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Listen: MP3 This program was recorded in one, 60-minute segment.
Introduction: Analyzing the resuscitation of Baltic Waffen SS veterans and their ideology, as well as the projection of their revisionist history into the political life of their countries, we set the developments forth against the scenario presented in Serpent’s Walk.
In that Nazi tract, the SS go underground in the aftermath of World War II, build up their economic muscle, buy into the opinion-forming media, infiltrate the American military, and–following a series of terrorist incidents in the U.S. which cause the declaration of martial law–take over the United States.
Central to this takeover is the use of the Nazi-controlled mainstream media to fundamentally revise history in a pro-Hitler fashion. Just such a revision is underway in the Baltic states.
In the Baltic states, marches honoring Waffen SS units comprised of their citizens are gaining gravitas. They are espousing revisionist history which stands political reality on its head, with the Baltic Waffen SS veterans groups being re-cast as “Freedom Fighters.”
Note that the values they espouse are–theoretically at least–directly counter to those espoused by the European Union. The EU has, however, been conspicuously silent.
In addition to celebrating the Nazi past, the Waffen SS veterans’ contingents are associated with political parties that espouse a racist and fascist ideology.
The Estonian Waffen-SS veterans’ march attracts participants from other countries’ Waffen SS contingents. Of paramount importance is the fact that these Third Reich veterans are teaching the ideological and operational ropes to a new generation of Nazis . As discussed in FTR #841, it is a mistake to use the term “neo-Nazi”–the new generation is inheriting the legacy from the original World War II participants and is poised to carry that on and fulfill Hitler’s dictum.
Reminiscent of the Nazi “punisher battalions,” the Lithuanian Riflemen’s Union–a fascist militia–has been expanded to meet the so-called “Russian threat.” Like the OUN/B’s military wing–the UPA–the Lithuanian Rifleman’s Union continued the combat of World War II until the early 1950’s. Formed during the waning days of the Second World War, they jumped from the Third Reich to the Office of Policy Coordination, a CIA/State Department operational directorate. (This is covered in FTR #777, as well as AFA #1.
Next, the program excerpts AFA #36, detailing the projection of World War II-era fascist elements into Lithuania by the mis-named National Endowment for Democracy.
The re-emergence of Baltic Waffen SS units is to be seen against the background of the Crusade For Freedom, the same “op” that resulted in the projection of the OUN/B fascists into Ukraine following the overthrow of Yanukovich.
An illegal domestic covert operation, the CFF brought Nazi allies such as the OUN/B, the Croatian Ustachi, the Romanian Iron Guard, the Hungarian Arrow Cross, the Bulgarian National Front and others into the United States in order to drive the political spectrum to the right.
As of 1952, the CFF became inextricably linked with the GOP, with Arthur Bliss Lane playing a key role in the GOP’s 1952 campaign, as well as being centrally involved in the CFF. The CFF spawned the GOP’s ethnic outreach organization, which was able to deliver the swing vote in five key states in Presidential election years. It eventually became a permanent part of the GOP.
Conceived by Allen Dulles, the CFF was overseen by Richard Nixon. Its chief spokesperson was Ronald Reagan. The State Department official responsible for bringing “fascist freedom fighters” into the United States was William Casey (Ronald Reagan’s campaign manager in the 1980 Presidential race and later Reagan’s CIA director.) The Nazi wing of the GOP was installed as a permanent branch of the Republican Part when George H.W. Bush was the head of the Republican National Committee.
It is noteworthy that the organizations that were represented in the GOP subgroup were all affiliated with the SS during World War II. They were also inextricably linked with the Reinhard Gehlen organization.
Perhaps the most important effect of the Gehlen organization was to introduce “rollback” or “liberation theory” into American strategic thinking. Rollback was a political wafare and covert operation strategy which had its genesis in the Third Reich Ostministerium headed by Alfred Rosenberg. This strategy entailed enlisting the aid of dissident Soviet ethnic minorities to overthrow the Soviet Union. In return, these minorities and their respective republics were to be granted nominal independence while serving as satellite states of “Greater Germany.”
In its American incarnation, liberation theory called for “rolling back” communism out of Eastern Europe and the break-up of the Soviet Union into its constituent ethnic Republics. Lip-service was given to initiating democracy in the “liberated” countries. Liberation theory was projected into mainstream American political consciousness through the Crusade for Freedom.
The pivotal importance of the CFF in the developments now unfolding in Eastern Europe, the Baltic states and Ukraine in particular, could not be overstated. The Nazi elements shepherded by the CFF were nurtured in the GOP and associated elements of U.S. intelligence, exerted a decisive influence on U.S. Cold War policy and were ultimately projected into the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, where they are perverting history and politics in the manner set forth in Serpent’s Walk.
Program Highlights Include:
- The role of Archbishop Brizgys in supporting the Holocaust in Lithuania.
- Lithuania’s emergence as the second fascist country in Europe in the 1920’s.
- Lithuanian Catholic Relief’s support for revanchist fascists in Lithuania.
- The Sajudis party as a vehicle for the revival of fascism in Lithuania.
- The fear inspired by Sajudis in Lithuanian citizens.
1. In the Baltic states, marches honoring Waffen SS units comprised of their citizens are gaining gravitas. They are espousing revisionist history which stands political reality on its head, with the Baltic Waffen SS veterans groups being re-cast as “Freedom Fighters.”
Note that the values they espouse are–theoretically at least–directly counter to those espoused by the European Union. The EU has, however, been conspicuously silent.
“Four Baltic Marches, One Dangerous Racist Trend” by Efraim Zuroff; i24 news; 2/15/2015.
This coming week will see the opening of what I refer to as “Baltic Neo-Nazi/Ultranationalist March Month.” Within exactly 29 days, four such marches will take place in the capital cities of the Baltic European Union members — Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. And while there obviously are different local nuances, the similarities between the marches are far too numerous to ignore, reflecting a dangerous trend, which deserves to be treated seriously by Brussels.
All the marches are being sponsored by right-wing organizations with fascist sympathies and zero tolerance for local minorities. At past marches in Lithuania, the most popular slogan shouted was “Lietuva lietuvams” (Lithuania for Lithuanians); and in Estonia, it has already been announced that the theme of this year’s march will be “Eesti eestlastele” (Estonia for Estonians). In other words, as far as they are concerned, only ethnic Lithuanians or Estonians belong in their country.
The sponsors also share a critical view of the accepted narrative of World War II and the Holocaust, which includes the extensive and zealous collaboration by tens of thousands of Lithuanians, Latvians and Estonians in the mass annihilation of not only their fellow Jewish citizens, but also of thousands of Jews deported from elsewhere in Europe to the Baltic countries to be murdered there, as well as tens of thousands of Jews murdered by security police units from Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia in Belarus. As far as the organizers are concerned, the real “genocide” was that supposedly committed in the Baltics by the Communists, whereas the Holocaust was primarily a respite from the two periods of Soviet repression and persecution in 1940–1941 and 1944–1991.
The revisionist bent of the marchers was boldly evident in both Lithuania and Latvia in previous such events. Thus, for example, the Latvian march is ostensibly to honor the locals who fought alongside the Nazis in the two Latvian SS divisions, whom the marchers seek to portray as Latvian freedom fighters. They conveniently forget three important historical facts: that the goal of these divisions was a victory of the Third Reich, that Nazi Germany had absolutely no intention of granting Latvia independence even if it had won the war, and that among these so-called “Latvian heroes” were quite a few former members of the Latvian Security Police who had actively participated in the mass murder of Jews, local and foreign.
