Forest Brothers, 1945: The Culmination Of The Lithuanian Partisan Movement
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While many authors argue that the high point in the Lithuanian partisan war occurred between 1946 and 1947, the totality of evidence points towards a culmination in 1945 from which the effort never recovered. This culminating point may be attributed to a miscalculation of partisan resources on the part of their leadership as well as a lack of external support. The main reason for achieving culmination, however, rested in the inability of partisans to fight a conventional war against a massive, combined arms Soviet force. Mass deportations between three separate occupations and a wave of 60,000 escapees created a vacuum of political, military and moral leadership. Compounded with the realization that there would be no external support from the democratic West, the will of the Lithuanians was bent by the Soviet campaign. Ultimately, the numbers of partisans killed, captured or given amnesty by Soviet forces reflect an apex in military capability in 1945 that drastically diminished thereafter.
The pinnacle of partisan effort in 1945 clearly represents a culminating point that forced the Lithuanian resistance movement to shift their operations drastically. Ultimately, based on the totality of evidence, the 1945 culminating point splits the resistance into two stages: 1) 1944-1945-conventional war operations, a period of traditional offensive warfare by an organized partisan movement; and 2) 1946-1953-irregular warfare operations, a period of unremitting decline by a significantly diminished resistance, relegated to a more defensive posture and small scale offensive operations.
Major Vylius M. Leskys
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Forest Brothers, 1945 - Major Vylius M. Leskys
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Text originally published in 2009 under the same title.
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Publisher’s Note
Although in most cases we have retained the Author’s original spelling and grammar to authentically reproduce the work of the Author and the original intent of such material, some additional notes and clarifications have been added for the modern reader’s benefit.
We have also made every effort to include all maps and illustrations of the original edition the limitations of formatting do not allow of including larger maps, we will upload as many of these maps as possible.
Forest Brothers,
1945: The culmination of the Lithuanian Partisan movement
by
Major Vylius M. Leskys, United States Army
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Contents
TABLE OF CONTENTS 4
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 5
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 6
Introduction 7
The First Soviet Occupation 8
German Occupation and Operation Bagration 9
The Third Liberation
11
The Forest Brothers
12
Hope and Motivation 13
Soviet Measures against the Resistance 15
Culmination 18
Conclusions 20
REQUEST FROM THE PUBLISHER 23
APPENDIX A — 1941 NKVD deportation priorities: Groups considered a threat to the occupation 24
APPENDIX B. — Partisan military districts 25
APPENDIX C — Theoretical Appendix: A Case Study in Flexibility and Security 26
People and Ideology 26
Flexibility 27
Security 28
Conclusions 28
APPENDIX D. — Chekist data: Number of Nationalist underground command centers dismantled; regional and district staff members captured or killed by the Soviet campaign 29
APPENDIX E. — Chekist data: Number of partisan operations conducted; partisans killed, captured, arrested and given amnesty 30
APPENDIX F. — Chekist data: Number of captured weapon systems by Soviets 31
BIBLIOGRAPHY 32
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I wish to thank my parents, Michael and Jina Leskys for instilling within me a sense of nationalism and pride in Lithuania as a young boy; little did they know that by encouraging my Lithuanian pride, so would grow my sense of patriotism and duty for the United States. I wish to acknowledge Tomas Skucas who provided me with the initial idea to pursue this thesis topic, as well as for having provided me with a number of valuable resources from Lithuania. At the Marine Corps Command and Staff College, I wish to thank Dr. Paul Gelpi, in particular, for all of his invaluable assistance as my advisor in this endeavor; Rachel Kingcade for her research help; and Lt.-Col Kelly Alexander, USMC, and LTC Michael Lewis, USA, for their mentorship and support. Lastly, I wish to thank my wife, Anne Leskys, for all of her encouragement and late-night editing