Provisional Government of Lithuania


The Provisional Government of Lithuania 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 was secretly formed on 22 April 1941, announced on 23 June 1941, and dissolved on 5 August 1941. It was formed from the members of the Lithuanian Activist Front in Kaunas and Vilnius.

History

The Provisional Government was confirmed on 22 June, 1941 at the start of the June uprising. However, the leader of the LAF, Kazys Škirpa, who was supposed to become the Prime Minister, was in Germany at the time, hoping to obtain recognition for Lithuania. Since the Nazi regime saw Lithuania as a future part of Greater Germany, it was not much interested in Lithuanian independence, but allowed the Provisional Government to operate while it was useful. Kazys Škirpa was not allowed to leave Germany and return to Lithuania to join the government; instead, he was put under house arrest. Rapolas Skipitis, another minister to be who also had been in Berlin at the time was prevented from leaving as well..
Vytautas Bulvičius, who was Minister of Defence, was arrested by the Soviet forces on 2 June. His place was therefore taken by General Stasys Raštikis. On 21 June 1941, four members of the planned government were arrested by the Soviets: ; they were imprisoned in Gorky prison in Moscow. The tribunal started on 26 November 1941. Sentences were pronounced on 28 November: Bulvičius was executed, while Masiliūnas, Nasevičius, and Statkus were exiled to Siberia, along with other people arrested at the same time.
Literary historian Juozas Ambrazevičius became acting prime minister instead of Škirpa.
The Provisional Government did little to stop the anti-Jewish violence encouraged by the Nazis and the anti-Semitic leadership of the Lithuanian Activist Front. Lithuanian police battalions formed by the Provisional Government helped the Nazis carry out the Holocaust.
The Provisional Government dissolved itself in August 1941 after failing to achieve its goal of an autonomous if not independent Lithuania under German patronage.

The cabinet

The people who were meant to be in the government: