Juozas Ambrazevičius or Juozas Brazaitis (December 9, 1903 in Marijampolė – November 28, 1974 in South Orange, New Jersey), was a Nazi collaborator and Lithuanian literary historian who became prime minister when the Nazis routed the Soviets from Lithuania. His own ideology and views are disputed.
Ambrazevičius studied literature at the University of Lithuania in Kaunas and the University of Bonn. Starting in 1927 he lectured on Lithuanian literature and folklore in Kaunas. By the end of the 1930s he was involved in numerous organizations for literature and science.
He also worked on the editorial staff of the national daily Lietuva (Lithuania) and the Catholic daily XX amžius (The 20th Century). He sometimes used the pseudonym "Servus" to write for these newspapers. During World War II he edited an underground periodical (Towards Freedom), which he later revived in Germany and the United States.
As the Soviets occupied Lithuania, Ambrazevičius became a member of the Lithuanian Activist Front (LAF) in Lithuania.[1] The LAF was founded in Berlin by Lithuanian ambassador Kazys Škirpa. Its goal was to rebuild a Lithuania independent of the Soviets under German protection. Their early publications called for the expulsion of Jews from Lithuania and the requisition of their property and blamed them for the country's loss of independence.
On June 22, 1941, Germany invaded the Soviet Union. On June 23, the June Uprising in Lithuania began, first in Kaunas and then throughout the country.[2] [3] LAF representative Leonas Prapuolenis broadcast an announcement of the newly independent Lithuanian state and its formation of a provisional government.[4] Insurgents and TDA members organized and engaged in pogroms against the Jewish population. One of the bloodiest occurred in the capture of Kaunas, when 3,500 Jews were killed. When Einsatzgruppen A entered Kaunas, they found it already in the hands of Algirdas Klimaitis' 600-man Voldemarininkai militia.[5] [6] Its commander, Franz Walter Stahlecker, explained in an October 15 report that after meeting with little enthusiasm from the Security Police, he had used Klimaitis' men rather than his own for the Kaunas pogrom.[7]
Ambrazevičius became acting Prime Minister of the Provisional Government of Lithuania when Kazys Škirpa, originally envisioned for the role, was under house arrest in Berlin. "The Provisional Government which was politically selected by the LAF and arose out of the June Uprising with acting prime minister professor Juozas Ambrazevičius at its head, did engage in political collaboration with the Third Reich" wrote of the Lithuanian Institute of History in 2017, citing antisemitic legislation passed by the Provisional Government, apparently unprompted, such as the August 1st proposed Regulations on the Status of the Jews for example.[8]
The LAF was in Kaunus when the Germans arrived but were preoccupied with the repair and control of the radio station, which the Soviets had sabotaged.[9]
Ambrazevičius served as prime minister from June 23, 1941 to August 5, 1941 and was also Minister of Education. He issued a decree July 29, 1941 at the request of the German authorities that expelled Jewish lecturers and Polish and Jewish students from the universities. At Vytautas Magnus University, 31 people were dismissed, mostly Jews, but also Tatars, Russians, and Poles, as well as Lithuanians accused of supporting Soviet rule.
The Germans never intended to rebuild an independent Lithuania, however, nor were the Lithuanians the only people the Germans allowed to believe that they were liberators. On August 5, 1941, the provisional government was dissolved by Germans, and on September 22, the LAF was dissolved. However, the Germans did not abolish the local administration, and transformed the TDA battalions and Lithuanian police into the subordinated Lithuanian Auxiliary Police.