In Lithuania, prominently displayed among the nationalist heroes was Juozas Ambrazevicius, the Prime Minister of the Lithuanian Provisional Government established in July 1941, which fully supported the Third Reich and encouraged Lithuanians to participate in the mass murder of their fellow Jewish citizens, hardly a qualification for glorification. At these marches, Lithuanian swastikas, a slightly altered version of the Nazi original to avoid legal problems, were a very common sight.
All four marches are being held in the main avenues of the capital cities, and three of them are celebrations of local independence days. The first march, on February 16 in Kaunas, which was the capital of the first Lithuanian republic in modern times, marks the independence granted in 1918. The second, a week later, on February 23 in Tallinn, marks Estonian independence, and the third, which will be held in the center of Vilnius on March 11, marks the renewal of Lithuanian independence in 1990. (The Latvian march, which will be held in Riga on March 16, is linked to a historic battle of the Latvian Legion.) The combination of exclusionist nationalist slogans with the achievement of freedom for the Baltic peoples is a toxic combination which sends a racist, xenophobic and anti-Semitic message which, at least in theory, runs counter to the values of the European Union.
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2. In addition to celebrating the Nazi past, the Waffen SS veterans’ contingents are associated with political parties that espouse a racist and fascist ideology.
“Nazi Hunter: Even Putin Would Condemn Nuremberg-esque Parades in Estonia” by Dr. Efraim Zuroff; IB Times; 3/3/2015.
The torchlight parade held by right-wing ultranationalists last week in the Estonian capital of Tallinn reminded the Russian journalists covering the event of similar spectacles in Nazi Germany, but this was more wishful thinking on their part than actual reality.
They were out in full force this past Tuesday night,but unfortunately, they were the only foreign television journalists covering the event, with not a single representative of any European Union member country’s media in attendance.
...
The European Union, on the other hand, does not appear to be particularly perturbed by genuinely disturbing phenomena in the Baltic countries and elsewhere, which, of course, would in no way justify Russian aggression, but deserve to be handled seriously and promptly before they get out of hand.
Tuesday’s march, which was sponsored by the Sinine Aratus (Blue Awakening) youth movement, closely affiliated with the Estonian Conservative People’s Party (EKRE), was a good example of at least one of the major problems we increasingly encounter in post-Communist Eastern Europe, and especially in the Baltics. I am referring to the rise of ethnocentric sentiment, a euphemism for racism, anti-Semitism, and xenophobia.
Thus the march was publicised under the slogan of ‘Estonia for Estonians,’ an explicit message of zero tolerance for Estonia’s minorities, among them families who have lived in the country for generations. The announcement also bore the symbols of the “sister” parties in Lithuania and in Latvia, whose platforms advocate the same ethnocentricity.
In addition, the only sign I saw besides the one held by the lead marchers which said ‘For Estonia,’ bore a white supremacy message. In fact, IB Times UK reported not that long ago on a statement by Mart Helme, a leading member of the EKRE, who said that the policy in Estonia towards Africans should be, “If you’re black, go back.” When questioned about this statement by the Estonian daily Postimees, Helme responded that he would not allow political correctness to silence his opinions.
Rewriting Nazi history
The other omnipresent problem in the Baltics was not in evidence this past Tuesday night, but is definitely in the background.
As past marches by Baltic ultranationalists have clearly demonstrated,one of their key goals is to rewrite the narrative of World War II and the Holocaust to hide the extensive lethal complicity of local Nazi collaborators and promote the canard of historical equivalency between Communist and Nazi crimes, often commonly referred to as the “double genocide theory.”
A very important element of this campaign is the glorification of certain anti-Communists, despite their participation in the persecution and murder of their fellow Jewish citizens during the Holocaust.
This element was on display last week in Kaunas, Lithuania and will certainly be featured in Vilnius and Riga in the marches scheduled for mid-March. In Estonia, this revisionism is on display at the annual gathering of SS veterans held in Sinimae every summer, and hosted by the veterans of the 20th Estonian Waffen-SS Grenadier Division, which is attended by SS veterans from many European countries in which such gatherings are illegal.
...
3. The Estonian Waffen-SS veterans’ march attracts participants from other countries’ Waffen SS contingents. Of paramount importance is the fact that these Third Reich veterans are teaching the ideological and operational ropes to a new generation of Nazis . As discussed in FTR #841, it is a mistake to use the term “neo-Nazi”–the new generation is inheriting the legacy from the original World War II participants and is poised to carry that on and fulfill Hitler’s dictum.
“The Waffen-SS as Freedom Fighters” by Per Anders Rudling; The Algemeiner; 1/31/2012.
Despised and ostracized, the Swedish community of Waffen–SS volunteers long gathered in secrecy on “The Day of the Fallen,” for obscure ritualistic annual gatherings at a cemetery in a Stockholm suburb.
Since the 1990s, the rituals have not needed to be clandestine: the few, now very elderly survivors now head to Sinimäe, Estonia, where they feel they are now getting the honor to which they are entitled. Here, Swedish, Norwegian, Austrian, German and otherWaffen–SS veterans from Western Europe meet up with their Estonian comrades. The annual gatherings include those who volunteered for ideological reasons, and who are today actively passing on the experiences to a new generation of neo-Nazis.
In previous years, Mart Laar, the Estonian minister of defense sent official greeting to the veterans. Estonian government endorsement of these events means in effect that an EU member state is underwriting the Waffen-SS veterans’ own claims that they constituted a pan-European force, who were moreover pioneers of European unification.
According to the Tageszeitung, this March the Estonian parliament will consider a law, which would formally designate the Estonian Waffen–SS veterans as “Freedom Fighters.” The law, promoted by Mart Laar’s right-wing nationalist Isamaa party, represents a fourth attempt by the Isamaa to pass such a law. Previous efforts were made in 2005, 2006, and 2010. Last winter the Estonian prime minister Andrus Ansip sent the Estonian Waffen–SS veterans a letter, in which he thanked them for their service to the Estonian people.
In doing so, Estonia would confirm its leading role in rehabilitating the Waffen–SS. Across Europe, Waffen–SS veterans and their admirers are following the developments in Estonia and Latvia. Nowhere in Europe have these veterans been recognized by governments . The Estonians and Latvians were (and are) breaking a taboo, setting a precedent for others to follow.
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Like their Scandinavian comrades, the German Waffen–SS veterans perceive themselves as a victimized and misunderstood group, second class citizens, victims of victors’ justice. They have generally not been entitled to state pensions for veterans.
Outside of Europe, Waffen–SS veterans have been more successful in gaining acceptance for their own narrative. In Canada, government authorities, in the name of multiculturalism have agreed to share the construction cost for monuments with the association of the Ukrainian veterans of the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (1st Ukrainian), better known at the Waffen–SS Galizien. Public institutions of higher education institute endowments in the honor of Ukrainian Waffen–SS volunteers. [!]
To the disappointment of the extreme right, former Ukrainian president Viktor Yushchenko (in office 2005–2010) did not follow up his rehabilitation of the most important interwar Ukrainian fascist organization, the OUN, with a rehabilitation of the Waffen–SS Galizien. To the Ukrainian far right, Latvia and Estonia have become a source of inspiration and an example to emulate. Much like the current Estonian prime minister, Andrus Ansip, the leading Ukrainian ultra-nationalist party, the All Ukrainian Association Svoboda, which dominates local politics in several Western Ukrainian cities, denies that honoring Waffen–SS veterans has anything to do with neo-Nazi ideology.
