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195-618: On 22 June 1941, at the beginning of Operation Barbarossa , some 981 were in service with the Soviet Air Forces (VVS), the Soviet Air Defence Forces (PVO) and Soviet Naval Aviation . The MiG-3 was difficult to fly in peacetime and much more so in combat. Originally designed as a high-altitude fighter-interceptor, combat over the Eastern Front was generally at lower altitudes, where it was inferior to

390-462: A Romanian Bristol Blenheim reconnaissance bomber, confirmed by postwar research, and lost one aircraft which crashed into an obstacle on takeoff. The 55th was much less experienced with the MiG-3 and claimed three aircraft shot down, although recent research confirms only one German Henschel Hs 126 was 40 per cent damaged, and suffered three pilots killed and nine aircraft lost. The most unusual case

585-657: A border and commercial agreement addressing several open issues in January 1941. According to historian Robert Service , Joseph Stalin was convinced that the overall military strength of the Soviet Union was such that he had nothing to fear and anticipated an easy victory should Germany attack; moreover, Stalin believed that since the Germans were still fighting the British in the west, Hitler would be unlikely to open up

780-512: A pod under each wing in mid-1941. This lowered its speed by about 20 km/h (12 mph) at all altitudes, which was unpopular with the pilots, some of whom removed the pods. One hundred aircraft were equipped with a pair of UBS machine guns in lieu of the ShKAS weapons. Another 215 aircraft also had just the UBS machine guns but were fitted to carry six RS-82 rockets . A total of 72 aircraft mounted

975-606: A 12th-century Holy Roman Emperor and Crusader , put into action Nazi Germany's ideological goals of eradicating communism and conquering the western Soviet Union to repopulate it with Germans . The German Generalplan Ost aimed to use some of the conquered people as forced labour for the Axis war effort while acquiring the oil reserves of the Caucasus as well as the agricultural resources of various Soviet territories, including Ukraine and Byelorussia . Their ultimate goal

1170-408: A 250 kg (550 lb) FAB-250 bomb under each wing, close to the target and would then release them to conduct the attack after which they would fly back to the nearest friendly airbase. Some preliminary work was done before the Germans invaded, but it was abandoned afterwards due to the pressure of other work. The combination was estimated to have a maximum speed of 260 km/h (160 mph) and

1365-468: A German military attaché and sent word to Zhou Enlai . The Chinese maintain the tipoff helped Stalin make preparations, though little exists to confirm the Soviets made any real changes upon receiving the intelligence. In early 1941, Stalin's own intelligence services and American intelligence gave regular and repeated warnings of an impending German attack. Soviet spy Richard Sorge also gave Stalin

1560-470: A Soviet counteroffensive along with the remaining forces of the first echelon. But on 22 June 1941 the first echelon contained 171 divisions, numbering 2.6–2.9 million; and the second strategic echelon contained 57 divisions that were still mobilising, most of which were still understrength. The second echelon was undetected by German intelligence until days after the invasion commenced, in most cases only when German ground forces encountered them. At

1755-652: A conversation the Tilsit Nazi Gestapo agent Heinz Gräfe  [ de ] clearly stated to Stasys Raštikis that the Provisional Government was formed without German knowledge. Such a form, although not having anything against individuals, is unacceptable to the Germans. The current Provisional Government should be transformed into a National Committee or Council under the German military authority. The Nazi Germans did not recognize

1950-402: A cross Or between his horns. Kaunas also has a greater coat of arms, which is mainly used for purposes of Kaunas city representation. The sailor, three golden balls, and Latin text "Diligite justitiam qui judicatis terram" ( English : Cherish justice, you who judge the earth ) in the greater coat of arms refers to Saint Nicholas , patron saint of merchants and seafarers, who was regarded as

2145-522: A cure for the engine's tendency to overheat in ambient temperatures above 16 °C (61 °F) was found. However the sole prototype was shot down on 5 October during flight tests and it was decided not to proceed with the idea as all AM-38 production was allocated to the Il-2. Ironically, later in the war, about 80 MiG-3s were reengined with AM-38s to make them airworthy again. Many of these were rearmed with two 20 mm ShVAK cannon as well. On 13 May 1941

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2340-541: A figure greater than the number of Red Army soldiers killed in battle by then. German army commanders cast Jews as the major cause behind the " partisan struggle." The main guideline for German troops was "Where there's a partisan, there's a Jew, and where there's a Jew, there's a partisan" or "The partisan is where the Jew is." Many German troops viewed the war in Nazi terms and regarded their Soviet enemies as sub-human. After

2535-580: A front extending from the Arctic Ocean southward to the Black Sea , were all controlled by the OKH and organised into Army Norway , Army Group North , Army Group Centre and Army Group South , alongside three Luftflotten (air fleets, the air force equivalent of army groups) that supported the army groups: Luftflotte 1 for North, Luftflotte 2 for Centre and Luftflotte 4 for South. Army Norway

2730-654: A heavenly guardian of Kaunas by Queen Bona Sforza . According to the archeological excavations , the richest collections of ceramics and other artifacts found at the confluence of the Nemunas and the Neris rivers are from the second and first millennium BC . During that time, people settled in some territories of the present Kaunas: the confluence of the two longest rivers of Lithuania area, Eiguliai , Lampėdžiai, Linkuva, Kaniūkai, Marvelė, Pajiesys, Romainiai , Petrašiūnai , Sargėnai, and Veršvai sites. A settlement