After the LAF was liquidated, most of its members moved to the underground organization Lithuanian Front (Lithuanian: Lietuvių frontas; LF), headed by Juozas Ambrazevičius and .[10] This organization combined Catholicism with nationalism and considered the Soviet Union's communist ideology its main enemy; Germany was a secondary enemy. The organization did not intend to engage in armed struggle too early, and placed more emphasis on printing and press distribution. In 1942 it began publishing the "Bulletin of the Lithuanian Front" and in January 1943 "Freedom." The goal was to prepare Lithuanian society for a popular anti-Soviet uprising and the restoration of Lithuania within its borders.[10] Ambrazevičius ordered Petras Vilutis in May 1942 to form the "Kęstutis" military organization. Vilutis, after he left to study in Vienna, was replaced by . The purpose of the "Kęstutis" was to collect weapons and create military structures for the future uprising.[10]
According to Soviet reports, both LF and "Kęstutis" were in close contact with the Germans and the German intelligence service, and cooperated with them in fighting Soviet partisans and activists. The LF's anti-Nazi resistance was passive; its main act of resistance was an extensive propaganda campaign against forming a Lithuanian volunteer Waffen SS Legion, which the Germans tried and failed to organize in 1943.
In the spring of 1942, the LF and the Christian Democrats established the National Council. At the same time, a more pluralistic Lithuanian Supreme Committee was formed. On 25 November 1943 both organisations founded the Supreme Committee for the Liberation of Lithuania (VLIK), Steponas Kairys became the chairman, and Adolfas Damušis from the LF his deputy.[11] Juozas Ambrazevičius became the chairman of the VLIK's political commission. "Kęstutis" became the core of the Lithuanian armed forces reconstituted by the VLIK. Although VLIK considered itself the sole representative of the Lithuanian state, it remained mainly a consultative committee of numerous organizations that retained autonomy. VLIK tried to establish contacts with the Polish underground, as well as a channel to Western countries through Lithuanian diplomats who remained in neutral countries.
VLIK and LF still did not undertake active resistance against the Germans, supported the establishment of Lithuanian Territorial Defense Force units of Colonel Povilas Plechavičius in cooperation with the Germans, but also documented German crimes and collected intelligence material. In April 1944, the Germans began arresting VLIK members, and in June Adolfas Damušis was arrested. In July Ambrazevičius decided to leave Vilnius with the retreating German army and go to Germany.
In the summer of 1944 Ambrazevičius left for Germany, and from there in 1948 for the United States, where he edited a Catholic daily named Lithuanian: Darbininkas, based in New York City, under the name Juozas Brazaitis. He also continued working on the Supreme Committee for the Liberation of Lithuania from exile and published a number of leaflets illustrating German and Soviet crimes in Lithuania and the Lithuanian resistance, for example, In the Name of the Lithuanian People (1946) and Appeal to the United Nations on Genocide (1951). In 1964 he published a book titled Lithuanian: Vienų vieni about the Lithuanian June Uprising. The Kremlin actively opposed his activities. In the 1970s he became a subject of interest for the Soviet media and American hunters of Nazi collaborators, who accused him of having worked for the Third Reich. In reply, he published an extensive dossier of his World War II activities.[12]
His major works include
In 2009 Ambrazevičius was posthumously awarded Lithuania's highest decoration, the Grand Cross of the Order of Vytautas the Great.[13]
Controversy arose over the ceremonial reburial with state honors of the remains of Juozas Ambrazevičius in May 2012. Ambrazevičius' remains were transported back from the United States to Lithuania, met by an honour guard at Kaunas airport and reburied at Christ's Resurrection Church in Kaunas.[14] At the reburial ceremony in Kaunas, adviser to Lithuanian prime minister Andrius Kubilius said that a 1975 investigation by US Immigration had found no evidence of Brazaitis being involved in anti-Semitic or pro-Nazi activities.[15] The Kaunas mayor said: 'It seems strange to me that while there is no official proof, they are trying to identify the honourable Ambrazevičius-Brazaitis with pro-Nazi activity'.
, leader of Lithuania's Jewish community, protested the glorification of a person he said was had persecuted of Lithuania's Jews. More than 40 of Lithuania's leading intellectuals, including many historians, protested the official honoring of Juozas Ambrazevicius-Brazaitis.[16] A subsequent clarification issued in 2019 by the US Senate Foreign Affairs Committee said that the investigation had not been conclusive and did not amount to a "rehabilitation" of Ambrazevičius/Brazaitis. The investigation into his wartime activities ended after he died in 1974.[17]