If we had to summarise what  happened to the Baltic states  

during World War II in just a few words, we'd  say, "They were occupied... hard." However,  

the reality of the situation was more  complicated than that. In this video,  

we're going to give Estonia, Latvia, and  Lithuania some of the attention they deserve.

Before things hit the fan in September 1939,  Estonia had declared itself neutral, along with  

Latvia and Lithuania. Little did Estonia know,  however, that Stalin and Hitler would assign  

it to the Soviet "sphere of influence" under the  Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact about a year later. With  

the pact signed and Poland crushed, the Soviets  set their sights on Estonia, leveraging the Orzeł  

incident to justify an unjust ultimatum. With  Soviet warships and warplanes looming overhead,  

Estonia signed an agreement stipulating that the  Soviets could set up military bases in Estonia  

and call on it for military support. They should  never have let Stalin get his foot in the door.

In June 1940, some 160,000 Red Army troops  spilt out of said bases or otherwise invaded  

Estonia. While some Estonians put up a fight, the  government ordered the military to stand down. The  

Soviets then took control of the government  and proclaimed Estonia a part of the USSR.  

Over the next year, they arrested, deported,  and killed thousands of Estonians. Of  

the 8,000 arrested in this time, more than  one-quarter of them were killed inside Estonia,  

while the rest were sent to prison camps in  Russia, where they suffered a far slower death.

In 1940, the Soviets conscripted some  17,000 Estonians into the Red Army,  

under the 22nd Territorial Rifle Corps, but  many of these men defected to the Germans  

during Operation Barbarossa, and the unit was  liquidated in September 1941. Additionally, around  

40% of Estonia's naval fleet, which was out of  port during the Soviet invasion, sailed into the  

arms of the British, who enlisted Estonian ships  and sailors in the Royal Navy and merchant marine.

On Operation Barbarossa, it proved disastrous  for Estonia. As the Soviets retreated,  

they employed scorched earth tactics, murdering  thousands of civilians and destroying as many as  

13,500 buildings and more than 3,200 farms. Of  the 33,000 Estonians the Soviets had conscripted  

into the Red Army at this point, not even half  of them saw combat, and those who didn't were  

discarded into concentration camps and labour  battalions. Many brave Estonians fought against  

the Soviets too, with most of these men  conducting guerrilla operations under the  

Baltic partisan organisation known as the  Forest Brothers, which we'll get to later.

While most Estonians were  happy to see the Soviets go,  

they soon realised the Germans were not their  friends. They set about "Germanizing" Estonia,  

letting Germans in and booting so-called  "undesirables" out. They also subjected  

Estonia to the Holocaust, exterminating  almost a quarter of its Jewish population.

While some Estonians volunteered to  fight in the Waffen-SS and Wehrmacht,  

most didn't want to. It wasn't until 1944 that  the Germans picked up their conscription game,  

consolidating various Estonian units under  the 20th Waffen Grenadier Division of the  

SS (1st Estonian) and bringing the number of  Estonians fighting for Germany up to 70,000.  

This was in reaction to the turn of the tide  of the Eastern Front. The Estonians and Germans  

staved off the Soviet counteroffensive for some  time, but the Red Army ultimately retook Estonia,  

inspiring some 80,000 people to flee. The  USSR literally dissolved before Estonia  

was in Estonian hands again, with the Russian  Federation withdrawing from Estonia in 1994.

Outside of Estonia, from 1942 to the  1946, the Red Army also recruited ethnic  

Estonians in the USSR into the 8th Estonian Rifle  Corps, which had grown to a strength of about  

27,000 by late 1942. The corps even fought  *against* the aforementioned *20th Waffen  

Grenadier Division of the SS (1st Estonian)*  at times — Estonians killing Estonians.

All in all, Estonia lost around 25% of its  1.1 million-strong population throughout  

the war, with deaths accounting  for about 81,000 of those losses.

As we said, Latvia started out neutral too.  Also like Estonia, the Soviets forced Latvia  

into a pact which allowed the Red Army to  station its troops on Latvian territory,  

beginning with some 25,000. Of course, once  the Soviets had their foot in the door,  

they revealed their true intentions, demanding  the entry of an unlimited number of troops.

In June 1940, the Soviets marched  in, took control of the government,  

and annexed Latvia into the USSR. As with  Estonia, they then began "Sovietising" it,  

arresting, deporting, and executing anyone who  stood in their way. In 1940 alone, as many as  

27,500 Latvians were arrested, and as many  as 50,000 lost their lives. Some 35,000 were  

deported, accounting for around 1.8% of the  population. The Red Army also absorbed the  

Latvian army, ultimately turning it into  the 24th Territorial Rifle Corps. Though,  

of the original 24,400 men in the corps, all but  3,000 either deserted or were arrested or shot.

About a year after the Soviets had seized Latvia,  the Germans drove them out and, like in Estonia,  

were welcomed with open arms. Again, Latvia's  German "liberators" soon revealed their true  

nature, intending to "Germanise" Latvia  by deporting or murdering up to 50% of  

its population, which was about 2 million at the  time. Among the Latvians who were to be removed  

were the Jews, who accounted for around 70,000  of the 80,000 to 100,000 Latvian citizens killed  

under Germany's reign. What's worse is that some  Latvians participated in the Holocaust, with the  

auxiliary police unit Arājs Kommando, for example,  murdering as many as 26,000 Jews by itself.