...In April 2011 Svoboda celebrated the 68th anniversary of the establishment of the Waffen–SS Galizien. Lviv was decorated with billboards referring to the veterans of the Waffen–SS Galizien as “the treasure of the nation,” accompanied by the slogan “They defended Ukraine.” The far right marched through Lviv with cries like “Galicia – Division of heroes!,” and “One race, one nation, one Fatherland!” In time for the Euro 2012, a Waffen–SS Galizien taxi company was established.
These processes are interlinked. The Estonian and Latvian governments’ partial recognition granted their presumably heroic Waffen–SS veterans is part of a larger narrative of apologetics and obfuscation.
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In fact, a Nazi victory, for which the Waffen–SS was employed, would have meant the permanent disappearance of Estonia, the population of which was earmarked for destruction by the Generalplan Ost, which stipulated that only 50% of Estonians could be Germanized. That discussion would have thereby precluded this discussion in the first place.
Thus, that government that has itself profiled from an elaborate victimization narrative making Estonia a European center of gravity for Waffen–SS nostalgists is deeply ironic.
Unlike most plants, these sort of cults grow in the shade. The Estonian government does not want international exposure on this. Yet, that is exactly what is needed.
The nostalgia for the Waffen–SS “freedom fighters” is not merely an Estonian concern It is a European concern. It is an international concern.
4. Reminiscent of the Nazi “punisher battalions,” the Lithuanian Rifleman’s Union–a fascist militia–has been expanded to meet the so-called “Russian threat.” Like the OUN/B’s military wing–the UPA–the Lithuanian Rifleman’s Union continued the combat of World War II until the early 1950’s. Formed during the waning days of the Second World War, they jumped from the Third Reich to the Office of Policy Coordination, a CIA/State Department operational directorate. (This is covered in FTR #777, as well as AFA #1.
“Russian Threat Sees Rebirth of Lithuania Paramilitary Group” [Agence France-Presse]; Global Post; 9/2/2014.
In thick pine forests hidden in the remote wilderness of eastern Lithuania, young professionals are ditching their suits and ties for camouflage gear, and swapping iPads for rifles.
These weekend warriors also proudly wear bracelets with emblems of green fir trees on their wrists, symbols of their small Baltic country’s wartime resistance against the Soviet Union, which occupied it in 1940.
Now, Russia’s takeover of Crimea and increasing signs of its involvement in Ukraine’s east, coupled with sabre rattling in its Kaliningrad exclave bordering Lithuania, are sparking a sharp rise in paramilitary recruits here.
Like others in the region, Lithuania is calling on NATO to put permanent boots on the ground in the Baltics to ward off any potential threat from their Soviet-era master.
But while they await a decision that could come at a key two-day alliance summit starting Thursday in Wales, Lithuanian civilians are lacing up their own combat boots.
Students, businessmen, civil servants, journalists and even politicians are among the hundreds who have joined the government-sponsored Lithuania Riflemen’s Union, a group first set up in 1919 but banned in 1940 under Soviet rule.
“The Vilnius unit has tripled in size since the beginning of the crisis in Ukraine,” says Mindaugas Balciauskas, unit commander of the group which boasts about 7,000 members in the nation of three million, a number almost on par with its 7,000 military personnel and 4,200 reservists.
- ‘Take up arms’ -
President Dalia Grybauskaite, a karate black belt dubbed Lithuania’s ‘Iron Lady’ for her tough stance on Russia, has also sworn to “take up arms” herself in the unlikely case Moscow would attack this 2004 NATO and EU member of three million.
“Being in a paramilitary unit will give me privileged access to information and make me better prepared than those who don’t join,” Arturas Bortkevicius, a 37-year-old finance specialist, told AFP, adding that he wants to learn the skills he needs to defend his country and family.
Members spend weekends on manoeuvres deep in the woods or at a military training range in Pabrade, north of the capital Vilnius.
Liberal MP Remigijus Simasius says that while his place “would be in parliament” given a crisis, he joined the riflemen in the wake of Russia’s Crimea land grab in the hope of encouraging others to follow suit.
Even some Lithuanians with Russian roots have joined up amid the Ukraine crisis.
“I’m a Lithuanian citizen of Russian origin. I am who I am, and I am Lithuanian patriot,” photographer Vladimiras Ivanovas, 40, who also joined up, told AFP.
- Checkered past -
The Rifleman’s Union “has left an indelible mark on the history of Lithuania,” says historian Arvydas Anusauskas.
It was created after World War I in 1919 during a series of “Wars of Independence” fought by Lithuanians in 1918–1920 against Russian Bolsheviks, mixed Russian and German forces and Poles.
Aside from Lithuanians, from 1919–1940 research shows its members also included Russian, Poles, Jews and even Chinese, reflecting the ethnic complexity of and tensions in the region.
Its reputation is however tainted by allegations that certain members were involved in a series of Nazi massacres between 1940–44 that claimed the lives of an estimated 80,000–100,000 Jews, Poles and Russians in Panierai, a suburb skirting the capital Vilnius.
The Riflemen’s Union was banned in 1940 by the Soviet Union when the Red Army swept in from the east to occupy Lithuania during World War II, but members fought a guerilla war against the Soviets until the early 1950s.
Its revival in 1989 came as the Soviet bloc began to crumble and now its large new crop of members say they are willing to fight again should their country come under attack.
...
5. Next, the program excerpts AFA #36, detailing the projection of World War II-era fascist elements into Lithuania by the mis-named National Endowment for Democracy.
The re-emergence of Baltic Waffen SS units is to be seen against the background of the Crusade For Freedom, the same “op” that resulted in the projection of the OUN/B fascists into Ukraine following the overthrow of Yanukovich.
An illegal domestic covert operation, the CFF brought Nazi allies such as the OUN/B, the Croatian Ustachi, the Romanian Iron Guard, the Hungarian Arrow Cross, the Bulgarian National Front and others into the United States in order to drive the political spectrum to the right.
As of 1952, the CFF became inextricably linked with the GOP, with Arthur Bliss Lane playing a key role in the GOP’s 1952 campaign, as well as being centrally involved in the CFF. The CFF spawned the GOP’s ethnic outreach organization, which was able to deliver the swing vote in five key states in Presidential election years. It eventually became a permanent part of the GOP.
Conceived by Allen Dulles, the CFF was overseen by Richard Nixon. Its chief spokesperson was Ronald Reagan. The State Department official responsible for bringing “fascist freedom fighters” like the OUN/B into the United States was William Casey (Ronald Reagan’s campaign manager in the 1980 Presidential race and later Reagan’s CIA director.) The Nazi wing of the GOP was installed as a permanent branch of the Republican Part when George H.W. Bush was the head of the Republican National Committee.
The OUN/B was a key element of the GOP’s ethnic outreach organization. It is noteworthy that the organizations that were represented in the GOP subgroup were all affiliated with the SS during World War II. They were also inextricably linked with the Reinhard Gehlen organization.
Perhaps the most important effect of the Gehlen organization was to introduce “rollback” or “liberation theory” into American strategic thinking. Rollback was a political wafare and covert operation strategy which had its genesis in the Third Reich Ostministerium headed by Alfred Rosenberg. This strategy entailed enlisting the aid of dissident Soviet ethnic minorities to overthrow the Soviet Union. In return, these minorities and their respective republics were to be granted nominal independence while serving as satellite states of “Greater Germany.”
In its American incarnation, liberation theory called for “rolling back” communism out of Eastern Europe and the break-up of the Soviet Union into its constituent ethnic Republics. Lip-service was given to initiating democracy in the “liberated” countries. Liberation theory was projected into mainstream American political consciousness through the Crusade for Freedom.
“NED Meddles in Lithuania: Nurturing Baltic Reaction” by Philip Bonosky; Covert Action Quarterly; Number 35 (Fall 1990).
In April of 1990, the Soviet Republic of Lithuania startled the world by declaring itself independent of the U.S.S.R. The U.S. has not yet recognized Lithuania as independent, and Bush’s public remarks have been moderate. But beneath this facade of calm statecraft there runs a familiar current of silent U.S. involvement in the political affairs of another country.
The most visible intervention has been via the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), which has supplied funds, equipment, and advice to the principal nationalist opposition party Sajudis. NED has chosen to funnel its Lithuanian aid through one organization: the New York-based Lithuanian Catholic Religious Aid (LCRA) and its propaganda arm, Lithuanian Information Center (LIC).
These two organizations are run by arch-conservative Catholic clergy. The founder, current board chair, and the man who has “presided over the steady growth and increasing effectiveness of LCRA, Bishop Vincentas Brizgys, was allegedly a Nazi collaborator during World War II. [Raul Hilberg’s The Destruction of the European Jews (New York: 1961), and Charles R. Allen’s Nazi War Criminals Among Us (New York: Jewish Currents Reprint, 1963), document Brizgys’s background. Allen reproduced Nuremberg Tribunal documents relating to the Bishop.] Brizgys vehemently denies the charge. Sajudis itself is linked in a variety of ways to the symbols and sentiments of the fascist and Nazi periods of Baltic history.
The Country in Question
Lithuania lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, bordered on the south by Poland, on the north by the Latvian S.S.R., and on the east by the Byelorussian S.S.R. [Soviet Socialist Republic–a member of the former U.S.S.R.] It is the westernmost extent of the Soviet Union, with a population (1980) of just over three million. In the 14th century invading Germans conquered the area and imposed the Catholic faith. In the modern era, Lithuania has been repeatedly buffeted by the shifting political and military map of Europe.
Lithuania declared independence from Czarist Russia in 1918, but in 1926, the nationalist party took power through a military coup. Declaring himself president Augustus Voldemares and his premier, Antanas Smetona shaped Lithuania into Europe’s second fascist state, based explicitly on the example of Mussolini’s Italy. Lithuania remained a dictatorship until 1939, when Smetoma fled to the U.S. and a new parliament voted unanimously to become a constituent republic of the U.S.S.R. With the German invasion of the Soviet Union 1n 1941, Lithuania’s nationalists returned briefly to power and assisted the Nazis in the swift, systematic slaughter of more than 130,000 Lithuanian Jews, communists and other “undesirables.”
Enter NED
In April 1990, a 34-year-old American, William J.H. Hough III, was very busy in Lithuania. Hough was sent to Lithuania–although he doesn’t speak Lithuanian–as legal adviser to Vytautas Landsbergis, the leader of the nationalist party. He was recommended by LCRA/LIC, which the U.S. press has cited as very enthusiastic about his work.
Cooperating closely with Hough, LCRA/LIC has supplied Sajudis with paper, photocopy machines, computers, laser printers, FAX machines, and video cameras. With additional political and technical expertise, Vilnius quickly became a communications hub for secessionist forces in Lithuania and other Soviet republics.
Professionally,Hough is a lawyer. He was also an editor of The New York Law School Journal of International and Comparative Law, which published in its Winter 1985 issue his book-length article titled, “The Annexation of the Baltic States and its Effect on the Development of Law Prohibiting Forcible Seizure of Territory.” Hough describes the interwar period of Lithuanian history [its fascist period–D.E.] as one of “political and constitutional stability” and “progress toward the restoration of full democracy.” He fails to mention the collaboration of nationalists and Nazis. In his public justifications of secession, Landsbergis has frequently referred to Hough’s interpretation of Lithuanian history.
Hough’s history of Lithuania must be reassuring to NED’s ideologues and their Lithuanian clients, some of whom share a past they might reasonably prefer to forget.
Channeling Endowment Dollars
During the past two years, NED has granted $70,000 to LCRA/LIC. They are not obviously democratic organizations. Founded in 1961 to “provide the Church under the Soviet oppression with spiritual and material assistance . . . .,” LCA’s parent organization was the Lithuanian Roman Catholic Priests’ League. The quiet obscurity of this group belies the welcome they receive in the halls of power. LCRA executive director Father Casimir Pugevicius served on an advisory committee to Senator Charles Percy (Rep.–Ill.), then a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He was also welcomed in the Reagan White House in 1986.
According to LCRA/LIC, its 1990 grant application to NED requested $618,300 and outlined its ambitious proposal as follows:
. . . . five separate pro-democratic organizations would receive technical and material aid. The first, a coalition of democratic parties enjoying broad support in Lithuania and capable of assuming leading roles in the new legislature would receive computer and audio-visual equipment . . . . Communications and video equipment will also be transported to the Sajudis Information Agency . . . . [According to NED, funds went only to Sajudis.]
The second part of the project would ensure a continuous supply of much needed paper for independent publishers and organizations. The dramatic increase in the number of democratic groups in Lithuania in the past year has caused severe shortages in the very limited pool of resources. . . . Because of the greater degree of liberalization in Lithuania, this republic has emerged as the publishing center for the independent groups throughout the Soviet Union. . . .
Within weeks of the arrival of these goods, traditional sources of information in Lithuania were suppressed or taken over by Sajudis. Nationalist sympathizers cut off broadcast programming from Moscow, and Lithuania was soon flooded with secessionist propaganda. In the ensuing election, Sajudis managed to dominate the scene by riding the crest of a wave of nationalist sentiment. It won a majority in the Seim (parliament). In March, a hastily convened session of parliament voted for secession (91–38) in a matter of hours. Laws were passed curbing opposition newspapers and changing the flag and national anthem, reverting to versions in use during the nationalist period. As to whether, or what, of real substance should change, Sajudis remained silent.
Echoes From the Past
To Lithuanians old enough to remember the Second World War, the energetic activities of Sajudis, LCRA, and LIC must seem vaguely familiar. Landsbergis’s father was a member of the Savandoriai (nationalist militia), who fought the Russians (1918–1919), helped enforce the successive dictatorships of Voldemares and Smetona, and collaborated with the German occupation.
A reporter for Der Spiegel wrote in April 1990 that: “Everybody fears Sajudis. Anyone who attacks Sajudis is declared an an enemy of the people by Landsbergis, and that happens very quickly.” In addition the Savandoriai (illegal under Soviet law) have been revived under the leadership of retired army officers.
Prior to the German invasion in June 1941, a Berlin-based “Lithuanian Information Bureau,” the propaganda arm of the Lithuanian Activist Front, a nationalist exile organization, sent the following message into Lithuania:
. . . . liberation is close at hand. . . . uprisings must be started in the cities, towns and villages of Lithuania. . . . communists and other traitors. . . . must be arrested at once. . . . (The traitor will be pardoned only provided beyond doubt that he has killed one Jew at least.)