2925-535: A high-altitude interceptor. The oxygen supply was often insufficient and the stall and spin characteristics were very dangerous, especially to inexperienced pilots. This was demonstrated on 10 April 1941 when three pilots of the 31st Fighter Regiment of the Air Defenses (IAP PVO) attempted to intercept a German high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft over Kaunas , Lithuania flying at 9,000 m (30,000 ft). All three aircraft entered irrecoverable spins and

3120-467: A key role in planning for Operation Barbarossa since both Jews and communists were considered equivalent enemies of the Nazi state. Nazi imperialist ambitions rejected the common humanity of both groups, declaring the supreme struggle for Lebensraum to be a Vernichtungskrieg ('war of annihilation'). On August 23, 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union signed a non-aggression pact in Moscow known as

3315-620: A major escalation of World War II, both geographically and with the Anglo-Soviet Agreement , which brought the USSR into the Allied coalition . The operation opened up the Eastern Front , in which more forces were committed than in any other theatre of war in human history. The area saw some of history's largest battles, most horrific atrocities , and highest casualties (for Soviet and Axis forces alike), all of which influenced

3510-784: A memorandum to Hitler on the dangers of an invasion of the Soviet Union. They argued that the eastern territories ( Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic , the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic , the Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic , the Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic , and the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic ) would only end up as a further economic burden for Germany. It was further argued that

3705-575: A million Soviet Jews as part of the Holocaust . The failure of Operation Barbarossa reversed the fortunes of Nazi Germany. Operationally, German forces achieved significant victories and occupied some of the most important economic areas of the Soviet Union (mainly in Ukraine) and inflicted, as well as sustained, heavy casualties. The German offensive came to an end during the Battle of Moscow near

3900-593: A new basis in front of the whole world innocent conscience. The Lithuanian Nation, exhausted from the terror of the brutal Bolsheviks , decided to build its future on the basis of national unity and social justice." and signatures. On 24 June 1941, tank units of the Red Army in Jonava were ordered to retake Kaunas. The rebels radioed the Germans for assistance. The units were bombed by the Luftwaffe and did not reach

4095-572: A number far greater than the Germans had at their disposal. The Soviet Union had around 23,000 tanks available of which 14,700 were combat-ready. Around 11,000 tanks were in the western military districts that faced the German invasion force. Hitler later declared to some of his generals, "If I had known about the Russian tank strength in 1941 I would not have attacked". However, maintenance and readiness standards were very poor; ammunition and radios were in short supply, and many armoured units lacked

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4290-644: A pair of 20 mm ShVAK cannon . A wide variety of armaments were experimented with by various units at the requests of their pilots or to make up shortages. The NKAP ( Narodnyy komissariat aviatsionnoy promyshlennosti —People's Commission of the Aircraft Industry) announced its 1941 production plan on 9 December 1940. Zavod Nr. 1 in Moscow-Chodinka would be required to build a total of 3,500 in 1941. Zavod Nr. 43 in Kiev would begin construction of

4485-565: A pilot able to discover them”. There were several attempts to re-engine the aircraft with the engine it was originally designed for, the Mikulin AM-37 . This was designated the MiG-7 , and one MiG-3 was converted to evaluate the engine in May 1941. It proved to have poor longitudinal stability and the powerplant itself still had a number of problems. The German invasion the following month caused

4680-460: A potential Soviet entry into the pact . After two days of negotiations in Berlin from 12 to 14 November 1940, Ribbentrop presented a draft treaty for a Soviet entry into the Axis. However, Hitler had no intention of allowing the Soviet Union into the Axis and in an order stated, "Political conversations designed to clarify the attitude of Russia in the immediate future have been started. Regardless of

4875-673: A racial war between the disciplined Germans and the Jewish, Romani and Slavic Untermenschen . An 'order from the Führer' stated that the paramilitary SS Einsatzgruppen , which closely followed the Wehrmacht ' s advance, were to execute all Soviet functionaries who were "less valuable Asiatics, Gypsies and Jews." Six months into the invasion of the Soviet Union, the Einsatzgruppen had murdered more than 500,000 Soviet Jews,

5070-1169: A range of 1,450 km (900 mi). The Russian company Aviarestoration has rebuilt three MiG-3s. They all use Allison V-12 engines. One is in the US in the Military Aviation Museum of Pungo, Virginia and another, rebuilt from a MiG-3 shot down in 1942, first flew again around the start of 2010. It will remain in Russia. Data from MiG: Fifty Years of Secret Aircraft Design General characteristics Performance Armament Related development Aircraft of comparable role, configuration, and era Related lists Operation Barbarossa Frontline strength (22 June 1941) Frontline strength (22 June 1941) Total military casualties: 1,000,000+ According to German Army medical reports (including Army Norway ): Other involved country losses Total military casualties: 4,500,000 Based on Soviet archives: Phase 1 Phase 2 Phase 3 Phase 4 Air war Operation Barbarossa

5265-746: A result, Kaunas was an active participant in European urban life. The city also was a particularly important centre for the Lithuanian Armed Forces . In January 1919, during the Lithuanian Wars of Independence , the War School of Kaunas was established and started to train soldiers who were soon sent to the front to strengthen the fighting Lithuanian Armed Forces . Part of the Lithuanian armoured vehicles military unit

