‘‘Lithuanian Legion.’’ Predicting the Germans’ imminent
invasion of the USSR, it set as its goal to ‘‘create an uprising in the rear of
the Red Army and engage in diversionary and subversive activity, destroy-
ing bridges and rail lines and disrupting communications.’’ An NKGB re-
port of June 10 dealt with a ‘‘Guard for the Defense of Lithuania’’ that
sought to unify Lithuanians around the idea of an independent Lithuania.
The group instructed its members that the signal for a national uprising
would be the moment Germany crossed the frontier of the Lithuanian
SSR; its tasks would include ‘‘the arrest of commissars and communist
activists, seizure of Communist Party centers without destruction of their
archives, stopping deportations, rendering rail lines and highways in the
rear of Soviet troops unusable, and finally, in the event of assistance by the
Lithuanian corps [of the Red Army], disarming Soviet troops and creating
panic.’’ Another report on the Guard and on the so-called Diversionists was
sent to Moscow by a USSR NKGB operational group working in Lithu-
ania; it described them as prepared to lend armed support to German
troops invading the USSR. The Lithuanian NKGB hoped to arrest twenty-
four members of these organizations and asked Moscow to send a group of
‘‘qualified interrogators.’’ Wonder if they made it before June 22?33
Theater Infrastructure and Fortified Areas
It was not only the hostility of the populations of the areas absorbed by
the Soviet Union in 1939–40 that would create problems for the Red Army.
It was also the absence of a well-developed military infrastructure of the
type that had existed along the old frontier. Meeting the needs of a fully
The Partition of Eastern Europe
FINLAND
N
Tallinn
Leningrad
EST
ES ONIA
TO
EST NIA
ONIA
SWEDEN
SWEDEN
SWEDEN
Occupied b
Occupied y
b
Occupied b
Russia 1940
Russia 1940
Russia 1940
A
E
Pskov
S
Riga
C
I
T
LA
L TVIA
AT
LA VIA
TVIA
L
A
Occupied b
Occupied y
b
Occupied b Russia 1940
y
y Russia 1940
Russia 1940
B
LITHU
LITH ANIA
UA
LITHU NIA
ANIA
Occupied b
Occupied y
b
Occupied b Russia 1940
y
y Russia 1940
Russia 1940
Königsberg
Vilnius
Vilnius
Danzig
Danzig
Vilnius
Danzig
EAST
EAST
EAST
PR
P USSIA
RU
PR SSIA
USSIA
Minsk
R. Neman
R. Nema
BELORUSSIA
German-So
German-S viet
ov
German-So iet
viet
Poznan
Po
P znan
oznan
demar
dema cation line
rc
demar ation line
cation line
R.Vi
V stula
Sept.
Sept 8,
.
Sept. 8 1939
,
8, 1939
1939
U . S . S . R .
G E R M A N Y
Kutno
Ku
K tno
utno
Warsa
Wa
W rs w
a
arsa
Br
B est-Liv
re
Br st-Li otsk
vo
est-Liv tsk
Lodz
Lodz
otsk
Lodz
German-Soviet
Nonaggression
P
O
L
A
N
D
Pact
August 23, 1939
Lublin
Lublin
Lublin
G O V E R N M E N T
G E N E R A L
Craco
Crac w
o
Craco
PR
P O
R
PR TECT
OT
O EC ORA
TO
TECT R TE OF
AT
ORA E OF
TE OF
BOHEMIA
BOHEMIA
BOHEMIA - MORA
MOR VIA
AV
MORA IA
VIA
Lv
L o
v
Lv v
o
SLOVAKIA
M
O
NOR
NO THERN
RT
NOR HERN
THERN
L
BUK
BU O
K
BUK VINA
OV
O INA
VINA
D
HUNGARY
A
B
Transylvania to
Tr
T ansylvania to
ransylvania to
E
V
Hungar
Hungar
Hungary 1940
y 1940
y 1940
S
I
S
R
A
A
.
R
D
A
nie
B
s
I
tse
A
re
YUGOSLAVIA
ROMANIA
0
50 100 150 200 km
Bucharest
0
50
100 mi
R
BLACK
. Danube
SEA
BULGARIA
BULGARIA
BULGARIA
SOVIET BORDERS MOVE WESTWARD
43
mobilized army meant improving roads, rail lines, and telecommunica-
tions and constructing airfields, firing ranges, barracks, repair shops, hos-
pitals, warehouses, fuel storage tanks, and so on. At enormous expense,
work on these facilities went on intermittently all during the 1930s in the
Kiev and Belorussian Special Military Districts and also in the Far East,
reflecting concern with Germany and Japan as potential adversaries. With
the territorial expansion of 1939–40, Soviet
invasion of the USSR, it set as its goal to ‘‘create an uprising in the rear of
the Red Army and engage in diversionary and subversive activity, destroy-
ing bridges and rail lines and disrupting communications.’’ An NKGB re-
port of June 10 dealt with a ‘‘Guard for the Defense of Lithuania’’ that
sought to unify Lithuanians around the idea of an independent Lithuania.
