Preparations for the Nazi Invasion, Adv. Joseph A.Melamed
As already shown in the section on Soviet Lithuania, Lithuanian anti-Semitism reached the level that they began to expect the “happy hour” that the Germans would bring them “deliverance” and they hoped for their quick victory over the “Jewish” U. S. S. R.. In this way they hoped that they would be freed not only from the Soviets but also from their hated Jews.
The "Lithuanian Activist Front" (L.A.F.) was created by Lithuanian nationalists in Berlin on Nov. 17, 1940, together with armed L. A. F. Companies in the Lithuanian Underground which were connected with Abwehr German counterintelligence and Nazi Security Services, for whom they spied. Organizing the L. A. F. in Berlin. All the Lithuanian political divisions except the Communists and the Socialists were included in the L.A.F.; they prepared themselves for the German attack on the U.S.S.R., in order to take control of Lithuania and revenge themselves on the Communists and the Jews. Those goals were clearly expressed in the ideological platform written by the nationalist author-poet Bronys Raila. (See further the article on L.A.F. "The Malicious Face & Criminal Acts of the Provisional Government of Lithuania"
The “ideological platform” of the murderers
The platform speaks of “the eternal holy element of the Lithuanian nation” damaged by the Communist-Jewish rule; of the great value of National-Socialism (Nazism) and the German Reich in creating a new Europe (in the spirit of Hitler’s New World Order); of the re-creation of an independent Lithuania, purified of “Jewish blood-suckers” who drained the bone marrow of the Lithuanian working people.
The venomous anti-Semitism of the L.A.F. members must have driven them mad. Most of its members were anti-Semitic before they ran away to Berlin, where they were also under the influence of atrocious Nazi propaganda, so they naturally embraced the Nazi thesis. When these themes were merged with the primitive nature of the village Catholic Lithuanian, who sucked anti-Semitism with his mother’s milk, they became lethal venom- like a biological weapon.
The combined anti-Semitic propaganda of the “Activists” in Berlin and in Lithuania intensified the hatred of the Lithuanian people toward the Jews. The L.A.F. propaganda against Jews was the most virulent. The announcements and broadcasts that were put out to the Lithuanians were venomous and influenced the primitive people like addictive drugs. Here are some examples from these manifestos:
Proclamation No. 1
“The Lithuanian nation did not lose, and cannot lose, the great hope that this Red Plague and the aggressive Jewish cholera will be removed one day soon from the earth, including our motherland…we decided to fight against the Jewish Bolshevik plot, to oppose not only by thoughts, feelings, and longings for freedom, but also by fighting. We decided not to allow the foreign “barbarians”, the traitors, and the Jews to contaminate the Lithuanian land.
Proclamation No. 2
In the manifesto from Mar. 19, 1941, that was received and published all over Lithuania, it was written, “As has already been said, the hour of Lithuania’s release is near. When the campaign from the west begins you will be notified immediately by radio or other means. At that moment local riots must break out in the cities, the towns, and the villages of subjugated Lithuania, and you must gain control. You must imprison immediately all the local Communists and all other traitors in Lithuania. Traitors will be forgiven only if they prove clearly that they have killed at least one Jew. You must announce now to the Jews that their destiny is decreed. Therefore each of them who can, will leave Lithuania quickly, in order that there will not be a need for unnecessary victims. At the hour of destiny loot their property so that nothing is lost…”
Proclamation No. 3
In the manifesto from June 21, 1941, the day before the invasion, they declared “Lithuanian brothers and sisters! The hour of final accounting with the Jews has come. Lithuania will be freed not only from the Bolshevik subjugation, but also from the long-standing yoke of the Jews.”
Declaration in the name of the Lithuanian Nation
The Lithuanian Activist Front declared festively in the name of all the Lithuanian nation:
1) By this is finally totally cancelled the old right of asylum given to Jews in Lithuania in the days of the Great Vitautas.
2) To all Lithuanian Jews with no exceptions is given the warning order to leave the land of Lithuania without delay.
3) All Jews who were especially noted for treachery against Lithuania and persecution, torture and wrong-doing against our Lithuanian people, will be tried and receive the punishment they deserve. If it becomes clear that in the hour of final accounting and revival of Lithuania, Jews try, especially the guilty, to escape secretly, it is the duty of Lithuanians to directly use means in order to arrest those Jews and as necessary also to carry out the punishment.
Organization of the Lithuanian Underground
During the period of Soviet Lithuania in 1940-41 the L.A.F. in Berlin set up an Underground spread throughout Lithuania that was formed especially from the “Shaulists” who were all veterans of the Lithuanian Army. The Underground equipped itself with many weapons and received specific instructions from Berlin. One of the main targets of the Underground was to murder Lithuanian Jews.
With the beginning of the German invasion the Underground was prepared to carry out this job. It should be noted that many of the activists in this Underground were employed in the Soviet government. Immediately after the Communists escaped from Kaunas and other cities, those people together with the other members of the underground began operations aimed at murdering Lithuanian Jews.