5460-552: A single engagement, units were destroyed or rendered ineffective. The Soviet numerical advantage in heavy equipment was thoroughly offset by the superior training and organisation of the Wehrmacht . Kaunas Kaunas ( / ˈ k aʊ n ə s / ; Lithuanian: [ˈkɐʊ̯ˑnˠɐs] ; previously known in English as Kovno / ˈ k ɒ v n oʊ / ) is the second-largest city in Lithuania after Vilnius ,

5655-646: A thousand aircraft in the intervening period. By 5 December, the start of the Soviet counter-offensive that drove the Germans back from the gates of Moscow, the Navy had 33 MiGs on hand, the VVS 210 and the PVO 309. This was a total of 552, an increase of only 40 aircraft from 1 October. Over the winter of 1941–42 the Soviets transferred all of the remaining MiG-3s to the Navy and PVO so that on 1 May 1942 none were left on strength with

5850-644: A threat to the occupiers, were quickly arrested, interrogated and released to the reserve, deported to the concentration camps or executed, which made many, trying to avoid that fate, join the Lithuanian partisan forces. The army itself was initially renamed the Lithuanian People's Army but was later reorganised into the 29th Rifle Corps of the Soviet Union . In June 1940, the Soviet Union occupied and annexed Lithuania in accordance with

6045-736: A total of 917 on hand, of which only 81 were non-operational. An additional 64 MiGs were assigned to Naval Aviation, 38 in the Air Force of the Baltic Fleet and 26 in the Air Force of the Black Sea Fleet . The 4th and 55th Fighter Regiments had most of the MiG-3s assigned to the Odessa Military District and their experiences on the first day of the war may be taken as typical. The 4th, an experienced unit, shot down

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6240-626: A two-front war and subsequently delayed the reconstruction of defensive fortifications in the border regions. When German soldiers swam across the Bug River to warn the Red Army of an impending attack, they were shot as enemy agents. Some historians believe that Stalin, despite providing an amicable front to Hitler, did not wish to remain allies with Germany. Rather, Stalin might have had intentions to break off from Germany and proceed with his own campaign against Germany to be followed by one against

6435-467: A very narrow military view. Hillgruber argued that because these assumptions were shared by the entire military elite, Hitler was able to push through with a "war of annihilation" that would be waged in the most inhumane fashion possible with the complicity of "several military leaders," even though it was quite clear that this would be in violation of all accepted norms of warfare. Even so, in autumn 1940, some high-ranking German military officials drafted

6630-583: A war of Weltanschauungen ['worldviews']... totally a people's war, a racial war ". On 23 November, once World War II had already started, Hitler declared that "racial war has broken out and this war shall determine who shall govern Europe, and with it, the world". The racial policy of Nazi Germany portrayed the Soviet Union (and all of Eastern Europe) as populated by non-Aryan Untermenschen ('sub-humans'), ruled by Jewish Bolshevik conspirators. Hitler claimed in Mein Kampf that Germany's destiny

6825-553: A widespread café culture. The city interwar architecture is regarded as among the finest examples of European Art Deco and has received the European Heritage Label . It contributed to Kaunas being designated as the first city in Central and Eastern Europe as a UNESCO City of Design , and also to becoming a World Heritage Site in 2023 as the only European city representing large scale urbanization during

7020-632: A wreath near the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in the presence of numerous audience. The Sicherheitsdienst confiscated the pictures of the wreath-laying ceremony, thinking that it could be dangerous for the German occupation policy in Lithuania . On 17 July 1941 the German civil administration was established. The government's powers were taken over by the new occupants. Nazi Germany established

7215-474: Is קאָװנע Kovne , and the names in German include Kaunas and Kauen . On Carta Marina from 1539, the city was named Cavm . The city and its elderates also have names in other languages (see Names of Kaunas in other languages and names of Kaunas elderates in other languages ). A 16th-century legend in the Bychowiec Chronicle claims that Kaunas was established by

7410-634: Is the oldest city heraldic seal known in the territory of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania . The current emblem was the result of much study and discussion on the part of the Lithuanian Heraldry Commission, and realized by the artist Raimondas Miknevicius . An aurochs has replaced a wisent , which was depicted in the Soviet -era emblem that was used since 1969. Blazon: Gules, an aurochs passant guardant argent ensigned with

7605-519: Is twelve miles from Poseur." — Guillebert de Lannoy description of Kaunas during his trip between 1413–1414. In 1408, the town was granted Magdeburg rights by Vytautas the Great and in 1413 became the centre of Kaunas Powiat , in Trakai Voivodeship . Moreover, Vytautas ceded Kaunas the right to own the scales used for weighing the goods brought to the city or packed on the site,

7800-456: The Einsatzgruppen were assigned to the Wehrmacht ' s units, which provided them with supplies such as gasoline and food, they were controlled by the RSHA. The official plan for Barbarossa assumed that the army groups would be able to advance freely to their primary objectives simultaneously, without spreading thin, once they had won the border battles and destroyed the Red Army's forces in

