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    Forest Brothers, 1945: The Culmination Of The Lithuanian Partisan Movement
    Forest Brothers, 1945: The Culmination Of The Lithuanian Partisan Movement
    Forest Brothers, 1945: The Culmination Of The Lithuanian Partisan Movement
    Ebook60 pages12 hours

    Forest Brothers, 1945: The Culmination Of The Lithuanian Partisan Movement

    By Major Vylius M. Leskys

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    Although the resistance effort maintained its strength ideologically, the Lithuanian partisan movement never recovered from the culminating point in 1945 because of a shortfall in resources, a lack of external support, and the inability of resistance leadership to adapt rapidly enough against a comprehensive Soviet assimilation campaign.

    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.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherVerdun Press
    Release dateNov 6, 2015
    ISBN9781786250650
    Forest Brothers, 1945: The Culmination Of The Lithuanian Partisan Movement

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      Book preview

      Forest Brothers, 1945 - Major Vylius M. Leskys

      This edition is published by PICKLE PARTNERS PUBLISHING—www.picklepartnerspublishing.com

      To join our mailing list for new titles or for issues with our books – picklepublishing@gmail.com

      Or on Facebook

      Text originally published in 2009 under the same title.

      © Pickle Partners Publishing 2014, all rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means, electrical, mechanical or otherwise without the written permission of the copyright holder.

      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

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