Background
Lithuania had re-gained its independence in 1918 after the collapse of the Russian Empire. Allied declarations such as the Atlantic Charter had offered promise of a post-war world in which the three Baltic nations could re-establish themselves. Having already experienced occupation by the Soviet regime followed by the Nazi regime many people were unwilling to accept another occupation.
Unlike Estonia and Latvia where the Germans conscripted the local population into military formations within Waffen-SS, Lithuania never had its own Waffen-SS division. In 1944 the Nazi authorities created 20,000-strong Lithuanian Territorial Defense Force under General Povilas Plechavičius to combat Soviet partisans led by Antanas Sniečkus. The Germans, however, quickly came to see this force as a nationalist threat to their occupation regime. The senior staff were arrested on May 15, 1944, and General Plechavičius was deported to the concentration camp in Salaspils, Latvia. However, approximately half of the remaining forces formed guerrilla units and dissolved into the countryside in preparation for partisan operations against the Soviet Army as the Eastern Front approached.
Read more about this topic: Lithuanian Partisans
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