7995-678: The Byelorussian SSR border. In the morning, the Lithuanian Government resigned, and the president left the country to avoid the fate of the Soviets' puppets and in the hope of forming a government-in-exile . Soon the Red Army flooded Lithuania through the Belarus–Lithuania border with more than 200,000 soldiers and took control of the most important cities, including Kaunas where the heads of state resided. The Lithuanian Armed Forces were ordered not to resist, and

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8190-533: The Donbas second, Moscow third;" but he consistently emphasized the destruction of the Red Army over the achievement of specific terrain objectives. Hitler believed Moscow to be of "no great importance" in the defeat of the Soviet Union and instead believed victory would come with the destruction of the Red Army west of the capital, especially west of the Western Dvina and Dnieper rivers, and this pervaded

8385-690: The French invasion of Russia in 1812, the Grand Army of Napoleon passed through Kaunas twice, devastating the city both times. A hill fort mound in Kaunas is named Napoleon's Hill. To prevent possible easy access through the city and protect the western borders of Russia, the Kovno Fortress was built. It is still visible throughout the town. Kovno Governorate , with a centre in Kovno (Kaunas),

8580-562: The German High Command began planning an invasion of the Soviet Union in July 1940 (under the code-name Operation Otto ). Over the course of the operation, over 3.8 million personnel of the Axis powers—the largest invasion force in the history of warfare —invaded the western Soviet Union, along a 2,900-kilometer (1,800 mi) front, with 600,000 motor vehicles and over 600,000 horses for non-combat operations. The offensive marked

8775-447: The Hanseatic League , and Hansa merchant office Kontor was opened – the only one in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. By the 16th century, Kaunas also had a public school and a hospital and was one of the most firmly established towns in the whole country. Furthermore, in the 16th century Grand Duchess Bona Sforza achieved that the Kaunas Eldership should become a property of the Jagiellonian dynasty ; starting in 1533, she carried out

8970-429: The Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa —who drowned in Asia Minor while leading the Third Crusade —was not dead but asleep, along with his knights, in a cave in the Kyffhäuser mountains in Thuringia , and would awaken in the hour of Germany's greatest need and restore the nation to its former glory. Originally, the invasion of the Soviet Union was codenamed Operation Otto (alluding to Holy Roman Emperor Otto

9165-401: The Lithuanian Air Force remained on the ground. At the time, the Lithuanian Armed Forces had 26,084 soldiers (of which 1,728 officers) and 2,031 civil servants. While the Lithuanian Riflemen's Union , subordinate to the army commander, had over 62,000 members, of which about 70% were farmers and agricultural workers. After the occupation, the Soviets immediately took brutal action against

9360-441: The Lithuanian Air Force to be an example for other military units. The ANBO 41 was far ahead of the most modern foreign reconnaissance aircraft of that time in structural features, and most importantly in speed and in rate of climb. At the time, Kaunas had a Jewish population of 35,000–40,000, about one quarter of the city's total population. Jews made up much of the city's commercial, artisan, and professional sectors. Kaunas

9555-414: The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact . Vladimir Dekanozov , a Soviet emissary from Moscow, gained effective power in Lithuania. Shortly afterwards, on 17 June 1940 the puppet People's Government of Lithuania was formed, which consistently destroyed Lithuanian society and political institutions and opened the way for the Communist Party to establish itself. To establish the legitimacy of the government and design

9750-441: The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact . A secret protocol to the pact outlined an agreement between Germany and the Soviet Union on the division of the eastern European border states between their respective " spheres of influence ," Soviet Union and Germany would partition Poland in the event of an invasion by Germany, and the Soviets would be allowed to overrun Finland , Estonia , Latvia and the region of Bessarabia . On 23 August 1939

9945-454: The Nemunas and Neris rivers and the city that grew up there was named after him. A suburban region in the vicinity is named "Palemonas". According to historian Teodor Narbutt the Lithuanians previously worshiped god Kaunis whose statue was located in the current Kaunas Old Town near Neman River. In 1408 Vytautas the Great granted Kaunas the city rights and himself chose the coat of arms of Kaunas with aurochs . On 30 June 1993,

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10140-462: The Polikarpov I-16 monoplane. It remained tricky and demanding to fly even after the extensive improvements made over the MiG-1. Many fighter regiments had not kept pace in training pilots to handle the MiG and the rapid pace of deliveries resulted in many units having more MiGs than trained pilots during the Operation Barbarossa , the German invasion. By 1 June 1941, 1,029 MIG-3s were on strength, but there were only 494 trained pilots. In contrast to

10335-404: The Reichskommissariat Ostland in the Baltic states and much of Belarus, and the administrative centre for Lithuania ( Generalbezirk Litauen ) was in Kaunas ruled by a Generalkommissar Adrian von Renteln . Jews began settling in Kaunas in the second half of the 17th century. They were not allowed to live in the city, so most of them stayed in the Vilijampolė settlement on the right bank of

10530-485: The Second Polish Republic , Kaunas became the temporary capital of Lithuania . It would hold this position until 28 October 1939, when the Red Army handed Vilnius over to Lithuania after its invasion of Poland . The Constituent Assembly of Lithuania first met in Kaunas on 15 May 1920. It passed some important laws, particularly on land reform, on the national currency, and adopted a new constitution. The military coup d'état took place in Kaunas on 17 December 1926. It

