The guerrilla war in the Baltic states was an insurgency waged by Baltic (Latvian, Lithuanian and Estonian) partisans against the Soviet Union from 1944 to 1956. Known alternatively as the "Forest Brothers" or "Forest Sisters" (sometimes referred to as the "Brothers of the Wood" and the "Forest Friars",Estonian: metsavennad, Latvian: mežabrāļi, Lithuanian: žaliukai), these partisans fought against invading Soviet forces during their occupation of the Baltic states during and after World War II. Notable fighters included Evi Mihkelson, Kalev Arro, Pranas Končius, Juozas Lukša, Jānis Pīnups, Benediktas Mikulis, and Izabelė Vilimaitė. Similar insurgent groups resisted Soviet occupations in Bulgaria, Poland, Romania, and Ukraine.
Soviet forces, consisting primarily of the Red Army, occupied the Baltic states in 1940, completing their occupation by 1941. After a period of German occupation during World War II, the Soviets reoccupied the Baltic States from 1944 to 1945. As Soviet political repression intensified over the following years, tens of thousands of partisans from the Baltics began to use the countryside as a base for an anti-Soviet insurgency.
According to some estimates, at least 50,000 partisans (10,000 in Estonia, 10,000 in Latvia, and 30,000 in Lithuania) in addition to their supporters were involved in the insurgency. The partisans continued to carry out an armed struggle until 1956, when the superiority of the Soviet security forces, largely in the form of secret agents which infiltrated the partisan groups, caused the Baltic population to change tactics and resort to civil resistance for the next three decades, culminating in the Singing Revolution from 1987 to 1991.
Background
The term Forest Brothers first came into use in the Baltic region in the 1905 Russian Revolution. Varying sources refer to the forest brothers of this era either as peasants revolting or as schoolteachers seeking refuge in the forest. The term Forest Brothers was used and known only in occupied Estonia and Latvia. In Lithuania partisans were called žaliukai (Green People), miškiniai (Forest People) or just partizanai (partisans).
Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania gained their independence in 1918 after the collapse of the Russian Empire. The ideals of nationalism and self-determination had taken hold with many people as a result of the independence of Estonia and Latvia for the first time since the 13th century. Lithuanians re-established a sovereign state with a rich former history, the largest country in Europe during the 14th century, occupied by the Russian Empire since 1795.
In the aftermath of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, all three Baltic states were occupied by the Soviet Union in 1940, a move that the Western Allies deemed illegitimate. When Nazi Germany broke the pact and invaded the Soviet Union, the Soviet Red Army was driven out of the Baltics and the area came under German military occupation. After the departure of Soviet troops from the region, formal independence to the Baltic states was not restored by Germany. Meanwhile, Allied declarations such as the Atlantic Charter offered promise of a post-war world in which the three Baltic states could re-establish themselves. Having already experienced occupation by the Soviet regime then the Nazi regime, many people were unwilling to accept another occupation at the end of the war.
Unlike Estonia and Latvia, where the Germans conscripted the local population into military formations within the Waffen-SS, Lithuania never had a Waffen-SS division. In 1944, the German authorities created an ill-equipped but 20,000-man strong Lithuanian Territorial Defense Force under General Povilas Plechavičius to combat Soviet partisans led by Antanas Sniečkus. The Germans came to see this force as a nationalist threat to their occupation. Its senior staff were arrested on 15 May 1944, and Plechavičius was deported to a concentration camp in Salaspils, Latvia, but later in August 1944 released and remained under the supervision of the Gestapo. Approximately half the remaining forces formed guerrilla units and dissolved into the countryside to prepare for partisan operations against the Red Army as the Eastern Front approached.
Guerrilla operations in Estonia and Latvia had some basis in Adolf Hitler's authorization to withdraw from Estonia in mid-September 1944 – he allowed soldiers of his Estonian forces, primarily the 20th Waffen-SS Division (1st Estonian) who wished to stay and defend their homes to do so – and in the fate of Army Group Courland, among the last of Hitler's forces to surrender after it became trapped in the Courland Pocket on the Courland Peninsula in 1945. Many Estonian and Latvian soldiers, and a few Germans, evaded capture and fought as Forest Brothers for years after the war. Others such as Alfons Rebane and Alfrēds Riekstiņš escaped to the United Kingdom and Sweden and participated in Allied intelligence operations in aid of the Forest Brothers. While the Waffen-SS was found guilty of war crimes and other atrocities and declared a criminal organization after the war, the Nuremberg trials explicitly excluded conscripts in the following terms:
The Tribunal declares to be criminal within the meaning of the Charter the group composed of those persons who had been officially accepted as members of the SS as enumerated in the preceding paragraph, who became or remained members of the organization with knowledge that it was being used for the commission of acts declared criminal by Article 6 of the Charter, or who were personally implicated as members of the organization in the commission of such crimes, excluding, however, those who were drafted into membership by the State in such a way as to give them no choice in the matter, and who had committed no such crimes.
In 1949–1950 the United States Displaced Persons Commission investigated the Estonian and Latvian divisions and on 1 September 1950, adopted the following policy:
The Baltic Waffen SS Units are to be considered as separate and distinct in purpose, ideology, activities, and qualifications for membership from the German SS, and therefore the Commission holds them not to be a movement hostile to the Government of the United States under Section 13 of the Displaced Persons Act, as amended.
The Latvian government has asserted that the Latvian Legion, primarily composed of the 15th and 19th Latvian Waffen-SS divisions, was neither a criminal nor collaborationist organization. The ranks of the resistance swelled with the Red Army's attempts to conscript in the Baltic states after the war, and fewer than half the registered conscripts reported in some districts. The widespread harassment of disappearing conscripts' families pushed more people to evade authorities in the forests. Many enlisted men deserted, taking their weapons with them.
