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Lithuania
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(27)
1920
October
09
Żeligowski's mutiny
On 9 October 1920 General Żeligowski's division, staging a mutiny on Piłsudski's orders, took Wilno. The dispute split Poland and Lithuania until 1938.
1939
March
20
The German ultimatum to Lithuania
On 20 March 1939 in Berlin, Ribbentrop demanded that Lithuania's Urbšys hand the Klaipėda Region to the Reich, threatening force. Lithuania had no choice.
23
Germany takes Klaipėda
On 23 March 1939 the Wehrmacht entered the Klaipėda Region and Hitler arrived by sea aboard the Deutschland. It was the Reich's last bloodless conquest.
October
10
The Soviet–Lithuanian Mutual Assistance Treaty
On 10 October 1939 Lithuania signed a mutual assistance pact in Moscow. It received Wilno, seized from Poland, but had to accept 20,000 Soviet troops.
1940
May
25
The USSR accuses Lithuania
On 25 May 1940 Molotov accused Lithuania of abducting soldiers from Soviet bases. The contrived dispute led to an ultimatum and the occupation in mid-June.
June
15
Key event
The Soviet occupation of Lithuania
On 15 June 1940 Lithuania accepted a Soviet ultimatum, President Smetona fled to Germany and the Red Army occupied the country without a Lithuanian shot fired.
July
14
Rigged elections in the Baltic states
On 14–15 July 1940 Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia voted for a single list watched by the Red Army. On 21 July the new parliaments proclaimed Soviet republics.
August
03
Key event
The USSR annexes the Baltic states
On 1–7 August 1940 the Supreme Soviet incorporated Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia as union republics and formed the Moldavian SSR from land taken from Romania.
1941
January
10
The German–Soviet border and commercial agreement
On 10 January 1941 Germany and the USSR signed a border treaty, a trade agreement and a secret protocol selling Moscow a strip of Lithuania for $7.5 million.
June
14
The June deportation
On the night of 13–14 June 1941 the NKVD began deporting people from Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. Over 40,000 were taken in days, Poles from Wilno among them.
22
The June Uprising in Lithuania
On 22 June 1941 Lithuanians rose against the Soviets and next day proclaimed a restored state in Kaunas. Germany did not recognise it; a pogrom followed.
23
The Ablinga massacre
On 23 June 1941 Wehrmacht soldiers shot 42 people from the Samogitian village of Ablinga and neighbouring Žvaginiai, and burned Ablinga to the ground.
24
The Germans take Wilno
On 24 June 1941 the Wehrmacht entered Wilno. That same day Lithuanian “activists” killed Jews in the streets, and the Germans took Jewish and Polish hostages.
July
02
The Ponary massacre begins
On 2 July 1941 Einsatzkommando 9 reached Wilno. In early July executions of Jews began in the pits at Ponary, and they went on for three years.
August
31
The Great Provocation in Wilno
On 31 August 1941 the Germans staged a “Jewish attack” on soldiers in Wilno. In reprisal thousands of Old Town Jews were rounded up and shot at Ponary.
September
06
The Wilno Ghetto
On 6 September 1941 the Germans drove the Jews of Wilno into two ghettos in the Old Town. Thousands detained on the way were shot at Ponary.
October
01
The Yom Kippur actions in the Wilno Ghetto
On Yom Kippur, 1 October 1941, Germans and Lithuanians seized thousands of Jews in both Wilno ghettos. By 21 October the whole small ghetto lay dead at Ponary.
24
The yellow permits action
On 24 October 1941 an action began in the Wilno Ghetto against people without yellow work permits. Within a week several thousand of them were killed at Ponary.
November
03
Actions in the Wilno Ghetto in November
On 3 November 1941 the Germans ordered yellow-permit holders out of the large Wilno ghetto and combed it. Over a thousand people were killed at Ponary.
December
01
The Jäger Report
On 1 December 1941 Karl Jäger tallied Einsatzkommando 3’s executions in Lithuania: 137,346 dead, almost all Jews. He declared the “Jewish problem” solved.
03
Actions in the Wilno Ghetto in December
Between 3 and 22 December 1941 Germans and Lithuanians took people from the Wilno Ghetto to Ponary three more times. At least 850 people were killed.
1942
January
21
The founding of the FPO in the Wilno Ghetto
On 21 January 1942 the United Partisan Organisation (FPO) was founded in the Wilno Ghetto, one of the first Jewish armed resistance organisations in Europe.
April
13
The execution of Anton Schmid
On 13 April 1942 in Wilno the Wehrmacht shot Feldwebel Anton Schmid, a Viennese who had rescued Jews from the ghetto and helped the Jewish underground.
1944
July
07
Operation Ostra Brama
On 7 July 1944 Home Army units attacked Wilno to take it before the Red Army. The same day the spearheads of the 3rd Belorussian Front reached the city.
13
The capture of Wilno
On 13 July 1944 the Red Army, supported by Home Army units, took Wilno. Days later the NKVD arrested the Wilno Home Army command and disarmed its soldiers.
August
01
The capture of Kaunas
On 1 August 1944 the 5th Army of the 3rd Belorussian Front took Kaunas, Lithuania's former capital, weeks after the Germans liquidated its ghetto camp.
1945
January
28
The capture of Klaipėda
On 28 January 1945 the Red Army took Klaipėda, abandoned overnight by the Germans. After a three-month siege, the whole of Lithuania was in Soviet hands.