10725-406: The Slovak Republic ), was seeking the protection of its citizens and did not support the Nazis ' Holocaust policy. However, 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 . Minister of National Defence General Stasys Raštikis met personally with the Wehrmacht generals to discuss

10920-422: The Virgin Mary for saving him from almost drowning in the river, during the Battle of the Vorskla River , in 1399. Following the Battle of Grunwald in 1410, Kaunas Castle became a residence of the elder of Kaunas, and its military significance decreased. "After leaving Poseur , I arrived in a large fortified city of Kaunas. It has a very beautiful large castle standing on a cliff of the Nemunas River. Kaunas

11115-414: The Volok Reform . The greatest economic boom of Kaunas was in the late 16th – early 17th century, which led to construction of many brick masonry buildings throughout the city. In the early 17th century, the prosperity of Kaunas led to the beginning of the construction of the Wall of Kaunas , which, however, was not completed, due to later wars and economic reasons. In 1665, the Russian army attacked

11310-456: The Winter War against Finland in 1939–40 also convinced Hitler of a quick victory within a few months. Neither Hitler nor the General Staff anticipated a long campaign lasting into the winter and therefore, adequate preparations such as the distribution of warm clothing and winterisation of important military equipment like tanks and artillery, were not made. Further to Hitler's Directive, Göring's Green Folder , issued in March 1941, laid out

11505-415: The ancient Lithuania and especially its earthwork mounds. Later, many of the Seminary students were active in Lithuanian book smuggling ; its chief main objective was to resist the Russification policy . Kaunas Spiritual Seminary finally became completely Lithuanian when in 1909 professor Jonas Mačiulis-Maironis became the rector of the Seminary, and replaced use of the Polish language for teaching with

11700-407: The interwar period , it served as the temporary capital of Lithuania , when Vilnius was seized and controlled by Poland between 1920 and 1939. During that period Kaunas was celebrated for its rich cultural and academic life, fashion, construction of countless Art Deco and Lithuanian National Revival architectural-style buildings as well as popular furniture, interior design of the time, and

11895-503: The myth of the "clean Wehrmacht, " upholding its honor in the face of Hitler's fanaticism, the historian Jürgen Förster notes that "In fact, the military commanders were caught up in the ideological character of the conflict, and involved in its implementation as willing participants". Before and during the invasion of the Soviet Union, German troops were indoctrinated with anti-Bolshevik , anti-Semitic and anti-Slavic ideology via movies, radio, lectures, books, and leaflets. Likening

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12090-405: The tertiary education institutions of Kaunas attract thousands of students annually. The city's name is of Lithuanian origin and most likely derives from a personal name , however the exact person is unknown and it is believed that he was the ruler of Kaunas Castle. The personal name Kaunas is derived from an adjective kaunus which means "who likes to fight". Other possible meaning of

12285-416: The unsuccessful coup attempt in June 1934 , Voldemaras was imprisoned for four years and received an amnesty on condition that he leave the country. During the interwar period , Kaunas was nicknamed the Little Paris because of its rich cultural and academic life, fashion, Art Deco architecture, Lithuanian National Romanticism architectural style buildings as well as popular furniture, interior design of

12480-634: The 22 June start date was sufficient for the German offensive to reach Moscow by September. Antony Beevor wrote in 2012 about the delay caused by German attacks in the Balkans that "most [historians] accept that it made little difference" to the eventual outcome of Barbarossa. The Germans deployed one independent regiment, one separate motorised training brigade and 153 divisions for Barbarossa, which included 104 infantry, 19 panzer and 15 motorised infantry divisions in three army groups, nine security divisions to operate in conquered territories, four divisions in Finland and two divisions as reserve under

12675-472: The Bf 109 in all respects, and even by other new Soviet fighters such as the Yakovlev Yak-1 . The shortage of ground-attack aircraft in 1941 forced it into that role as well, for which it was totally unsuited. Pilot Alexander E. Shvarev recalled: "The Mig was perfect at altitudes of 4,000 m and above. But at lower altitudes it was, as they say, 'a cow'. That was the first weakness. The second was its armament: weapons failure dogged this aircraft. The third weakness

12870-456: The Commander of the Armed Forces Vincas Vitkauskas , Divisional General Stasys Raštikis , Kazys Bizauskas , Antanas Merkys and most of the Lithuanian government members decided that it would be impossible, especially the previously stationed Soviet soldiers, and accepted the ultimatum. On that night before officially accepting the ultimatum, the Soviet forces executed the Lithuanian border guard Aleksandras Barauskas  [ lt ] near

13065-401: The German Messerschmitt Bf 109 as well as most of its Soviet contemporaries. It was also pressed into service as a fighter-bomber during the autumn of 1941 but it was equally unsuited for this. The losses suffered in combat were very high, in percentage the highest among all the VVS fighters, with 1,432 shot down. The survivors were concentrated in the PVO, where its disadvantages mattered less,

13260-401: The German war effort by circumventing the British blockade of Germany . Despite the parties' ostensibly cordial relations, each side was highly suspicious of the other's intentions. For instance, the Soviet invasion of Bukovina in June 1940 went beyond their sphere of influence as agreed with Germany. After Germany entered the Axis Pact with Japan and Italy, it began negotiations about