In the book Blowback, Christopher Simpson crisply summarizes part of the “liberation” that followed:
. . . . municipal killing squads employing Lithuanian Nazi collaborators eliminated 46,692 Jews in fewer than three months, according to their own reports, mainly by combining clock-like liquidations of 500 Jews per day in the capital city of Vilnius with mobile “clean-up” sweeps through the surrounding countryside.
Such squads were consistently used by the Nazis for the dirty work that even the SS believed to be beneath the dignity of the German soldier. . . . .
On August 4, 1941, the Lithuanian Activist Front, installed a provisional government, taking care to cooperate fully with the Nazis. The invaders let president Juozas Ambrazevicius’s government stand for three months, during which time the worst of the killings occurred. After the war, Ambrazevicius fled to the U.S., where he changed his name to Brazaitis.
The crimes which prompted the post-war flight of many Lithuanian nationalists were starkly documented in the “Jaeger Report,” an official count by the SS officer who supervised the massacres:
Einsatzkommando 3 Kovno, December 1, 1941
Secret State Document
Summary of all executions carried out in the sphere of action of Einsatzkommando 3 up to December 1, 1941.
Einsatzkomando 3 took over its duties as security police in Lithuania on the 2nd of July 1941. . . . In compliance with my directives and on my order the Lithuanian partisans have carried out the following executions. . . .
What followed was a chronological accounting of the activities of the killing squads. Victims were neatly categorized: Jewish men, Jewish women, Jewish children, Poles, Lithuanian communists, Russian communists, Intellectual Jews, Lunatics, Gypsies, Political Instructors, Armenians. . . .
After the first 3,000 deaths, Jaeger apparently decided that the Lithuanian nationalists alone were equal to the task;
. . . . After organizing a mobile unit under SS-Oberstumfuhrer Hamann and 8 to 10 tried men of EK 3 the following actions were carried out in cooperation with the Lithuanian partisans. . . .
. . . . Before the EK 3 assumed security duties, the partisans themselves killed [4,000 ] Jews through pogroms and executions. . . .
. . . . I can state today that the goal of solving the Jewish problem in Lithuania has been reached by EK 3. There are no Jews in Lithuania anymore except the work Jews and their families. . . .The goal to clear Lithuania of Jews could be achieved only thanks to . . . men . . . . who adopted my goal without any reservations and managed to secure the cooperation of the Lithuanian partisans and and the respective civil offices. . . .
The final tally of those killed was 137, 346. As the report clearly indicates, the Nazis were assisted by both the paramilitary bands associated with the nationalists, and by those in positions of authority–including members of the Catholic clergy.
A Nazi Collaborator Prospers in Chicago
As auxiliary Bishop of Kaunas, (Kovno) during the German occupation, Bishop Vincentas Brizgys, founder of LCRA/LIC, lent his spiritual authority to fascism. When the Nazis retreated, so did he, first to Germany, then to Chicago where he has lived, worked, and carried the nationalist banner for 25 years.
The clergy hated socialism or very clear reasons. The socialist government which came to power in 1939 had separated church and state. Church property was confiscated, including large farms where peasants labored under semi-feudal conditions eliminated elsewhere in Europe centuries before. Clergy were removed from government and the educational system, two institutions where they had long wielded powerful influence.
Archbishop Skvireckas, Brizgys’s superior, documented the bishop’s collaborationist activities with evident satisfaction. The archbishop’s diary for July 1, 1941, reveals that Brizgys made contact:
. . . . with the representative of the German government for the Baltic statics. [Dr. Groffe, formerly head of Gestapo in East Prussia who] . . . proposed . . . . that he [Brizgys] should make an appeal to the people to behave quietly and pursue their daily business with confidence, without any fear that they might be harmed. . . .
On June 30, 1941, the archbishop had written: “The ideas in Mein Kampf on the question of the Bolshevik-Jewish contagion are splendid . . . . they prove that Hitler is not only an enemy of the Jews, but generally speaking has the right ideas.”
An appeal to welcome the Nazis was broadcast by radio, ten published in a major Kaunas newspaper, signed by Skviteckas, Brizgys and Vicar General Saulys. Their signatures were also on a formal telegram of thanks to Hitler for “Lithuania’s Liberation,” sent in the middle of July 1941.
As the Nazis and their collaborators implemented the diabolical logic of Mein Kampf, Brizgys “set an example for the entire population by forbidding the clergy to aid the Jews in any way.” He also urged from his pulpit, and via radio and newspaper, that Lithuanians cooperate with the Nazis.
When the Soviet army, led by its 16th Lithuanian division, drove the Nazis out in 1944, Brizgys fled to safety in Germany, then to the U.S. Send to the archdiocese of Chicago, he helped launch Lithuanian Catholic Religious Aid in 1961, and served as LCRA president until 1986. He is now chair of the board of directors.
Other Friends of Lithuanian Democracy
- Director of Special Projects for LCRA/LIC is Rasa Razgaitis, stepdaughter of accused war criminal Jurgis Juodis. Because of his involvement as a nationalist military officer in the massacres of 1941, Juodis became the subject of a Justice Department Office of Special Investigations (OSIS) inquiry in 1981. In addition to her work with LCA, Razgaitis is head of “Americans for Due Process,” an organization “formed solely to challenge the activities of the Justice Department’s war crimes unit.” She is also a friend of Patrick Buchanan, through whom she gained access to the Reagan White House when Buchanan was Communications Director.
- AFL-CIO president Lane Kirkland is a long time member of the cold warrior clique Committee on the Present Danger, and supports CIA manipulation of labor movements around the globe. Kirkland has welcomed Landsbergis as a friend during his U.S. visits. Kirkland’s name was on an open letter to President Bush published in the April 22, 1990 New York Times calling for immediate recognition of Lithuanian independence. Kirkland is on the NED board.
- Richard Ebeling, vice president of the Future Freedom Foundation (FFF) of Denver, has been invited by Sajudis to lecture “in Lithuania, on the principles of freedom.” In addition, six Sajudis economists have met with leaders of FFF to discuss “free market proposals . . . . made as radical as possible.” Among others discussed were the now-familiar calls for rapid denationalization of all industries and state prosperity; decontrol of all prices and wages, both in the consumer and production markets; and privatization of social services including medical retirement pensions. . . . . .
Uncle Sam and The Swastika
The EU is starting a new Russian-speaking counter-propaganda unit. There’s only up to 10 people involved according the plans. But don’t expect it to stay that size: “Officials say it is a first step in the EEAS’s response to growing concern in eastern Europe and EU Baltic states about the destabilizing influence of Russian-language news reports”:
“In June, a study funded by the Dutch government recommended the creation of a Russian-language “content factory” that would produce entertainment and documentary programs, alongside news and current affairs broadcast from a “news hub.””
So in addition to EEAS’s new Russian language “anti-disinformation” outfit, started, in part, at the request of Latvia, the EU might create a “content factory” that produces Russian-language entertainment and documentaries? Look out History Channel! You have have competition.
The Baltic states jointly came out against joining France’s proposed anti-ISIS coalition...unless the coalition excludes Russia:
“Lithuania will not take part in any new coalition in which Russia will participate or would like to participate.”
So all Russia needs to do is express a desire to join a coalition and that would compel Lithuania’s governor to reject its own participation? Wow, that’s quite a bit of power over Lithuania’s internal decision-making that its government just handed over to Moscow. It’ll be interesting to see what kind of rhetorical fun the Kremlin might have with this little revelation.
Still, as far as NATO solidarity in the face if the ISIS crisis goes it could be worse!
