Kazys Škirpa (18 February 1895 – 18 August 1979) was a Lithuanian military officer and diplomat. He founded the

Lithuanian Activist Front The Lithuanian Activist Front or LAF () was a Lithuanian underground resistance organization established in 1940 after the Soviet occupation of the Baltic states (1940), Soviets occupied Lithuania. Its goal was to free Lithuanian Soviet Socialist ...

(LAF), which attempted to establish Lithuanian independence in June 1941.

Army career

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

he was mobilised into the

Imperial Russian Army The Imperial Russian Army () was the army of the Russian Empire, active from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was organized into a standing army and a state militia. The standing army consisted of Regular army, regular troops and ...

and graduated from the Peterhof Military School. In 1917 he helped organise Lithuanian military units in Russia and attempted to form Lithuanian detachments in

Petrograd Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea. The city had a population of 5,601, ...

. After Lithuania declared independence in 1918, he returned in 1918 and was the first to enlist in the

Lithuanian armed forces The Lithuanian Armed Forces () are the military of Lithuania. The Lithuanian Armed Forces consist of the Lithuanian Land Forces, the Lithuanian Navy, the Lithuanian Air Force and the Lithuanian Special Operations Force. In wartime, the Li ...

. during the Lithuanian War of Independence. In January 1919, Škirpa was commandant of

Vilnius Vilnius ( , ) is the capital of and List of cities in Lithuania#Cities, largest city in Lithuania and the List of cities in the Baltic states by population, most-populous city in the Baltic states. The city's estimated January 2025 population w ...

and the men under his command raised the Lithuanian flag above Gediminas' Tower on 1 January 1919. It was the first time the flag had been raised in Vilnius, the historical capital of the

Grand Duchy of Lithuania The Grand Duchy of Lithuania was a sovereign state in northeastern Europe that existed from the 13th century, succeeding the Kingdom of Lithuania, to the late 18th century, when the territory was suppressed during the 1795 Partitions of Poland, ...

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

Constituent Assembly of Lithuania The Constituent Assembly of Lithuania or Constituent 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 was ...

. After that he attended the Institute of Technology in Zurich, Higher Officers' Courses in

Kaunas Kaunas (; ) is the second-largest city in Lithuania after Vilnius, the fourth largest List of cities in the Baltic states by population, city in the Baltic States and an important centre of Lithuanian economic, academic, and cultural life. Kaun ...

, and the

Royal Military Academy (Belgium) The Royal Military Academy (, ; , ) is the military university of Belgium. The institution is responsible for the education of the officers of the five components of the Belgian defence (Army, Air Force, Cyber, Navy, Medical) and is located in B ...

. On graduating in 1925, he worked as Chief of the General Staff, but was forced to resign after the

1926 Lithuanian coup d'état The 1926 Lithuanian coup d'état ( Lithuanian: ) was a military coup d'état in Lithuania that replaced the democratically elected government with a authoritarian regime led by Antanas Smetona. The coup took place on 17 December 1926 and wa ...

, because he had 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 (LN or LoN; , SdN) 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 (1919–1920), Paris Peace ...

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

(LAF), a 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, he was a primary source of the secret part of the

Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, officially the Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and also known as the Hitler–Stalin Pact and the Nazi–Soviet Pact, was a non-aggression pact between Nazi Ge ...

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 List of Ministers for Foreign Affairs of Latvia, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Latvia from 1936 to 1940. He ...

in 1939. He was named prime minister in the

Provisional Government of Lithuania The Provisional Government of Lithuania () was an attempted temporary government, provisional government to form an independent Lithuanian state in June Uprising in Lithuania, the last days of the Soviet occupation of Lithuania (1940), first Sovi ...

; * * however, the Germans placed him under

house arrest House arrest (also called home confinement, or nowadays electronic monitoring) is a legal measure where a person is required to remain at their residence under supervision, typically as an alternative to imprisonment. The person is confined b ...

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 Nazi officials asking to replace German authorities in Lithuania with a Lithuanian government. He was imprisoned first in a concentration camp in Bad Godesberg and in February 1945 was moved to . Karys-1965-5-3

Later life

After the war, he went to

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

and from there to

Dublin Dublin is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Situated on Dublin Bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, and is bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, pa ...

, where he taught

Russian Russian(s) may refer to: *Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *A citizen of Russia *Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages *''The Russians'', a b ...

Trinity College Dublin Trinity College Dublin (), officially titled The College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin, and legally incorporated as Trinity College, the University of Dublin (TCD), is the sole constituent college of the Unive ...

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

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is a research library in Washington, D.C., serving as the library and research service for the United States Congress and the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It also administers Copyright law o ...

. His memoir about the 1941 independence movement, ''Uprising for the Restoration of Lithuania's Sovereignty'', was published in 1975. Originally interred in

Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

, his remains were returned to

in June 1995, where he was reburied in

Petrašiūnai Cemetery Petrašiūnai Cemetery () 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 about south-east of the cent ...

. The state-sponsored ceremony included honor guards at

Vytautas the Great War Museum The Vytautas the Great War Museum () 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 decided to move to a larger location. A ...

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". The female equivalent is Lina. Linas may refer to: People * Linas Adomaitis (born 1976), Lithuanian musician * Linas Als ...

Controversy

In 1991, a street in Eiguliai district of

was renamed after Škirpa. In 2001, a memorial plaque was affixed to the building where he worked from 1925 to 1926. In 1998, an alley in Vilnius near the Vilnius Castle Complex was also named after Škirpa commemorating his raising of the flag of Lithuania 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 denied his role in

the Holocaust in Lithuania The Holocaust resulted in the near total eradication of Lithuanian Jews, Lithuanian (Litvaks) and History of the Jews in Poland, Polish Jews in ''Generalbezirk Litauen'' of the ''Reichskommissariat Ostland'' in the Occupation of Lithuania by Na ...

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 voted to rename the alley in Vilnius to "Trispalvė" ("Tricolour", a reference to the flag of Lithuania) in July 2019. The street in

was not renamed.

Awards

Škirpa received the following state awards and medals: * Order of the Cross of Vytis (3rd degree, 1919) * Order of the Cross of Vytis (5th degree with swords, 1920) * Independence Medal (Lithuanian, 1928) * (Latvia, 1929) *

Order of Vytautas the Great The Order of Vytautas the Great () is the Lithuanian Presidential Award.''Lietuvos Respublikos Konstitucija. 84 straipsnis''. Priimta 1992 It may be conferred on the heads of Lithuania and foreign states, as well as their citizens, for distinguish ...

(3rd degree, 1935) * Order of the Cross of the Eagle (Estonia, 2nd and 3rd degree, 1938) *

Order of Polonia Restituta The Order of Polonia Restituta (, ) is a Polish state decoration, state Order (decoration), order established 4 February 1921. It is conferred on both military and civilians as well as on alien (law), foreigners for outstanding achievements in ...

(Poland, 1st degree, 1939)

Army career

Political career

Later life

Controversy

Awards

References

Further reading