by Juozas Ambrazevičius-Brazaitis in Kaunas, 1941.

The Provisional Government of Lithuania (Lithuanian: Lietuvos Laikinoji Vyriausybė) was an attempted provisional government to form an independent Lithuanian state in the last days of the first Soviet occupation and the first weeks of the German occupation of Lithuania during World War II in 1941.

It was secretly formed on 22 April 1941, announced on 23 June 1941, and dissolved on 5 August 1941.^[1] It was formed by members of the Lithuanian Activist Front (LAF) in Kaunas and Vilnius.

History

"The Lithuanian nation, tormented by the brutal Bolshevik terror, decided to build its future on the basis of national unity and social justice."

Leonas Prapuolenis, the first announcement of the Provisional Government through the recently captured Kaunas radio.^[2]

Juozas Ambrazevičius-Brazaitis, acting prime minister of the Provisional Government

Front page of the first issue of the newspaper Į laisvę [lt] ("To Liberty") with the declaration of independence

Memorial plaque on the wall of the former radiophone building in Kaunas

The Lithuanian Activist Front announced the creation of the provisional government on 22 June 1941, as the June Uprising in Lithuania began.^[3]

The Nazi regime envisioned Lithuania as a future part of Greater Germany, and was not much interested in Lithuanian independence. It did allow the Provisional Government to operate while it was useful.^{[citation needed]}

Literary historian Juozas Ambrazevičius-Brazaitis became acting prime minister instead of Škirpa.^[4] He served from June 23, 1941 to August 5, 1941.

Vygantas Vareikis [lt] wrote that the Lithuanian Provisional Government "did not encourage brutal actions" against Jews or LAF leaders, and the local press proposed that only high-ranking Communist officials and NKVD officers should be punished by death.^[5] Lithuanian rebels had liberated Lithuania by the time the Wehrmacht arrived, and rescued over 300 political prisoners who would have been killed by Cheka.^[6] The June Uprising laid the foundations for anti-Nazi resistance that later transformed into an anti-Soviet resistance.^[6] The Provisional Government did little to stop the anti-Jewish violence encouraged by the Nazis and the anti-Semitic leadership of the Lithuanian Activist Front.^{[citation needed]} Lithuanian police battalions formed by the Provisional Government helped the Nazis carry out the Holocaust.^[7] Stanislovas Stasiulis pictured the history of the Holocaust in Lithuania as "three layers and periods." The first, he wrote, involves the relationship between Lithuanians and Jews during the Nazi occupation, and the second followed the Soviet re-occupation.^[8] The third period of interest covers the historiography since 1990, he wrote, which has attempted new and open discussions of the defensive (emigré) and ideological (Soviet) reactions to the Holocaust. The Soviet refusal to acknowledge the racialism of the Holocaust helped trigger a defensive cultural response known as double genocide theory, which equated the Holocaust and the Stalinist brutality meted out to Lithuanian by the Soviets. Considered a form of Holocaust trivialization, this paradigm has sometimes been taken as far as portraying Nazi pogroms as retaliation.

LAF leader Kazys Škirpa, former Lithuanian envoy to Germany, was named prime minister. But he was in Berlin and the Germans put him under house arrest. Rapolas Skipitis, another minister-to-be in Berlin, was prevented from leaving as well.^[9] Vytautas Bulvičius was to become Minister of Defence but the Soviets arrested him on 2 June and General Stasys Raštikis replaced him.^[10]

The Provisional Government dissolved in August 1941 after deciding that it had failed to achieve an autonomous if not independent Lithuania under German patronage.^{[citation needed]}

Cabinet

The people who were meant to be in the government:^[11]