The Germans were much more successful at  bringing Latvians into their army than their  

Soviet counterparts. Early in 1943, they started  drafting them into the Waffen-SS and Wehrmacht,  

and by mid-1944, there were as many as 87,550  Latvians in the Latvian Legion of the SS  

and some 23,000 in Wehrmacht auxiliaries.  Between 15 and 20% of them were volunteers.

When the Soviets reversed the Eastern Front,  they returned for Latvia as they did Estonia,  

occupying the state and subjecting its  people to more arrests, deportations,  

and death. The Soviets also recreated  Latvian Red Army units, mustering some  

15,000 Latvians under the 130th Latvian Rifle  Corps, which fought *against* Latvian SS units.  

Some 200,000 German troops held out in the region  of Courland before surrendering to the Soviets,  

and among them were around 14,000 Latvian  soldiers, who joined the Germans in death  

or Soviet prison camps. Many of those who evaded  the Soviets joined Latvian resistance movements,  

including the aforementioned Forest Brothers,  and contested their occupation for decades.

On resistance movements, various Latvian  organisations resisted either the Soviets,  

Germans, or both during all three occupations.  Some even worked with one foreign power to help  

defeat the other. The Latvian Central Council  was an example of a pro-Latvian-independence  

movement which fought for Latvia's  interests alone, while many pro-Soviet  

resistances operated under the *Central  Staff of the Partisan Movement in Moscow.*

All in all, Latvia lost about 25% of  its population throughout the war,  

and, as with Estonia, the state wasn't  back in Latvian hands until 1994.

Unlike Estonia and Latvia, Lithuania was first  assigned to Germany under the Molotov-Ribbentrop  

Pact, yet this was soon changed, and — as  was customary — the Soviets coerced Lithuania  

into letting them accommodate some 20,000  troops there in October 1939. The Soviets  

then took control from the inside, let in more  troops, and coloured Lithuania red on the map.

During this first occupation, Lithuanian  partisans, such as the Lithuanian Activist Front,  

were active, but Lithuanians were still forced  fight in the Red Army, namely under the 16th and  

29th Rifle Divisions. Many of these men deserted  as soon as they could, though some Lithuanian  

communists chose to stay on and fight the Germans  alongside other Lithuanians from elsewhere in  

the USSR. During "Sovietisation," between  20,000 and 30,000 Lithuanians were deported,  

many to labour camps in Central Asia. Around  12,000 were arrested as "enemies of the  

people," and a further 17,000 were deported to  Siberia in the lead up to the German invasion.

As for the German invasion itself, it was met  by some joint Soviet and Lithuanian resistance,  

while some anti-Soviet and pro-independence  resistance movements worked to undermine the  

Soviets from the inside. Still, after taking  some 3,400 casualties, the Germans successfully  

took and occupied the state. Having killed  thousands of Lithuanians in the process, however,  

Lithuania wasn't quite so welcoming as the other  two Baltic states. Unlike with Estonia and Latvia,  

no Lithuanian Waffen-SS unit was formed, and  their resistance was generally more organised.

Still, Lithuania took the full  brunt of German occupation,  

with the Holocaust beginning within the first few  days and as many as 120,000 Lithuanian Jews losing  

their lives by December 1941 alone. By the end  of the war, that number grew as large as 195,000,  

accounting for 90 to 95% of the state's Jewish  population. Tens of thousands of Lithuanians took  

part in the Lithuanian Holocaust or otherwise  assisted their occupiers. Also, by June 1944,  

as many as 100,000 Lithuanians had been deported  to Germany, where they undertook forced labour.

Coordinated in part by the Lithuania Partisan  Movement, Lithuanians, Poles, and even Soviets  

contested the Germans, but the Lithuanian  partisans largely avoided violence at this time.

When the Soviets returned, they actively contested  resistance organisations by deporting as many as  

120,000 people by 1953. This didn't wholly  undo the Lithuanian resistance, however.  

The aforementioned Forest Brothers continued  to engage their occupiers until 1953,  

while nonviolent resistance continued for decades  beyond that. If the partisans were caught, they  

were tortured to death, and their entire families  may have been deported. Often, they exploded  

themselves with grenades to avoid capture.  On the Forest Brothers in general, at least  

50,000 Estonians, Latvians, and Lithuanians  lost their lives fighting foreign occupation  

throughout World War II and up until they  regained their independence in the early 1990s.  

Fun fact — forest Brother Jānis Pīnups  didn't come out of hiding until 1995.

All in all, Lithuania lost over a  million people between 1940 and 1953,  

which works out to be about a third  of the state's pre-war population.

We've tried to cover a lot of ground in  relatively little space here, but what  

do you think? Did we do the Baltics justice? Of  the many topics we brushed over in this video,  

which would you like us to cover in more detail?  Please share your thoughts in the comments.