Kazys Škirpa (18 February 1895 – 18 August 1979) was a Lithuanian military officer and diplomat. He is best known as the founder of the

Lithuanian Activist Front The Lithuanian Activist Front or LAF () was a short-lived, far-right underground resistance organization established in 1940 after Lithuania was incorporated by the Soviet Union. The goal of the organization was to liberate Lithuania and re-estab ...

(LAF) and his involvement in the attempt to establish Lithuanian independence in June 1941.

Army career

During

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, he was mobilized into the

Imperial Russian Army The Imperial Russian Army (russian: Ру́сская импера́торская а́рмия, tr. ) was the armed land force of the Russian Empire, active from around 1721 to the Russian Revolution of 1917. In the early 1850s, the Russian Ar ...

and attempted to form Lithuanian detachments in

Petrograd Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

. After Lithuania declared independence in 1918, he returned and volunteered during the Lithuanian Wars of Independence. In January 1919, Škirpa was commandant of

Vilnius Vilnius ( , ; see also other names) is the capital and largest city of Lithuania, with a population of 592,389 (according to the state register) or 625,107 (according to the municipality of Vilnius). The population of Vilnius's functional urb ...

and men under his command raised the

flag of Lithuania The national flag of Lithuania ( lt, Lietuvos vėliava) consists of a horizontal Triband (flag), tricolour of yellow, green, and red. It was adopted on 25 April 1918 during Lithuania's first period of independence (in the 20th century) from 191 ...

Gediminas' Tower Gediminas' Tower ( lt, Gedimino pilies bokštas) is the remaining part of the Upper Castle in Vilnius, Lithuania. The first wooden fortifications were built by Gediminas, Grand Duke of Lithuania. The first brick castle was completed in 1409 b ...

on 1 January 1919. It was the first time the flag was raised in Vilnius, the historical capital of the

Grand Duchy of Lithuania The Grand Duchy of Lithuania was a European state that existed from the 13th century to 1795, when the territory was partitioned among the Russian Empire, the Kingdom of Prussia, and the Habsburg Empire of Austria. The state was founded by Li ...

, and 1 January is commemorated as the flag day in Lithuania. In 1920, as a member of the Lithuanian Peasant Popular Union, he was elected to the

Constituent Assembly of Lithuania The Constituent Assembly of Lithuania ( lt, Steigiamasis Seimas) was the first parliament of the independent state of Lithuania to be elected in a direct, democratic, general, secret election. The Assembly assumed its duties on 15 May 1920 and w ...

. After that he decided to pursue a military education in Institute of Technology in Zurich, Higher Officers' Courses in

Kaunas Kaunas (; ; also see other names) is the second-largest city in Lithuania after Vilnius and an important centre of Lithuanian economic, academic, and cultural life. Kaunas was the largest city and the centre of a county in the Duchy of Trakai ...

, and

Royal Military Academy (Belgium) The Royal Military Academy (french: École royale militaire, nl, Koninklijke Militaire School) is the military university of Belgium. The institution is responsible for the education of the officers of the five components of the Belgian defence ...

. Upon graduation in 1925, he worked as

Chief of the General Staff The Chief of the General Staff (CGS) is a post in many armed forces (militaries), the head of the military staff. List * Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff ( United States) * Chief of the General Staff (Abkhazia) * Chief of General Staff (Af ...

, but was forced to resign after the 1926 Lithuanian coup d'état, because he actively opposed it by trying to gather a military force to protect the government.

Political career

Later he served as a Lithuanian representative to Germany (1927–1930),

League of Nations The League of Nations (french: link=no, Société des Nations ) was the first worldwide intergovernmental organisation whose principal mission was to maintain world peace. It was founded on 10 January 1920 by the Paris Peace Conference that ...

(1937), Poland (1938), and again Germany (1938–1941). After Soviet Union occupied Lithuania in 1940, Škirpa fled to Germany and formed the

(LAF), a short-lived resistance organization whose goal was to liberate Lithuania and re-establish its independence by working with the Nazis. According to

Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation The Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation (VOC) is a non-profit anti-communist organization in the United States, authorized by a unanimous Act of Congress in 1993 for the purpose of "educating Americans about the ideology, history and legacy ...

, he was a primary source of the secret part of the

Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact , long_name = Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , image = Bundesarchiv Bild 183-H27337, Moskau, Stalin und Ribbentrop im Kreml.jpg , image_width = 200 , caption = Stalin and Ribbentrop shaking ...

which he sent to the Latvian foreign minister

Vilhelms Munters Gothards Vilhelms Nikolajs Munters (, 25 July 1898 in Riga – 11 January 1967, Riga) was a Latvian diplomat who served as Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Latvia from 1936 to 1940. He was also a member of the Council of the League o ...

in 1939. When Nazis invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, many members of LAF cooperated with the Nazis and killed thousands of

Lithuanian Jews Lithuanian Jews or Litvaks () are Jews with roots in the territory of the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania (covering present-day Lithuania, Belarus, Latvia, the northeastern Suwałki and Białystok regions of Poland, as well as adjacent areas ...