13455-410: The German border. After realizing this, NKVD started terror against the Raštikis family. His wife was separated from their one-year-old daughter and brutally interrogated at Kaunas Prison , his old father Bernardas Raštikis, three daughters, two brothers and sister were deported to Siberia . Soldiers, officers , senior officers and generals of the Lithuanian Army and LRU members, who were seen as

13650-665: The German campaign in France, in late 1940 they began to reorganise most of their armoured assets back into mechanised corps with a target strength of 1,031 tanks each. But these large armoured formations were unwieldy, and moreover they were spread out in scattered garrisons, with their subordinate divisions up to 100 kilometres (62 miles) apart. The reorganisation was still in progress and incomplete when Barbarossa commenced. Soviet tank units were rarely well equipped, and they lacked training and logistical support. Units were sent into combat with no arrangements in place for refuelling, ammunition resupply, or personnel replacement. Often, after

13845-454: The Germans were fighting for "the defence of European culture against Moscovite–Asiatic inundation, and the repulse of Jewish Bolshevism ... No adherents of the present Russian-Bolshevik system are to be spared." Walther von Brauchitsch also told his subordinates that troops should view the war as a "struggle between two different races and [should] act with the necessary severity." Racial motivations were central to Nazi ideology and played

14040-496: The Germans were unprepared. Following the heavy losses and logistical strain of Barbarossa, the Wehrmacht ' s diminished forces could no longer attack along the entire Eastern Front, and subsequent operations to retake the initiative and drive deep into Soviet territory—such as Case Blue in 1942 and Operation Citadel in 1943—were weaker and eventually failed, which resulted in the Wehrmacht ' s defeat. These Soviet victories ended Germany's territorial expansion and presaged

14235-527: The Great 's expansive campaigns in Eastern Europe), but Hitler had the name changed to Operation Barbarossa in December 1940. Hitler had in July 1937 praised Barbarossa as the emperor who first expressed Germanic cultural ideas and carried them to the outside world through his imperial mission. For Hitler, the name Barbarossa signified his belief that the conquest of the Soviet Union would usher in

14430-472: The I-210. A six-bladed propeller was fitted on one aircraft to increase thrust at high altitude to enable the fighter to catch the high-flying Junkers Ju 86 P aircraft then overflying Moscow. A new propeller hub was made that mounted six standard VISh-61 blades, but nothing more is known of the project. Four aircraft were converted to carry AFA-I cameras for evaluation and a fifth was then converted to evaluate all

14625-669: The Lithuanian delegation departed to Moscow , where it later had to sign the Soviet–Lithuanian Mutual Assistance Treaty because of the unfavorable situation. The treaty resulted in five Soviet military bases with 20,000 troops established across Lithuania in exchange for Lithuania's historical capital Vilnius. According to the Lithuanian Minister of National Defence Kazys Musteikis , Lithuanian Minister of Foreign Affairs Juozas Urbšys initially told that Lithuanians refused Vilnius Region as well as

14820-582: The Lithuanian language. Prior to the Second World War , Kaunas, like many cities in Eastern Europe , had a significant Jewish population. According to the Russian census of 1897 , Jews numbered 25,500, 35.3% of the total of 73,500. The population was recorded as 25.8% Russian, 22.7% Polish, 6.6% Lithuanian. It established numerous schools and synagogues and were important for centuries to

15015-745: The Lithuanian-American Holocaust historian Saulius Sužiedėlis, "none of this amounted to a public scolding which alone could have persuaded at least some of the Lithuanians who had volunteered or been co-opted into participating in the killings to rethink their behavior." Lithuanian police battalions formed by the Provisional Government were eventually enlisted by the Nazis to help carry out the Holocaust . In

15210-496: The MiG-1, which reduced maneuverability and field performance. Time to 5,000 m (16,000 ft) decreased by over a minute and the service ceiling proved to be 500 m (1,600 ft) less. The MiG-3 was faster at sea level and at altitude. While the ranges reached by both aircraft were farther than that of the older aircraft, they were still less than the 1,000 km (620 mi) required. Mikoyan and Gurevich protested against

15405-578: The MiG-3 and complete one hundred aircraft by the end of the year and Zavod Nr. 21 in Gor'kiy would start to plan construction of an upgraded version of the MiG-3, although this last program was canceled shortly afterwards. 140 were delivered in January 1941 and Zavod Nr. 1 was on pace to exceed its quota with 496 delivered in July, 562 in August and 450 in September. In October the German advance on Moscow forced

15600-448: The MiG-3 and its pilots, aerial combat over the Eastern Front generally took place at low and medium altitudes where it had no speed advantage. The MiG's loaded weight of 3,350 kg (7,385 lb) was greater than the Bf 109F-2's 2,728 kg (6,014 lb) and it was less maneuverable in the horizontal plane than the Bf 109 due to its higher wing loading . This lack of maneuverability

15795-461: The MiG-3 was that its Mikulin AM-35A engine was closely related to the Il-2's AM-38 allowing production to be quickly switched from one to the other. MiG-3 production at Zavod Nr. 1 had already been planned to be reduced from a NKAP order of 27 August that required the factory to produce 420 fighters in September, declining to 100 in December with Il-2 production ramping up to 250 in December while

