Provisional Government of Lithuania explained

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 Activist Front announced the creation of the provisional government on 22 June 1941, as the June Uprising in Lithuania began.[2]

The Nazi regime envisioned Lithuania as a future part of Greater Germany, and wasn't much interested in Lithuanian independence. It did allow the Provisional Government to operate while it was useful.

Literary historian Juozas Ambrazevičius-Brazaitis became acting prime minister instead of Škirpa.[3] He served from June 23, 1941 to August 5, 1941.

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.[4] Lithuanian rebels had liberated Lithuania by the time the Wehrmacht arrived, and rescued over 300 political prisoners who would have been killed by Cheka.[5] The June Uprising laid the foundations for anti-Nazi resistance that later transformed into an anti-Soviet resistance.[5] 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. Lithuanian police battalions formed by the Provisional Government helped the Nazis carry out the Holocaust.[6] 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.[7] 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.[8] Vytautas Bulvičius was to become Minister of Defence but the Soviets arrested him on 2 June and General Stasys Raštikis replaced him.[9]

The Provisional Government dissolved in August 1941 after deciding that it had failed to achieve an autonomous if not independent Lithuania under German patronage.

Cabinet

The people who were meant to be in the government:[10]

See also

References

Secondary sources believed to meet Eastern Europe criteria

Criterion problems

Notes and References

  1. Sigitas . Jegelevičius . 1941 m. Lietuvos laikinosios vyriausybės atsiradimo aplinkybės . Voruta . 11 . 557 . 11 June 2004 . 1392-0677 . lt . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20060507232344/http://www.is.lt/voruta/article.php?article=604 . May 7, 2006.
  2. News: A glimmer of hope or prelude to Holocaust? Lithuania's June 1941 uprising remains controversial eight decades on . Domantė . Platūkytė . Andrius . Balčiūnas . . LRT.lt . 2021-06-22.
  3. Web site: Lithuanian Collaboration during the Second World War . 153 . Saulius Sužiedelis . YIVO Institute for Jewish Research.
  4. Book: Vareikis , Vygantas . Nazi Europe and the Final Solution . 2009 . 978-1-84545-410-4 . Bankier . David . 255 . en . In the Shadow of the Holocaust: Lithuanian-Jewish Relations in the Crucial Years 1940-1944 . Berghahn Books . Gutman . Israel.
  5. Web site: Bubnys . Arūnas . Jegelevičius . Sigitas . Knezys . Stasys . Rukšėnas . Algis . Istorikai apie Birželio sukilimo reikšmę . 2011 . 2–3 . Vilnius University, Institute of Lithuanian Literature and Folklore . 7 June 2021.
  6. Sužiedėlis . Saulius . Slavėnas . M. Gražina . The Burden of 1941 . Lithuanian Quarterly Journal of Arts and Sciences. Winter 2001 . 47 . 4 . https://web.archive.org/web/20030520234435/http://www.lituanus.org/2001/01_4_04.htm. 20 May 2003 . 0024-5089.
  7. The Holocaust in Lithuania: The Key Characteristics of Its History, and the Key Issues in Historiography and Cultural Memory. Stanislovas . Stasiulis. East European Politics and Societies and Cultures. 34 . 1. February 2020. 261–279. 10.1177/0888325419844820. free.
  8. Web site: Kuo reikšmingas 1941 m. birželio 22-28 d. sukilimas?. LLKS.lt . 20 June 2014 . 21 June 2019 . https://web.archive.org/web/20190621123313/http://www.llks.lt/Varpo%20straipsniai/Kuo%20reiksmingas%20Birzelio%20sukilimas.html. dead.
  9. News: Baltics Rebellious . The Spokesman-Review . June 24, 1941 . Spokane, WA . 2 . October 5, 2023 . Newspapers.com.
  10. Gediminas . Zemlickas . Pasaulyje — kaip savo namuose . Mokslo Lietuva . February 11, 1998 . 3 . 161 . 1392-7191 . lt . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20061212051641/http://ic.lms.lt/ml/161/zemlickas.htm . December 12, 2006.

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