Small, Forgotten Small Wars

**tequila** · 01-09-2011

Let's not forget that German "anti-partisan" operations in occupied Soviet territory and the Baltics would eventually help shape the Holocaust post-1941. The enthusiastic massacre of Jews by locals in the Baltics was encouraged and channeled by the Germans as a method of recruitment and control, and eventually the Baltics became an important killing ground for for Jews from all over Eastern Europe.

The mission of the Einsatzgruppen, according to Otto Ohlendorf, was essentially rear-area security, and they were aided and sometimes exceeded by Wehrmacht security divisions. "Where the partisan is, there is the Jew, and where the Jew is, there is the partisan" went the slogan, and to a large extent this attitude was endemic to the German conception of anti-partisan operations in the East. The difference between German operations can be seen when German units used to the Eastern way of doing things were transferred to the western European theater in 1944.

**davidbfpo** · 01-09-2011

Tequila,

The reality of German operations in the former USSR was brought home to me, in visits to Western Ukraine, around Lvov or Lviv and in the Crimea. There is a superb, grim modern film about the topic, the title of which eludes me.

As an aside anti-German feelings in the Crimea appear to have disappeared; I was touring with a mainly German-speaking group. In Lvov it was harder to establish, as a former Polish province the Poles had been expelled in 1945.

**Stan** · 01-09-2011

Originally Posted by tequila

Let's not forget that German "anti-partisan" operations in occupied Soviet territory and the Baltics would eventually help shape the Holocaust post-1941. The enthusiastic massacre of Jews by locals in the Baltics was encouraged and channeled by the Germans as a method of recruitment and control, and eventually the Baltics became an important killing ground for for Jews from all over Eastern Europe.

Tequila,
One of the research projects I was working on in 2006 included the massacre of Jews in the Baltic States. The Estonian archives claim less than 900 Jews killed in Estonia (Wiki has an even 1,000), 80,000 plus in Latvia and 140,000 plus for Lithuania (Wiki figures are somewhat similar).

Of the people interviewed then (most well over 65 years old), I was unable to find one that, although part of an SS unit, had any information on the massacre of Jews in Estonia. While 1,000 deaths is certainly too many, I was struck by the general lack of information on massacres in Estonia.

Lithuanian holocaust numbers tend to jibe with a 14th century Jewish ghetto (Jewish Quarter) and large Jewish population, but the figures for Latvia and Estonia don't fit.

Do you have a better source than Wiki ?

Regards, Stan

**tequila** · 01-09-2011

Stan,

A lot of this is from my memory of Ian Kershaw's book, specifically on how the Holocaust developed to the extent it did out of the German war effort in the East. Timothy Snyder's The Reconstruction of Nations also has a lot of good stuff on Lithuania and Poland, specifically on the development of ethnic nationalism separated out different groups which previously did not define themselves by ethnic categories. Most of the slaughter of the Jews in the Baltics was in Latvia and Lithuania - Estonia had a very small Jewish population, IIRC.

As for the slaughter of Jews in the Baltics, a large number of these were not "national" Jews because the Germans shipped many Jews from all over Eastern Europe to Baltic camps for extermination. Vaivara, for instance, housed thousands of Jews from all over the Baltics in Estonia, and thousands of Czech Jews were shot at Kalevi-Liiva (US HHM website).

Not to take the focus off of German anti-partisan operations to refocus on the Holocaust - my post was meant to introduce the fact that the German conception of anti-partisan operations was inevitably wrapped up with their overall political conceptions at the time.

**Stan** · 01-09-2011

Originally Posted by tequila

Stan,

A lot of this is from my memory of Ian Kershaw's book, specifically on how the Holocaust developed to the extent it did out of the German war effort in the East. Timothy Snyder's The Reconstruction of Nations also has a lot of good stuff on Lithuania and Poland, specifically on the development of ethnic nationalism separated out different groups which previously did not define themselves by ethnic categories. Most of the slaughter of the Jews in the Baltics was in Latvia and Lithuania - Estonia had a very small Jewish population, IIRC.

As for the slaughter of Jews in the Baltics, a large number of these were not "national" Jews because the Germans shipped many Jews from all over Eastern Europe to Baltic camps for extermination. Vaivara, for instance, housed thousands of Jews from all over the Baltics in Estonia, and thousands of Czech Jews were shot at Kalevi-Liiva (US HHM website).

Thanks for the link Tequila! It was to say the least, strange and even my Estonian better half (at nearly 50) remains skeptical over the sheer numbers in the article. We were coincidentally in Vaivera County for a friends wedding last year. Stranger yet is the County's far eastern location to the Russian border (most of the German camps were not directly on the land borders with Russia - at least not long lived camps). There are Estonian articles referring to the UK Guardian's reports on Kalev-Liiva in 2008, but darn little evidence that would substantiate the numbers (even Wiki has but 1,000 deaths).

Back to the thread I guess !

**Cannoneer No. 4** · 01-10-2011

Thanks, davidbfpo, for starting this thread.

Links that should be of interest to students of Estonian Irregular Warfare:

Forest Brothers

reconnaissance group Erna

Estonian Legion

The post-WW II armed resistance to Soviet power in Estonia

**AdamG** · 01-11-2011

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-a...rising-author/

Two hundred years ago, slaves outside New Orleans launched the largest revolt in American history, but this bloody event has been ignored by history, says Dan Rasmussen, author of a new book, American Uprising.

The revolt was meticulously planned, politically sophisticated, and ethnically diverse—and a fundamental challenge to the system of plantation slavery. Dressed in military uniforms and chanting “On to New Orleans,” they rallied a rugged army of around 500 slaves to attempt to conquer the city, kill all its white inhabitants, and establish a black republic on the shores of the Mississippi.