The group instructed its members that the signal for a national uprising
would be the moment Germany crossed the frontier of the Lithuanian
SSR; its tasks would include ‘‘the arrest of commissars and communist
activists, seizure of Communist Party centers without destruction of their
archives, stopping deportations, rendering rail lines and highways in the
rear of Soviet troops unusable, and finally, in the event of assistance by the
Lithuanian corps [of the Red Army], disarming Soviet troops and creating
panic.’’ Another report on the Guard and on the so-called Diversionists was
sent to Moscow by a USSR NKGB operational group working in Lithu-
ania; it described them as prepared to lend armed support to German
troops invading the USSR. The Lithuanian NKGB hoped to arrest twenty-
four members of these organizations and asked Moscow to send a group of
‘‘qualified interrogators.’’ Wonder if they made it before June 22?33
Theater Infrastructure and Fortified Areas
It was not only the hostility of the populations of the areas absorbed by
the Soviet Union in 1939–40 that would create problems for the Red Army.
It was also the absence of a well-developed military infrastructure of the
type that had existed along the old frontier. Meeting the needs of a fully
The Partition of Eastern Europe
FINLAND
N
Tallinn
Leningrad
EST
ES ONIA
TO
EST NIA
ONIA
SWEDEN
SWEDEN
SWEDEN
Occupied b
Occupied y
b
Occupied b
Russia 1940
Russia 1940
Russia 1940
A
E
Pskov
S
Riga
C
I
T
LA
L TVIA
AT
LA VIA
TVIA
L
A
Occupied b
Occupied y
b
Occupied b Russia 1940
y
y Russia 1940
Russia 1940
B
LITHU
LITH ANIA
UA
LITHU NIA
ANIA
Occupied b
Occupied y
b
Occupied b Russia 1940
y
y Russia 1940
Russia 1940
Königsberg
Vilnius
Vilnius
Danzig
Danzig
Vilnius
Danzig
EAST
EAST
EAST
PR
P USSIA
RU
PR SSIA
USSIA
Minsk
R. Neman
R. Nema
BELORUSSIA
German-So
German-S viet
ov
German-So iet
viet
Poznan
Po
P znan
oznan
demar
dema cation line
rc
demar ation line
cation line
R.Vi
V stula
Sept.
Sept 8,
.
Sept. 8 1939
,
8, 1939
1939
U . S . S . R .
G E R M A N Y
Kutno
Ku
K tno
utno
Warsa
Wa
W rs w
a
arsa
Br
B est-Liv
re
Br st-Li otsk
vo
est-Liv tsk
Lodz
Lodz
otsk
Lodz
German-Soviet
Nonaggression
P
O
L
A
N
D
Pact
August 23, 1939
Lublin
Lublin
Lublin
G O V E R N M E N T
G E N E R A L
Craco
Crac w
o
Craco
PR
P O
R
PR TECT
OT
O EC ORA
TO
TECT R TE OF
AT
ORA E OF
TE OF
BOHEMIA
BOHEMIA
BOHEMIA - MORA
MOR VIA
AV
MORA IA
VIA
Lv
L o
v
Lv v
o
SLOVAKIA
M
O
NOR
NO THERN
RT
NOR HERN
THERN
L
BUK
BU O
K
BUK VINA
OV
O INA
VINA
D
HUNGARY
A
B
Transylvania to
Tr
T ansylvania to
ransylvania to
E
V
Hungar
Hungar
Hungary 1940
y 1940
y 1940
S
I
S
R
A
A
.
R
D
A
nie
B
s
I
tse
A
re
YUGOSLAVIA
ROMANIA
0
50 100 150 200 km
Bucharest
0
50
100 mi
R
BLACK
. Danube
SEA
BULGARIA
BULGARIA
BULGARIA
SOVIET BORDERS MOVE WESTWARD
43
mobilized army meant improving roads, rail lines, and telecommunica-
tions and constructing airfields, firing ranges, barracks, repair shops, hos-
pitals, warehouses, fuel storage tanks, and so on. At enormous expense,
work on these facilities went on intermittently all during the 1930s in the
Kiev and Belorussian Special Military Districts and also in the Far East,
reflecting concern with Germany and Japan as potential adversaries. With
the territorial expansion of 1939–40, Soviet
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