Poland’s nationalist Law and Justice government is moving to strip Princeton University history professor Jan Tamasz Gross of the Order of Merit of the Republic he was awarded back in 1996. What did Mr. Gross do to warrant the stripping of his award? He suggested that more jews probably died in Poland than Germany during WWII. And according to Poland’s nationalist government, under Poland’s anti-defamation laws, what Gross said is apparently a punishable crime:
“Law and Justice want to eliminate voices like his, to produce a uniform historical perspective. The trend is deeply worrying.”
That’s a good way to put it, although, technically, efforts of this nature are intended to produce a uniform ahistorical perspective. It’s also worth noting that two of Gross’s books on this topic, “Golden Harvest” and “Fear”, were already investigated in 2008 and 2011 but prosecutors found no evidence of a crime. So if Gross is convicted this time, it’s a sign that Poland’s nationalists are getting even more ahistorical, which, as history teaches us, is never a good sign.
Back in December, Hungary reminded us that as eastern Europe continues its rehabilitation of WWII-era architects of holocaust, that probably means there’s going to be a lot of new tasteless statues popping up
“The private group behind the statue, the Balint Homan Foundation, some of whose members are linked to the far-right Jobbik party, has received both state and municipal funding for the statue in Szekesfehervar, about 60 kilometres (37 miles) southwest of Budapest.”
Yeah, Jobbik-affiliated individuals being behind this statue is probably what we should expect.
To the credit of the ruling Fidesz party, at least they also backed away from it following the international outrage. Even Viktor Orban called for the statue’s removal. Of course, since Viktor Orban was also a driving force behind the creation of the statue, you can’t really give too much credit to a party that historically revises its historical-revisionism. Especially after similar protests just forced a senior Fidesz member to cancel his speech at the unveiling of another statue in tribute to an architect of Hungary’s anti-Jewish laws that’s just 100 meters from Budapest’s Holocaust museum:
“A senior member of Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s governing party Fidesz due to deliver a speech at the unveiling announced at the scene, some 100 metres (yards) away from the city’s Holocaust museum, that the ceremony had been cancelled.”
So historical-revisionism is going pretty strong in Hungary. You have to wonder what type of state-backed revisionism might be next.
Bulgarian President Rosen Plevneliev recently made a trip to Ukraine where he received the annual “Person of the Year” award. And if the idea floated by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko during the trip comes to fruition, Bulgaria’s leaders are probably in store for some more Ukrainian “Person of the Year” awards in coming years, although they’ll have to share those awards with Romania’s leaders since Poroshenko wants to set up a joint Ukrainian-Bulgarian-Romanian army brigade and Romania wants a large NATO presence operating in the Black Sea:
“During his visit to Romania on Thursday, the Ukrainian president also expressed support for the initiative of Bucharest to create NATO flotilla in the Black Sea.”
A NATO build up in the Black Sea? It’s apparently on the table. Although, based on recent comments from NATO’s Deputy Secretary General Alexander Vershbow during his trip to Bulgaria, it sounds like the plans for a NATO presence are going to be limited to those NATO members with Black Sea borders, which would probably limit the build up somewhat. Still, according to Vershbow, NATO’s presence in the Black Sea could be “enhanced” by July:
“We need to consider a more persistent NATO military presence in the region, with a particular focus on our maritime capabilities.”
That sure sounds like plans for something more than just a slight “enhancement” of NATO’s Black Sea presence. Still, as the article below points out, Russia hasn’t hesitated to remind NATO that the existing Montreux Convention regime on the status of the straits of Bosporus and the Dardanelles prevent non-Black Sea nations from suddenly sending a big NATO navy into the Black Sea. And that means, barring a change in treaties, NATO is going to have to get creative if there’s going to be a sudden enhancement of NATO’s Black Sea footprint over the next few months. And as the article below also makes clear, the creative juices are indeed flowing, and flowing in direction that could mean a substantial amount of NATO funds being used to build up Ukraine’s Navy for use in a proposed joint Romanian-Bulgarian-Ukrainian naval force.
And should all that happen, not only will there be a quasi-NATO-ish big new presence in the region, but Ukraine’s military will be closer to NATO-standards, making an eventual inclusion of Ukraine in NATO that much more likely which would only freak out Russia even more. So the more Russia’s neighbors ask for more NATO forces to ward off feared Russian aggression, the more freaked out Russia is inevitably going to get. So, perhaps not surprisingly, Ukraine’s civil war and ongoing tensions with Russia are starting to spill into the sea:
“In this context, Russia’s warnings considering possible establishment of such a fleet are not groundless. In other words, if we are talking about the creation of an association on the basis of the naval forces of the Black Sea states exclusively, these forces will be quite limited. If it is about attracting other NATO member states, then this issue should be resolved within the framework of the agreements on the Black Sea straits. “If the flotilla is supposed to be a permanent body, the issue should be resolved with Turkey in the framework of the agreements on the Black Sea straits. According to the Montreux Convention, ships of the non-Black Sea states can enter the Black Sea for a limited time only,” said Sungurovsky.”
Yep, if the proposed significant naval build up in the Black Sea is going to happen soon, and that appears to be what NATO states want, either NATO rapidly transforms a Bulgarian-Romanian-Ukrainian naval force into a substantial presence by basically just giving them substantial navies, or the Montreux Convention that gives Turkey control of the Bosporus Straits and Dardanelles and restricts the passage of non-Black Sea states is going to have to get overhauled soon.
So while it’s unclear what exactly to expect at this point, it sounds like a dramatic escalation of tensions in the Black Sea over the next year is something we should expect in general. And since the renegotiation of the Montreux Convention is the path NATO takes, Turkey is poised to once again extract some major concession from Europe and the West. In other words, in other words, if this new Black Sea NATO navy is going to come to fruition, Turkey, a NATO member, will probably have to be given an even bigger free-pass as President Erdogan turns the country into his personal fiefdom. It would be more than a little ironic if that’s how this plays out and Erdogan becomes acceptable NATO’s dictator. Not super surprising, but still ironic.
Check out the latest example of the normalization of the far-right in Europe and the rehabilitation of the Nazis and their many collaborators: in a recent joint declaration the governments of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Croatia, Slovakia, Hungary, and the Czech Republic called for an investigation into the crimes of the communists regimes of Europe and prosecutions based on those investigations that is equal to the post-WWII investigation into the crimes of the Nazis:
“No process of finding out the truth and establishing justice comparable to what had taken place in Germany after the Second World War against the perpetrators of Nazi crimes had ever been undertaken in the more than 25 years that passed since the fall of the communist regimes in Central and Eastern Europe, the delegations said. The memory of the victims of the communist regimes demanded the investigation and prosecution of the perpetrators of those crimes as well.”
That was the joint from these former Easter Bloc countries. They just want equal treatment between the crimes of the Nazis and crimes of the communists. And putting aside the moral dubiousness of equating the two (the Nazis has a goal of exterminating or enslaving non-Aryans, let’s not forget), it’s worth noting that if equal treatment is truly given then it’s going to be important these same countries proceed and popular movements largely backed by the majority populations and governments to whitewash, justify and largely forget the communist crimes they come across during their investigation and prosecution. To be fair.
It’s also worth noting that this declaration happened at a conference in Estonia, the current EU member state that got the rotating EU council presidency starting in July for the first time:
““At a time when the far right and neonazis are taking advantage of the failures of EU policies, equating Nazism with communism is historically false, dangerous, and unacceptable. Moreover, the fact that the Estonian government chose to focus on ‘communist crimes’ clearly shows an intent to use the institution of the rotating EU presidency for ideological purposes,” the group said.”