• Prime Minister: Colonel Kazys Škirpa (was prevented taking office and put under house arrest in Berlin)
• Minister of Education, Acting Prime Minister: Juozas Ambrazevičius-Brazaitis
• Minister of Defense: Major Vytautas Bulvičius (arrested by Soviet forces on 2 June, executed in November), and later General Stasys Raštikis
• Minister of Foreign Affairs: Rapolas Skipitis (unable to leave Berlin)
• Minister of Internal Affairs: Vladas Nasevičius (arrested by Soviets on 21 June, later deported to Siberia)
• Minister of Finance: Jonas Matulionis [lt]
• Minister of Health: Ksaveras Vencius
• Minister of Trade: Vytautas Statkus (arrested by Soviets on 21 June, later deported to Siberia)
• Minister of Industry: Doctor engineer Adolfas Damušis [lt]
• Minister of Agriculture: Professor Balys Vitkus [lt]
• Minister of Social Security: Doctor Juozas Pajaujis-Javis [lt]
• Minister of Infrastructure: Engineer Vytautas Landsbergis-Žemkalnis
• Minister of Communication: Jonas Masiliūnas [lt] (arrested by Soviets on 21 June, later exiled to Siberia)
• Controller of State: Jonas Vainauskas (arrested by Soviets on 21 June)

See also

• Lithuanian Activist Front
• Lithuanian TDA Battalion
• Wartime collaboration in the Baltic states
• Reichskommissariat Ostland
• Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic

References

1. Jegelevičius, Sigitas (11 June 2004). "1941 m. Lietuvos laikinosios vyriausybės atsiradimo aplinkybės". Voruta (in Lithuanian). 11 (557). ISSN 1392-0677. Archived from the original on May 7, 2006.
2. "Tikros istorijos. Tverečiaus parapijai 500 metų (recording from 1:20 to 2:17)". Lrt.lt (in Lithuanian). 2001-06-28. Retrieved 7 June 2021.
   • Jegelevičius, Sigitas. "Lietuvių savivalda ir vokiečių okupacinė valdžia: tarp kolaboravimo ir rezistencijos". Genocid.lt Genocide and Resistance Research Centre of Lithuania. Retrieved 7 June 2021.
3. Platūkytė, Domantė; Balčiūnas, Andrius (2021-06-22). "A glimmer of hope or prelude to Holocaust? Lithuania's June 1941 uprising remains controversial eight decades on". LRT.lt. Lithuanian National Radio and Television.
4. Saulius Sužiedelis. "Lithuanian Collaboration during the Second World War" (PDF). YIVO Institute for Jewish Research. p. 153.
5. Vareikis, Vygantas (2009). "In the Shadow of the Holocaust: Lithuanian-Jewish Relations in the Crucial Years 1940-1944". In Bankier, David; Gutman, Israel (eds.). Nazi Europe and the Final Solution. Berghahn Books. p. 255. ISBN 978-1-84545-410-4.
6. Bubnys, Arūnas; Jegelevičius, Sigitas; Knezys, Stasys; Rukšėnas, Algis (2011). "Istorikai apie Birželio sukilimo reikšmę" (PDF). Vilnius University, Institute of Lithuanian Literature and Folklore. pp. 2–3. Retrieved 7 June 2021.
7. Sužiedėlis, Saulius (Winter 2001). Slavėnas, M. Gražina (ed.). "The Burden of 1941". Lithuanian Quarterly Journal of Arts and Sciences. 47 (4). ISSN 0024-5089. Archived from the original on 20 May 2003.
8. Stasiulis, Stanislovas (February 2020). "The Holocaust in Lithuania: The Key Characteristics of Its History, and the Key Issues in Historiography and Cultural Memory". East European Politics and Societies and Cultures. 34 (1): 261–279. doi:10.1177/0888325419844820.
9. "Kuo reikšmingas 1941 m. birželio 22-28 d. sukilimas?". LLKS.lt. Archived from the original on 21 June 2019. Retrieved 20 June 2014.
10. "Baltics Rebellious". The Spokesman-Review. Spokane, WA. June 24, 1941. p. 2. Retrieved October 5, 2023 – via Newspapers.com.
11. Zemlickas, Gediminas (February 11, 1998). "Pasaulyje — kaip savo namuose". Mokslo Lietuva (in Lithuanian). 3 (161). ISSN 1392-7191. Archived from the original on December 12, 2006.

