During the German occupation of Lithuania, citizens of all its major ethnic groups collaborated with the Germans.
Collaboration and cooperation with Nazi Germany among Lithuanians had various causes. The main reason was the experience of the brutal Soviet occupation, which automatically directed the hopes and aspirations of Lithuanians toward Nazi Germany. In general, Lithuanians saw in cooperation with the Germans an opportunity to realize their own national goals; although few deluded themselves that the Germans would restore full independence to the Lithuanians, the hope of receiving some form of autonomy was widespread, as well as support in conflicts with other ethnic groups under German occupation, such as Poles and Belarusians. Lithuanian collaboration covered a wide spectrum of postures from the politically motivated conditional cooperation to complete identification with the goals of the occupier, genuine collaboration.[1]
The German army was welcomed by the Lithuanian population in June 1941 with joy and as liberators. At that time, the level of collaboration and cooperation with the Germans was at its highest and usually undertaken completely voluntarily. Enthusiasm subsided, however, as early as the fall of 1941 when hopes for the creation of any Lithuanian autonomy proved illusory. The next turning point was the defeat at Stalingrad suffered by Germany in early 1943, from which point Germany's defeat in the war seemed inevitable.[2] From then on, the resentment of the Lithuanian population against the increasingly oppressive occupiers grew. Attempts to draw new groups into collaboration generally failed, emblematic of which was the failed attempt to form a Lithuanian Waffen-SS legion. Only the looming Soviet threat, which for many Lithuanians still seemed more lethal than the German occupation, became a field for new collaboration. The recruitment success of the Lithuanian Territorial Defense Force was precisely the fruit of cooperation on this front. It ended, however, with the brutal disbanding of the unit after it refused to defend Germany itself.[3]
Despite the changing sentiment, Lithuanian police formations and Lithuanian administrative personnel continued to collaborate throughout the entire war. Among the former, the Lithuanian Auxiliary Police and special units such as the Lithuanian TDA Battalion, which took an active part in Holocaust crimes and mass murder of civilians, were particularly notorious.