Lithuanian Auxiliary Police

The units are known under a number of different names. German documents referred to them as Ordnungsdienst (order service), Selbstschutz (self-defense), Hilfspolizei (auxiliary police).[10] From September 1941, they became known as Schutzmannschaft-Bataillonen (abbreviated Schuma). In Lithuanian, the police battalions were known as savisaugos batalionai (self-defense battalions), apsaugos dalys (security units), Lietuvos apsaugos dalys (LAD, security units of Lithuania).[10]

The topic of Lithuanian Police Battalions is very controversial and poorly researched. The main obstacle is the lack of reliable and objective data. During the war, journal Karys published frequent stories about the battalions, but to protect military secrets the articles were heavily censored to remove names, dates, and locations. During the Soviet period, when Soviet propaganda exploited tales of war crimes and actively persecuted former members of the battalions, objective research was impossible. Several members of the battalions managed to escape to the West and publish memoirs, but they gloss over the controversial aspects of the battalions and often deny Lithuanian involvement in the Holocaust.[11] Foreign researchers were hampered by lack of archival data.

When Lithuania declared independence, the archives became accessible to scholars. However, many of the documents are scattered in various archives in Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, Germany, Russia. In addition, due to the chaotic nature of the war, recordkeeping was poor, particularly towards the end of the war. The units were subject to frequent reorganizations and restructurings; sometimes the units were confused themselves of their proper name or numbering. In the post-war years, KGB produced interrogation protocols of former members of the battalions, but these are not considered reliable as confessions were often obtained through torture or outright fabricated. Nevertheless, Lithuanian scholars, primarily Arūnas Bubnys, published several articles analyzing structure and activities of individual battalions.[11]

Lithuanian soldier escorting a group of Lithuanian Jews in Vilnius in July 1941

In June 1940, Lithuania was occupied by the Soviet Union. The Soviets introduced harsh sovietization policies, including nationalization of larger enterprises, landholdings, and real estate.[12] Opponents of communism and the new regime were persecuted: an estimated 6,600 were imprisoned as "enemies of the people"[13] and another 17,600 deported to Siberia.[14] The Lithuanian Army was reorganized into the 29th Rifle Corps (179th Rifle and 184th Rifle Divisions) of the Red Army. More than 500 of Lithuanian officers were retired and 87 were imprisoned.[15]

A Lithuanian Activist Front was formed in Berlin, led by Kazys Škirpa, formerly a Lithuanian envoy in Germany. The goal of the LAF was to organize an anti-Soviet uprising in the event of a German-Soviet war.[16] When Nazi Germany invaded Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, Lithuanians greeted the Germans as liberators from the repressive Soviet rule.[17] They spontaneously joined the anti-Soviet June Uprising, formed the Provisional Government of Lithuania, and declared restoration of independence. Lithuanians began forming their own military and police units in hopes to recreate the Lithuanian Army.[18] The territory of Lithuania was invaded by and divided between two German Army Groups: Army Group North, which took over western and northern Lithuania, and Army Group Centre, which took over most of the Vilnius Region.[19] Therefore, developments in Kaunas and Vilnius were parallel but separate. The Germans had no intention of giving the Lithuanians independence, so the provisional government was dissolved on August 5, 1941 and partisan units disarmed. On September 26, the LAF was also dissolved and Lithuania was incorporated into the German civil administration.[20]

In the short period when the Lithuanians hoped to rebuild the state with the help of the Germans, they spontaneously reconstituted part of the pre-war police, reaching about 40% (3,000 men) of the pre-war number, and began to recreate the army.[21] On July 5, however, the German authorities forbade the reconstitution of the Lithuanian army, and only allowed the existence of self-defense units, which soon began to transform into auxiliary police units.[22] In November, all auxiliary policemen in the eastern territories, including Lithuania, were to be regarded as Schutzmannschaften.[21]

Schutzmannschaften were divided into four types. The first was a regular police force of an orderly nature, stationed in posts in cities and provinces. The second were closed formations, organized into battalions, companies, platoons and groups. The third type were units performing firefighting functions. The fourth were auxiliary units grouped into platoons and companies that assisted the regular police when needed.[2]

The first battalion, known as the Tautinio darbo apsaugos batalionas (TDA), was formed by the Provisional Government of Lithuania in Kaunas on June 28.[18] The Provisional Government dissolved itself on August 5, 1941. The battalion was not dissolved and German Major Franz Lechthaler took over its command.[18] On August 7, when TDA had 703 members, Lechthaler ordered the battalion to be reorganized into two battalions of auxiliary police (German: Polizeihilfsdienst bataillone; Lithuanian: Pagalbinės policijos tarnyba or PPT). During August three more battalions of PPT were formed. In October, these five battalions were renamed to security battalions (Lithuanian: apsaugos batalionas). In December, the five battalions were reorganized again into battalions of Schutzmannschaft.

Lithuanian men massively deserted from the Soviet 29th Rifle Corps and gathered in Vilnius. They organized Lithuanian Self-defense Units (Lithuanian: Lietuvių savisaugos dalys or LSD), stationed in Vilnius, Pabradė, Trakai, and Varėna.[23] On July 21, 1941, LSD was reorganized into Vilnius Reconstruction Service (Lithuanian: Vilniaus atstatymo tarnyba or VAT) that had three units (Work, Order, and Security). On August 1, VAT and its three units were reorganized into three battalions of Schutzmannschaft.[24] Two more battalions were organized before October 1941.

Some Lithuanian auxiliary police battalions took an active part in extermination of Jewish people in territory of Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, Russia and Poland and committed crimes against Polish and Belarusian populations. One such action of Lithuanian policemen was liquidation of Jews in Kaunas in October 1941 by 12th Police Battalion under command of Antanas Impulevičius. Later the same month 12th battalion murdered the entire Jewish population of Slutsk in Belarus. 2nd Police Battalion served as guards in Majdanek death camp in occupied Poland. 20 out of 22 Lithuanian Auxiliary Police Battalions was directly involved in destruction of Jewish people in Eastern Europe.[25] According to German reports, Lithuanians committed 47,000 killings of Jews in Lithuania out of all 85,000 committed by Einsatzkommando there. They also killed 50,000 Belarusian Jews during the war.[26] Largest crime against non-Jewish civilian population of Lithuanian policemen was killing of about 400 Polish people in the villages Švenčionėliai and Švenčionys and their surroundings.[27]