Secondary sources believed to meet Eastern Europe criteria

• Sužiedelis, Saulius (2006). "Lithuanian Collaboration during the Second World War: Past Realities, Present Perceptions: Collaboration and Resistance during the Holocaust: Belarus, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania". The Mass Persecution and Murder of Jews: The Summer and Fall of. Vol. 158.2004. pp. 313–359. This presentation is in part a modified summary and collation of my studies presented in earlier venues: *;My reports **Foreign Saviors, Native Disciples: Perspectives on Collaboration in Lithuania, 1940–1945, presented in April 2002 at the "Reichskommissariat Ostland" conference at Uppsala University and Södertörn University College, now published in: Collaboration and Resistance during the Holocaust. Belarus, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, ed. David Gaunt et al *;My articles in Vilnius at the conference Holocaust in Lithuania in Vilnius 2002: **The Burden of 1941, in: 'Lituanus' 47:4 (2001), pp. 47-60; **Thoughts on Lithuania's Shadows of the Past: A Historical Essay on the Legacy of War, Part I, in: 'Vilnius (Summer 1998), pp. 129-146; **Thoughts on Lithuania's Shadows of the Past: A Historical Essay on the Legacy of War, Part II, in: 'Vilnius' (Summer 1999), pp. 177-208...

• Piotrowski, Tadeusz (2007). Poland's Holocaust: Ethnic Strife, Collaboration with Occupying Forces and Genocide in the Second Republic, 1918-1947 (illustrated ed.). McFarland. ISBN 978-0786429134. ** despite the title, this source contains several substantive mentions of Lithuania's circumstances. While Lithuania is not its primary topic, the histories of the two countries are closely interrelated and the mentions are well beyond passing references; several are three or more pages long

• Full text available online
  • Dov Levin (2000). The Litvaks: A Short History of the Jews in Lithuania - Berghahn Series (illustrated ed.). Berghahn Books. p. 283. doi:10.1163/9789401208895_005. ISBN 9653080849.

• Gruodyte, Edita; Adomaityte, Aurelija. "The Tragedy of the Holocaust in Lithuania: From the Roots of the Identity to the Efforts towards Reconciliation" (PDF). repozytorium.uni.pl.

Criterion problems

• Sužiedelis, Saulius. "341. The Perception of the Holocaust: Public Challenges and Experience in Lithuania". Wilson Center.
  • I believe the Wilson Center is considered "a reputable institution" if not though, this may well qualify as written by an expert

• June 1999 United States Justice Department
  • I believe the US Justice Department is considered "a reputable institution" if not though, this may well qualify as written by an expert since afaik it concerns their litigation

• Malinauskaite. "Holocaust Memory and Antisemitism in Lithuania: Reversed Memories of the Second World War" (PDF).
• Malinauskaitė, Gintarė (2019). Mediated Memories: Narratives and Iconographies of the Holocaust in Lithuania. Marburg.
• Sužiedėlis, Saulius (2006). "Lithuanian Collaboration during the Second World War: Past Realities, Present Perceptions". In Tauber, Joachim (ed.). "Kollaboration" in Nordosteuropa: Erscheinungsformen und Deutungen im 20. Jahrhundert (PDF). Wiesbaden.
• Sužiedėlis, Simas, ed. (1970–1978). "Juozas Brazaitis". Encyclopedia Lituanica. Vol. I. Boston, Massachusetts: Juozas Kapočius. pp. 396–397. LCCN 74-114275.
• Wnuk, Rafał (2018). Leśni bracia. Podziemie antykomunistyczne na Litwie, Łotwie i w Estonii 1944-1956 [Forest Brothers. Anti-communist underground in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia 1944-1956] (in Polish). Lublin.
• Woolfson, Shivaun (2014). Holocaust Legacy in Post-Soviet Lithuania. People, Places and Objects. Bloomsbury Academic.
• Vareikis, Vygantas (2009). "In the Shadow of the Holocaust: Lithuanian-Jewish Relations in the Crucial Years 1940-1944". In Bankier, David; Gutman, Israel (eds.). Nazi Europe and the Final Solution. Yad Vashem. ISBN 978-1-84545-410-4.
• Veilentienė, Audronė (2016). "Vytauto Didžiojo universitetas nacių okupacijos metais ir antinacinė rezistencija" [Vytautas Magnus University during the Nazi Occupation and Anti-Nazi Resistance]. Kauno istorijos metraštis. 16: 195–217. doi:10.7220/2335-8734.16.8.