Summer war
With the German invasion of the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941, Joseph Stalin made a public statement on the radio calling for a scorched earth policy in the areas to be abandoned on 3 July. About 10,000 Forest Brothers, organized into countrywide Omakaitse (Home Guard) organizations, attacked the NKVD, destruction battalions and the 8th Army (Major General Ljubovtsev), killing 4,800 and capturing 14,000. The battle of Tartu lasted for two weeks, and destroyed a large part of the city. Under the leadership of Friedrich Kurg, the Forest Brothers drove the Soviets from Tartu, behind the Rivers Pärnu – Emajõgi line. Thus they secured South Estonia under Estonian control by 10 July. The NKVD murdered 193 people in Tartu Prison on their retreat on 8 July.
The German 18th Army crossed the Estonian southern border on 7–9 July. The Germans resumed their advance in Estonia by working in cooperation with the Forest Brothers and the Omakaitse. In North Estonia, the destruction battalions had the greatest impact, being the last Baltic territory captured from the Soviets. The joint Estonian-German forces took Narva on 17 August, and the Estonian capital Tallinn on 28 August. On that day, the red flag shot down earlier on Pikk Hermann was replaced with the flag of Estonia by Fred Ise only to be replaced yet again by a German Reichskriegsflagge a few hours later. After the Soviets were driven out from Estonia, German Army Group North disarmed all the Forest Brother and Omakaitse groups.
Southern Estonian partisan units were yet again summoned in August 1941 under the name of the Estonian Omakaitse. Members were initially selected from the closest circle of friends. Later, candidate members were asked to sign a declaration that they were not members of a Communist organization. Estonian Omakaitse relied on the former regulations of the Estonian Defence League and Estonian Army, insofar as they were consistent with the laws of German occupation. The tasks of the Omakaitse were as follows:
- defense of the coast and borders
- fight against parachutists, sabotage, and espionage
- guarding militarily important objects
- fight against Communism
- assistance to Estonian Police and guaranteeing the general safety of the citizens
- providing assistance in case of large-scale incidents (fires, floods, diseases, etc.)
- providing military training for its members and other loyal citizens
- deepening and preserving the patriotic and national feelings of citizens.
On 15 July, the Omakaitse had 10,200 members; on 1 December 1941, 40,599 members. Until February 1944 membership was around 40,000.
Guerrilla war
By the late 1940s and the early 1950s, the Forest Brothers were provided with supplies, liaison officers and logistical coordination by the British (MI6), American, and Swedish secret intelligence services. That support played a key role in directing the Baltic resistance movement, but it diminished significantly after MI6's Operation Jungle was severely compromised by the activities of British spies (Kim Philby and others) who forwarded information to the Soviets and enabled the MGB to identify, infiltrate and eliminate many Baltic guerrilla units and cut others off from any further contact with Western intelligence operatives.
The conflict between the Soviet armed forces and the Forest Brothers lasted over a decade and cost at least 50,000 lives. Estimates of the number of fighters in each country vary. Misiunas and Taagepera estimate that figures reached 30,000 in Lithuania, between 10,000 and 15,000 in Latvia and 10,000 in Estonia. On the other hand, professor Heinrihs Strods, based on NKVD reports, claims that in 1945, 8,916 partisans were killed in Lithuania, 715 in Latvia and 270 in Estonia, which makes Lithuanian losses around 90%. Even though the real numbers were even larger, many believe this reveals the ratio of the size of resistance among the three countries.
In Estonia
In Estonia 14,000–15,000 men participated in the fighting between 1944 and 1953 – the Forest Brothers were most active in Võru County along the borderlands between Pärnu and Lääne counties and included significant activity between Tartu and Viru counties as well. From November 1944 to November 1947, they carried out 773 armed attacks, killing about 1,000 Soviets and their supporters. At its peak in 1947, the organization controlled dozens of villages and towns, creating considerable nuisance to Soviet supply transports that required an armed escort. August Sabbe, one of the last surviving Forest Brothers, was discovered in 1978 by KGB agents posing as fishermen. Instead of surrendering he leaped into the Võhandu but was pinned under a log, either by mistake or on purpose, and drowned. The KGB insisted that the 69-year-old Sabbe had drowned while trying to escape, a theory difficult to credit given the shallow water and lack of cover at the site. Another noted member of Forest Brothers, Kalev Arro, evaded capture by disguising himself as a vagrant while hiding in the forests of southern Estonia for 20 years. He was killed in a shooting encounter with KGB agents in 1974.
There were numerous attempts to hunt down relatives of the Forest Brothers. An Estonian who managed to escape deportation was Taimi Kreitsberg. She recalled that Soviet officials "...took me to Võru, I was not beaten there, but for three days and nights I was given neither food nor drink. They told me they were not going to kill me, but torture me [until] I betrayed all the bandits. For about a month they dragged me through woods and took me to farms owned by relatives of Forest Brothers, and they sent me in as an instigator to ask for food and shelter while the Chekists themselves waited outside. I told people to drive me away, as I had been sent by the security organs."
In Latvia
In Latvia, preparations for partisan operations began during the German occupation, but the leaders of these nationalist units were arrested by Nazi authorities. Longer-lived resistance units began to form at the end of the war, composed of former Latvian Legion soldiers and civilians. On 8 September 1944 in Riga, the leadership of the Latvian Central Council adopted the Declaration on the Restoration of the State of Latvia. It was intended to restore de facto independence to the Latvian republic. In addition it was hoped international supporters would take advantage of the interval between changeovers of the occupying powers. The Declaration prescribed that the Satversme, the Constitution of Latvia, was the fundamental law of the restored Republic of Latvia, and provided for the re-establishment of a Cabinet of Ministers that would organise the restoration of the independence of Latvia.