15990-523: The Mobilisation Plan 1941 (MP-41), called for the deployment of 186 divisions, as the first strategic echelon, in the four military districts of the western Soviet Union that faced the Axis territories; and the deployment of another 51 divisions along the Dvina and Dnieper Rivers as the second strategic echelon under Stavka control, which in the case of a German invasion was tasked to spearhead

16185-541: The NII VVS ( Naoochno-Issledovatel'skiy Institoot Voenno-Vozdushnye Sily —Air Force Scientific Test Institute). Despite the teething problems with the MiG-3, in 1941, one of the aircraft's designers— Mikhail Gurevich —was awarded the State Stalin Prize for his contribution to Soviet aviation. A number of reports had been received about poor quality aircraft received by the regiments which pointed directly at

16380-542: The NII VVS as it was responsible for monitoring the quality of the aircraft delivered to the VVS. On 31 May 1941 the People's Commissariat of Defense decreed that the NII VVS had been negligent. A number of senior managers were demoted and the head of the Institute, Major General A. I. Filin was summarily executed. A number of MiG-3s were found to have unacceptable performance at high altitudes despite having been designed as

16575-713: The NKAP ordered the OKO to convert a MiG-3 to use the Shvetsov ASh-82 A radial engine then entering production. The resulting aircraft had a variety of names, including I-210, MiG-3-82, Samolet IKh or Izdeliye 65. The design was a failure, but was promising enough to continue the program as the I-211 . A variety of other tests and other projects were conducted using MiG-3s. Leading edge slats were evaluated in 1941 although they were not fitted on production aircraft, but were used by

16770-472: The Nazi " Thousand-Year Reich ". As early as 1925, Adolf Hitler vaguely declared in his political manifesto and autobiography Mein Kampf that he would invade the Soviet Union , asserting that the German people needed to secure Lebensraum ('living space') to ensure the survival of Germany for generations to come. On 10 February 1939, Hitler told his army commanders that the next war would be "purely

16965-639: The Nemunas River (in Kaunas and Grodno ), which was the main front line of fights between the Crusaders and Lithuanians . Consequently, Kaunas Castle had a strategic importance, as it prevented the Crusaders from intruding deeper into Lithuania and its capital, Vilnius . In 1362, the castle was captured after a siege of several weeks and destroyed by the Teutonic Order. Lithuanian rulers Kęstutis and Grand Duke Algirdas arrived to help

17160-612: The Neris and Nemunas rivers. All of the city's streets were paved, horse-drawn transportation was replaced with modern bus lines, new suburbs were planned and built ( Žaliakalnis neighbourhood in particular), and new parks and squares were established. The foundations of a social security system were laid, three new schools were built, and new public libraries , including the Vincas Kudirka library, were established. Vileišis maintained many contacts in other European cities , and as

17355-477: The Red Army was developed and promulgated in the 1936 Field Regulations in the form of the Deep Battle Concept . Defence expenditure also grew rapidly from just 12 percent of the gross national product in 1933 to 18 percent by 1940. During Joseph Stalin's Great Purge in the late 1930s, which had not ended by the time of the German invasion on 22 June 1941, much of the officer corps of the Red Army

17550-460: The Romans in ancient times . These Romans were supposedly led by a patrician named Palemon, who had three sons: Barcus, Kunas and Sperus. Palemon fled from Rome because he feared the mad Emperor Nero . Palemon, his sons and other relatives travelled to Lithuania. After Palemon's death, his sons divided his land. Kunas got the land where Kaunas now stands. He built a fortress near the confluence of

17745-526: The Russian garrisons, but the nervous Joseph Stalin replied, "No matter if you take Vilnius or not, the Russian garrisons will enter Lithuania anyway". He also informed Juozas Urbšys about the Soviet–German secret protocols and showed maps of the spheres of influence. Two of the military bases with thousands of Soviet soldiers were established close to Kaunas in Prienai and Gaižiūnai . Despite regaining

17940-455: The Soviet Union in Mein Kampf and Hitler's belief that the Red Army would need four years to ready itself. Stalin declared "we must be ready much earlier" and "we will try to delay the war for another two years". As early as August 1940, British intelligence had received hints of German plans to attack the Soviets a week after Hitler informally approved the plans for Barbarossa and warned the Soviet Union accordingly. Some of this intelligence

18135-474: The Soviet Union's "most important and strongest enemy," and as early as July 1940, the Red Army Chief of Staff, Boris Shaposhnikov , produced a preliminary three-pronged plan of attack for what a German invasion might look like, remarkably similar to the actual attack. Since April 1941, the Germans had begun setting up Operation Haifisch and Operation Harpune to substantiate their claims that Britain

18330-619: The Soviet Union. After the occupation, the Lithuanian Diplomatic Service did not recognize the new occupiers' authority and started the diplomatic liberation campaign of Lithuania. In 1941, Kazys Škirpa , Leonas Prapuolenis , Juozas Ambrazevičius and their supporters, including the former Commander of the Lithuanian Army General Stasys Raštikis , whose whole family was deported to Siberia , began organizing an uprising. After realizing

18525-604: The Soviet border even before the campaign in the Balkans had finished. By the third week of February 1941, 680,000 German soldiers were gathered in assembly areas on the Romanian-Soviet border. In preparation for the attack, Hitler had secretly moved upwards of 3 million German troops and approximately 690,000 Axis soldiers to the Soviet border regions. Additional Luftwaffe operations included numerous aerial surveillance missions over Soviet territory many months before

