Journal:Acta Historica Universitatis Klaipedensis
Volume 28 (2014): Paramilitarism in the Eastern Baltics, 1918–1940: Cases Studies and Comparisons = Paramilitarizmas Rytų Baltijos regione 1918–1940: atvejo studijos ir lyginimai, pp. 43–56
Abstract
The article explores various linkages between the violence of the Great War and the postwar conflict in independent Lithuania. The author focuses on several key Lithuanian paramilitary groups that emerged as a result of the collapse of the German occupying regime, the Bolshevik advance, and the ensuing power struggle in 1918 and 1919. It explores their grassroots origins, their motivation to fight, and their role in processes of forming a community, and state and nation-building. The author argues that these armed paramilitary formations contributed to the militarisation of the country’s civilian life. Having emerged in the contested peripheral regions of Lithuania, they were led by veterans of the Great War acting as independent warlords. Besides providing security for local people, these formations occasionally engaged in terror against civilians who were perceived as harmful elements that had to be purged from local communities. These paramilitary formations also showed a degree of operational freedom, by controlling certain peripheral regions for considerable periods of time. But the state was able to share its monopoly on legal violence with them only for as long as its own survival required the mobilisation of all economic and human resources for the war.
Journal:Acta Historica Universitatis Klaipedensis
Volume 21 (2010): Klaipėdos krašto aneksija 1939 m.: politiniai, ideologiniai, socialiniai ir kariniai aspektai = The 1939 Annexation of Klaipėda Region: Political, Ideological, Social and Military Issues, pp. 125–156
Abstract
The paper aims to review one uninvestigated episode on the territory known as Klaipėda Region (Memelgebiet) in March 1939, before the Second World War. On 22-23 March 1939, Lithuania was coerced into yielding to Hitler‘s ultimatum for Klaipėda (Memel) to be ceded to Germany which caused a mass surge of refugees from Klaipėda to Lithuania Major. Many Lithuanian workers, employees, and businessmen in the region were scared by the aggressive Nazi Anschluss and fled from the region in panic, mostly to Lithuania. Another segment of the population was subsequently also expelled from the annexed region to Lithuania Major. The Lithuanian Government and its officials were not prepared for the large influx of refugees. To provide additional support, the Lithuanian Red Cross and many social and voluntary organisations became engaged in the refugee accommodation, catering, protection, and dealing with other problems.