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to the above units, there were also five Lithuanian battalions formed during 1943 which were attached to German pioneer units and under the control of Army Group North. The commanding officers of these units were all Lithuanians. Their tasks were road and railway construction and the building of defensive works. Initially, the units were not armed, but as partisan activity increased they were given light weapons for protection. Many members of the Lithuanian construction units were later asked to join the Waffen-SS; 40 percent eventually did.

In January 1943, the HSSPF in Lithuania, SS-Brigadeführer Wysocki, was ordered to raise a Lithuanian legion for the Waffen-SS, similar to those raised from the Latvians and Estonians. He failed miserably, with very few volunteers coming forward. As a result, Wysocki was replaced by SS-Brigadeführer Harm, although the results still did not improve. Thereafter, the Germans threatened to put all able-bodied Lithuanians into labour camps until a compromise was reached. The Lithuanians were holding out for an independent formation led by Lithuanian officers and not under the control of the SS. They also requested that the formation only be used internally within Lithuania, and not outside their national borders. The Germans, though, wanted the exact opposite. The wrangling continued until February 1944 when the Germans agreed to all Lithuanian requests. The new formation was known as the Lithuanian Territorial Corps (originally, Himmler had refused to accept Lithuanians on the grounds that they were politically unreliable and racially inferior; however, by early 1944, the military situation in the East forced him to lower SS racial requirements).

On 16 February 1944, an appeal was made for volunteers, which yielded more than 19,000 men. The Germans wanted only 5000, and so, much to the Lithuanians’ annoyance, plans were put in motion to use the excess volunteers as replacements for Wehrmacht units. This infuriated the Lithuanians, so to avoid further problems it was agreed to use the excess volunteers to form 13 police battalions and 1 replacement unit. The 14 units were formed in March 1944, and immediately began military training.

However, on 22 March 1944, Feldmarschall Walther Model, commander of Army Group North, made a formal request for the formation of 15 Lithuanian units to be employed to guard Luftwaffe airfields. This move once again greatly upset the Lithuanian volunteers; and, to make matters worse, on 6 May, a general mobilization order was issued (in response to the approach of the Red Army). On 9 May, the Germans went back on their earlier promises of independence from German military control, and all 14 units were placed under Wehrmacht jurisdiction. This caused widespread dissent among the volunteers who refused the new German demands. Thus, all 14 units were formally disbanded in the face of a mutiny. Of the original 19,000 men, about 16,000 deserted while the other 3000 were drafted into Luftwaffe flak batteries.

In June 1944, Operation Bagration, the Soviet offensive that smashed Army Group Centre, resulted in the Red Army entering Lithuania. In response, the Germans formed an emergency formation called the Fatherland Defence Force. This new formation consisted of small groups of retreating Lithuanian troops who were organized into two regiments under German command. It was employed in defensive positions near Papiles where, in early October 1944, it was engaged in heavy combat with Soviet forces. Crippling losses caused the formation to pull back and a general retreat ensued. The survivors of the formation, about 1000 men, later regrouped in East Prussia as a new unit known as the Lithuanian Engineer Battalion. This new formation consisted of eight companies, and was tasked with working on defensive emplacements along the Baltic coast. However, it was all but destroyed shortly after formation, and only a very few men managed to escape via the Baltic Sea.

Other units raised by the Germans in Lithuania included an NSKK unit formed towards the end of the war. There were als

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