(see

the Holocaust in Lithuania The Holocaust in Lithuania resulted in the near total destruction of Lithuanian (Litvaks) and Polish Jews, living in '' Generalbezirk Litauen'' of ''Reichskommissariat Ostland'' within the Nazi-controlled Lithuanian SSR. Out of approximately 20 ...

). He was named prime minister in the

Provisional Government of Lithuania The Provisional Government of Lithuania ( lt, Laikinoji Vyriausybė) was a temporary government aiming for independent Lithuania during the last days of the first Soviet occupation and the first months of German Nazi occupation in 1941. It w ...

; however, the Germans placed him under

house arrest In justice and law, house arrest (also called home confinement, home detention, or, in modern times, electronic monitoring) is a measure by which a person is confined by the authorities to their residence. Travel is usually restricted, if all ...

and did not allow him to leave for Lithuania. He moved from Berlin to southern Germany and was allowed a short visit to Kaunas only in October 1943. In June 1944, he was arrested for sending a memorandum to the Nazi officials asking to replace German authorities in Lithuania with a Lithuanian government. He was first imprisoned in a concentration camp in

Bad Godesberg Bad Godesberg ( ksh, Bad Jodesbersch) is a borough ('' Stadtbezirk'') of Bonn, southern North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. From 1949 to 1999, while Bonn was the capital of West Germany, most foreign embassies were in Bad Godesberg. Some buildings ar ...

and in February 1945 was moved to .

Later life

After the war, he went to Paris and from there to

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of th ...

, where he taught

Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...

at the

University of Dublin The University of Dublin ( ga, Ollscoil Átha Cliath), corporately designated the Chancellor, Doctors and Masters of the University of Dublin, is a university located in Dublin, Ireland. It is the degree-awarding body for Trinity College Dubl ...

. In 1949, he emigrated to the United States. He worked at the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library is ...

. His memoir about the 1941 independence movement was published in 1975. Originally interred in

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

, his remains were returned to

in June 1995, where he was reburied in

Petrašiūnai Cemetery Petrašiūnai Cemetery ( lt, Petrašiūnų kapinės) is Lithuania's premiere last resting place formally designated for graves of people influential in national history, politics, arts, and science. Location Petrašiūnai Cemetery is located abo ...

. The state-sponsored ceremony included honor guards at

Vytautas the Great War Museum The Vytautas the Great War Museum ( lt, Vytauto Didžiojo karo muziejus) is a museum in Kaunas, Lithuania. It was built in Art Deco and early functionalism style. Originally it was established in 1921 by Vladas Nagevičius but later it was deci ...

and speeches by then Lithuanian Prime minister Adolfas Šleževičius and Defense Minister

Linas Linkevičius Linas is a Lithuanian male given name. It is the Lithuanian form of the name Linus, which derives from the Greek for "flax Flax, also known as common flax or linseed, is a flowering plant, ''Linum usitatissimum'', in the family Linaceae. It is ...

Controversy

In 1991, a street in

Eiguliai Eiguliai is neighorhood in the city of Kaunas, Lithuania. Eiguliai elderate encompass Eiguliai, Kleboniškis and part of Kalniečiai neighbourhoods. Elderate itself is located on the left bank of the Neris River. The distance from Eiguliai neigh ...

district of

was renamed after Škirpa. In 2001, a memorial plaque was affixed to the building where he worked from 1925–1926. In 1998, an alley in Vilnius near the

Vilnius Castle Complex The Vilnius Castle Complex ( lt, Vilniaus pilių kompleksas or ) is a group of cultural, and historic structures on the left bank of the Neris River, near its confluence with the Vilnia River, in Vilnius, Lithuania. The buildings, which evolved b ...

was also named after Škirpa commemorating his raising of the

in 1919. In 2016, a memorial stone was installed at Škirpa's birthplace in . These dedications have caused controversy in Lithuania due to his anti-Semitic writings. The issue of the plaque in Kaunas was raised in 2015. However, the government-funded

Genocide and Resistance Research Centre of Lithuania The Genocide and Resistance Research Centre of Lithuania ( lt, Lietuvos gyventojų genocido ir rezistencijos tyrimo centras or ''LGGRTC'') is a state-funded research institute in Lithuania dedicated to "the study of genocide, crimes against huma ...

denied his role in

but acknowledged anti-Semitism in his writings, and the plaque remained. Public discussions about the alley in Vilnius were initiated in 2016. After a national debate and controversy, the city council led by the mayor

Remigijus Šimašius Remigijus Šimašius (born 12 January 1974) is a Lithuanian lawyer and politician, member of Seimas (2012–2015), Minister of Justice (2008–2012), Mayor of Vilnius since 2015. Education In 1997 Šimašius graduated from the Faculty of ...

voted to rename the alley in Vilnius to "Trispalvė" ("Tricolour", a reference to the flag of Lithuania) in July 2019. The street in Kaunas was not renamed.

Army career

Political career

Later life

Controversy

References

Further reading