That seems like a pretty reasonable take on the situation: while the Estonian government claims that they merely want to ‘deal’ with that history so it’s not repeated (while the Estonian Waffen SS gets its image rehabilitated), it’s pretty obvious that focusing on the crimes of communism while whitewashing the crimes of the far-right is priority for Estonia’s government. And since the EU council presidency rotates every six months and, as the current president, Estonia gets to define the council’s agenda, that means any other declarations or EU council maneuvers of this nature that require the EU council presidency that these eight member states might want to issue is going to have to happen before Bulgaria takes over in January.
And in other news...
In case it wasn’t obvious that privatizing the grounds of a WWII concentration camp was probably a bad idea, the Seventh Fort concentration camp in Kaunas, Lithuania, which was privatized back in in 2009, gave us a pretty good example of why you don’t want to do this last August when the mayor of Kaunas had to defend the use of the site for wedding receptions and other recreational activities. But in case you’re still not convinced that it was a huge mistake, check out the latest use of the site:
“The soldiers were found to be training to fight Russian troops at one of the first concentration camps set up by the Nazis after the beginning of the war with the Soviet Union.”
Yes, Lithuania is a relatively small country, but was there anywhere else this training could have taken place? Anywhere?
And what’s next? Are we going to learn the far-right Lithuanian Riflemen’s Union took part in the exercises too? Well, if we did learn that it wouldn’t be too surprising given the reports of the Lithuanian Riflemen’s Union participating in joint anti-Russian exercises with the military back in December:
“Another EU and NATO member might be unnerved by the growing popularity of a paramilitary force operating within its borders. But since Lithuania gained independence from the Soviet Union in the early nineties, the paramilitary group has fomented close ties with the military.”
Yes, other EU and NATO members might be unnerved by a paramilitary force suddenly surging in popularity, but not in Lithuania or the other Baltic states where the WWII-era paramilitary groups are all the rage. And that embrace of paramilitaries includes closer and closer ties to the military, including participation in training exercises:
And the Lithuanian Ministry of Defense actually advises citizens to join the group:
And then there’s the recent relaxation of gun ownership laws to allow for semi-automatic rifles (which of course can be converted to automatic rifles), which the Riflemen are of course now encouraged to acquire:
Semi-automatic weapons for paramilitary groups. What could possibly go wrong?
So while the desecration of the memories of the people buried at that concentration camp for the sake of anti-Russian military exercises is indeed a disturbing new instance of the growing official embrace of far-right norms in the Balitcs, let’s not forget that the general embrace of far-right norms across Europe, and especially in the Baltics, that’s been going on for quite some time now also qualifies as a desecration of the memories of the people buried at that site. It’s just a much more direct form of desecration in this instance.
Here’s a quick reminder that Eastern European members of the EU are continuing to take steps to ensure future generations can’t actually remember who did what during WWII:
A new director for the state-sponsored Lithuanian Genocide and Resistance Research Center (LGGRTC) was nominated last week by the Speaker of Lithuania’s parliament. And it turns out this new director, Dr. Arunas Bubnys, has a history of Holocaust revisionism and the glorification of Lithuania’s Nazi puppet-regime. Surprise!:
“In June 2020, Bubnys addressed a public meeting in which he effusively praised Jonas Noreika, a Lithuanian independence advocate and military general who participated in the mass murder of Jews in the summer of 1941, and Kazys Škirpa, a founder of the wartime-era Lithuanian Activist Front (LAF) whose writings advocated the ethnic cleansing of Lithuania’s Jewish citizens. The two men are among the many anti-Soviet, nationalist politicians of that period whose reputations have been rehabilitated by the Lithuanian government over the previous 20 years.”
Yes, Dr. Bubnys was openly glorifying some of the leading participants of Lithuania’s genocide just last year. In public. That’s the guy nominated last week to head up the new state-sponsored Lithuanian Genocide and Resistance Research Center. Nominated last week and just confirmed by the Lithuanian parliament, although not without opposition. Of 110 parliamentarians to vote on his nomination, 34 voted against Bubnys. So the good news is that a sizable number of Lithuania’s representatives recognized that Bubnys is not someone who should put in that kind of position. The bad news is, of course, that this group was overwhelmingly ignored:
“Dr. Arunas Bubnys, currently the head of the LGGRTC’s research department, was approved as its new director by a vote of the Seimas, Lithuania’s parliament, on Thursday. A total of 76 parliamentarians voted in favor of Bubnys’ appointment, while 34 voted against.”
Bubnys gets confirmed by more than a 2‑to‑1 ratio. It’s the kind of vote count that makes it clear Bubnys was seen as a controversial nominee. But he was nominated anyway.
So will Bubnys’s nomination result in more outcry of state-sanction revisionism? Perhaps, but probably a muted outcry thanks to threats of criminal and constitutional charges against people decrying the revisionism:
And note what is perhaps that most perverse aspect of this situation: Bubnys was nominated to replace a guy who was fired earlier this month over allegations of destroying the center’s academic credibility:
Will the replacement of Adas Jakubauskas with Dr. Arunas Bubnys alleviate those concerns about the academic credibility of the LGGRTC? Presumably only for people who didn’t have those concerns in the first place. It’s an important part of the context of Bubnys’s nomination: his nomination was basically an attempt to replace the Holocaust-revisionist leader of the LGGRTC with a new Holocaust-revisionist leader.
And as the following NBC News article from earlier this month describes, there’s another important context for Bubnys’s nomination: the granddaughter of General Noreika just published a book detailing the evidence of his direct and deep involvement in Lithuania’s Holocaust :
“The state-run Genocide and Resistance Research Center of Lithuania, which is viewed as the official guardian of the country’s collective memory, has been one of Noreika’s primary defenders. In 2015, it issued a report that found that Noreika had no involvement in the mass murder of Jews. And in 2019, citing newly available documents, the center said Noreika was responsible for saving Jews through a rescue network.”
As we can see, when Dr. Arunas Bubnys attended that event praising “General Storm” Jonas Noreika, he was far from alone in Lithuania’s official history establishment. The LGGRTC has been defending Noreika’s reputation for years. It’s part of what makes Bubnys’s appointment such an outrage. The defense of Noreika is at the center of the criticisms of the LGGRTC in recent years. It’s what got Professor Adas Jakubauskas fired. And yet even as he was being fired, Jakubauskas was insisting that Noreika had actively been organizing the anti-Nazi resistance and the rescue of Jews:
And this national fight over the memory of Noreika is happening as Noreika’s own granddaughter publishes a book detailing the evidence of his direct involvement in the Holocaust. That’s how intense the official defense of Noreika’s historic legacy remains in Lithuania in 2021:
Finally, note how Valdas Rakutis — the member of the Lithuanian parliament who sparked outrage in January, on Holocaust Memorial Day, over his suggestion that the country’s Jews perpetrated the Holocaust themselves — was forced to resign as chairman of the parliamentary commission on the state’s historical memory:
So the historical revisionism of yesteryear continues to receive official state protection. “General Storm” Noreika’s fan club may have lost his granddaughter, but the rest of the club appears to remain intact. And yet this new book is now out there detailing how Noreika really did orchestrate Lithuania’s near-complete extermination of the country’s Jewish population. It’s suddenly a lot harder to hide this stuff. LGGRTC clearly has its work cut out for it. But, of course, that’s why they just gave Dr. Bubnys the job.
With the dust settling over the bizarre Wagner Group coup theatrics and Vladimir Putin’s position as the ultimate stabilizing force in Russia reinforced, here’s a set of articles that underscore some of the reasons for Putin’s enduring popularity with the Russia public. In particular, the role ‘regime change’ rhetoric by Western leaders plays in more or less publicly validating the fears that ‘the West’ is planning some sort of ‘color revolution’ for Russian including plans to eventually break the county up.
Because as we’re going to see, on the same day Yevgeny Prigozhin put out a video announcing the Wagner Group’s march to Moscow, there was a rather revealing speech that was given during a ceremony held insider the Lithuanian parliament. Vytautas Landsbergis — one the pro-independence leaders from the early 1990s who went on to become Lithuania’s president from 1990–1992 — declared Russia a ‘cancer’ that could destroy the world and that only the ending of Russia was the cure. As Landsbergis put it, “Victory will come when there’s no Russian empire, or if it’s inseparable from Russia, when there’s no Russia. Russia has become a cancer of Europe and the world. If it is cured, the world may survive, but if not, it may lead to the destruction of the world.”
Those words in a speech by a former president held inside the Lithuanian parliament are inflammatory enough on their own. But there’s the fact that Landsbergis’s grandson, Gabrielius Landsbergis, is the current foreign minister. And as we’re going to see, Gabrielius Landsbergis has himself been pretty explicit in his calls for regime change in Russia. But as we’re also going to see in a revealing interview Gabrielius gave in April of 2022, Gabrielius was surprisingly sober about the risks of regime change, acknowledging that someone far more hostile to the West could end up replacing Putin. Nonetheless, Gabrielius defined the de-Putinisation of Russia as required for a real victory. But he warned that such a de-Putinisation is highly unlikely to come from the Russian people themselves given Putin’s enduring popularity. Instead, the de-Putinisation of Russia will have to happen via the long-term isolation of Russia which will be brought about via the war in Ukraine. In other words, the war in Ukraine is going to have to be dragged out long enough to keep Russia isolated and impoverished long enough to somehow bring about some sort of systemic collectively ‘we were wrong’ de-Putinisation process. That was the prescription for victory according to Lithuania’s foreign minister last April, a month and a half into this conflict.
Now, as the West has subsequently learned, imposing those crippling sanctions that will isolate Russia from the world is a lot easier said than done. But that was clearly the plan in the opening months of this war. At least that was the plan in the minds of Lithuania’s political establishment, according to Gabrielius Landsbergis. And here we are over a year later with Vytautas Landsbergis calling for the end of Russia during a ceremony honoring him in the Lithuanian parliament. That’s all part of the context of bizarre coup: from the perspective of war planners in the West, the coup sure looked an awful lot like the West’s dream ‘victory’ scenario of regime change for Russia. A regime change scenario that Western leaders can’t stop themselves from repeatedly talking about in public:
““If it is cured, the world may survive, but if not, it may lead to the destruction of the world,” the former president added.”
The world may not survive the cancer that is Russia. That was the message from former Lithuanian president Vytautas Landsbergis during a parliamentary June 23 ceremony, the same day Yevgeny Prigozhin put out a video announcing the Wagner Group’s march to Moscow. But Landsbergis isn’t just a former president. He’s also the grandfather of Lithuania’s current foreign minister, Gabrielius Landsbergis. So on the same day Prigozhin launched his bizarre coup-theater, we had the former president of Lithuania — who also happens to be the grandfather of the current foreign minister — calling for the end of Russia during a parliamentary ceremony. It’s not hard to see how the Russian population might be prioritizing stability at this point:
Now let’s take a quick look at the expanded comments by Vytautas during the ceremony, where he declares that victory will only come “when there’s no Russian empire, or if it’s inseparable from Russia, when there’s no Russia.” Which is basically a call for not just regime change but some sort of Russian ‘color revolution’. Either that or the breakup of the country. Again, if we want to understand the Russian populace’s ongoing overwhelming support for Putin, this is all part of that context:
““Victory will come when there’s no Russian empire, or if it’s inseparable from Russia, when there’s no Russia. Russia has become a cancer of Europe and the world. If it is cured, the world may survive, but if not, it may lead to the destruction of the world,” Landsbergis said.”
It’s about as overt a call for regime change as you can get without explicitly calling for it. Yes, Vytautas Landsbergis isn’t currently in government. But the fact that he made these comments during a parliamentary ceremony and is the grandfather of the current foreign minister is a pretty unmistakable signal that his words reflect the Lithuanian government’s stance.
But we don’t have to infer Lithuania’s regime-change policies from Vytautas Landsbergis’s speech. For that, we can just listen to the following interview of Gabrielius Landsbergis from April of 2022, where the Lithuanian foreign minister not only makes clear that ‘victory’ will only come with regime change but he also argues that the previous NATO treaties signed with Russia — like the NATO-Russia Treaty signed in 1997 — no longer apply. Why do these treaties no longer apply? Because the current Russian government is a ‘Putinist’ government that is fundamentally different from the Russian government of 1997. Therefore, according to Landbergis’s logic, that 1997 treaty was signed with a government that no longer exists. That’s also part of the context of Vytautas Landsbergis’s June 23 calls for Russian regime change during a parliamentary ceremony: his was just echoing the views already expressed by his foreign minister grandson:
“I think that the real victory will be a complete victory. I would not put a deadline for when it will happen, I wish it as soon as possible, I will do everything to make it happen as soon as possible, as far as I and we as a country can help it. But there will be a victory.”
Real victory will be a complete victory. That was how Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis described Lithuania’s goals back in April of last year, a little over a month and a half into the conflict.
So what constitutes a complete victory? A completely ‘de-Putinized’ Russia, which appears to be Landsbergis’s way of calling for a fundamentally different Russia. Because the way Landsbergis sees it, Russia today is a completely different government from the Russia that signed the 1997 NATO-Russia treat (signed 9 years before Lithuania’s entry into NATO in 2006). As such, the treaties signed with Russia in the 1990’s are no longer in force because that Russian government no longer exists. It’s a wild precedent for a foreign minister to be putting forward but that’s what Lithuania’s foreign minister was advocating last year:
And then we get to this truly grim prescription for how this ‘de-Putinisation’ will take place: regime change alone won’t be enough due to the overwhelming support for Putin among the Russia populace. Instead, that de-Putinisation will happen first in Ukraine. In other words, the war in Ukraine shouldn’t end until Putin has somehow been driven from power. He doesn’t put it exactly that way, but that’s the message:
Finally, we get to Landsbergis’s caveat about the dangers of regime change: there’s no guarantee Putin won’t be replaced by someone far more hostile to the West. And then he gets more explicit about how the ‘de-Putinisation’ of Russian isn’t simply replacing Putin but instead imposing some sort of systemic change that involves the long-term isolation of Russian. That long-term isolation, eventually resulting in some sort of systemic change somehow, will be how the war ends, according to Landsbergis. Which sure sounds like a plan for a long-term war:
Replacing Putin isn’t enough. A deeper, more systemic change is require. Lithuania won’t feel safe until the Russian populace itself changes, which might require long-term war and isolation to achieve. That was the message from Lithuania’s foreign minister in the opening months of this conflict. A message to Lithuanian audiences but also, implicitly, to Russian audiences too, which is something Western leaders might want to keep in mind as they continue to publicly pine for regime change while scratching their heads over Putin’s enduring popularity.