18720-566: The Soviet regime's brutality when targeting the Slavs with propaganda. They also claimed that the Red Army was preparing to attack the Germans , and their own invasion was thus presented as a pre-emptive strike. Hitler also utilised the rising tension between the Soviet Union and Germany over territories in the Balkans as one of the pretexts for the invasion. While no concrete plans had yet been made, Hitler told one of his generals in June 1940 that

18915-550: The Soviets to the forces of Genghis Khan , Hitler told the Croatian military leader Slavko Kvaternik that the "Mongolian race" threatened Europe. Following the invasion, many Wehrmacht officers told their soldiers to target people who were described as "Jewish Bolshevik subhumans," the "Mongol hordes," the "Asiatic flood" and the "Red beast." Nazi propaganda portrayed the war against the Soviet Union as an ideological war between German National Socialism and Jewish Bolshevism and

19110-405: The Soviets, in their current bureaucratic form, were harmless and that the occupation would not benefit Germany politically either. Hitler, solely focused on his ultimate ideological goal of eliminating the Soviet Union and Communism, disagreed with economists about the risks and told his right-hand man Hermann Göring , the chief of the Luftwaffe , that he would no longer listen to misgivings about

19305-653: The Teutonic Knights in the 14th century against the Grand Duchy of Lithuania . The Lithuanians constructed a new wooden castle on the island of Virgalė, which stood at the confluence of the Nemunas and Nevėžio rivers; however in 1363 the Crusaders burned the castle. The wooden castle was rebuilt, but in 1368 the Crusaders attacked once again, destroyed the castle and, according to the chronicles, killed 600 pagan defenders, while they themselves suffered only three casualties. The Lithuanians attempted to rebuild

19500-431: The VVS. By 1 May 1942, Naval Aviation had 37 MiGs on strength, while the PVO had 323 on hand on 10 May. By 1 June 1944, the Navy had transferred all its aircraft to the PVO, which reported only 17 on its own strength, and all of those were gone by 1 January 1945. Undoubtedly more remained in training units and the like, but none were assigned to combat units by then. Even with the MiG-3's limitations, Aleksandr Pokryshkin ,

19695-551: The Zavod Nr. 1, and its OKO, to evacuate to Kuybyshev where production resumed under unsuitable conditions. However, shortly afterwards, Stalin sent a telegram to the directors of the plants building the Ilyushin Il-2 and the MiG-3 demanding more Il-2 production, resulting in MiG-3 production being terminated in favor of the Il-2, with a final thirty aircraft built in 1942 from spares. An additional factor in cancellation of

19890-428: The agenda for the next step after the anticipated quick conquest of the Soviet Union. The Hunger Plan outlined how entire urban populations of conquered territories were to be starved to death, thus creating an agricultural surplus to feed Germany and urban space for the German upper class. Nazi policy aimed to destroy the Soviet Union as a political entity in accordance with the geopolitical Lebensraum ideals for

20085-399: The annexation of the eastern part of the country. As a result of the pact, Germany and the Soviet Union maintained reasonably strong diplomatic relations for two years and fostered an important economic relationship . The countries entered a trade pact in 1940 by which the Soviets received German military equipment and trade goods in exchange for raw materials, such as oil and wheat, to help

20280-537: The attack. Although the Soviet High Command was alarmed by this, Stalin's belief that Nazi Germany was unlikely to attack only two years after signing the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact resulted in slow Soviet preparation. This fact aside, the Soviets did not entirely overlook the threat of their German neighbor. Well before the German invasion, Marshal Semyon Timoshenko referred to the Germans as

20475-600: The beloved historical capital, the Presidency and the Government remained in Kaunas. On 14 June 1940, just before midnight, the last meeting of the Lithuanian government was held in Kaunas. During it, the ultimatum presented by the Soviet Union was debated. President Antanas Smetona categorically declined to accept most of the ultimatum's demands, argued for military resistance and was supported by Kazys Musteikis, Konstantinas Šakenis , Kazimieras Jokantas , however

20670-528: The benefit of future generations of the " Nordic master race ". In 1941, Nazi ideologue Alfred Rosenberg —later appointed Reich Minister of the Occupied Eastern Territories—suggested that conquered Soviet territory should be administered in the following Reichskommissariate ('Reich Commissionerships'): German military planners also researched Napoleon's failed invasion of Russia . In their calculations, they concluded that there

20865-467: The border area. In 1930, Mikhail Tukhachevsky , a prominent military theorist in tank warfare in the interwar period and later Marshal of the Soviet Union , forwarded a memo to the Kremlin that lobbied for colossal investment in the resources required for the mass production of weapons, pressing the case for "40,000 aircraft and 50,000 tanks." In the early 1930s, a modern operational doctrine for

21060-597: The brutal 1st Motor Rifle Division NKVD responsible for the June deportation , and the puppet Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic regime commanders were forced to flee into the Latvian SSR through the Daugava River. The commander of the Red Army's 188th Rifle Division colonel Piotr Ivanov reported to the 11th Army Staff that during the retreat of his division through Kaunas "local counterrevolutionaries from

21255-525: The bulk of them belonging to the 6th PVO Corps at Moscow , while only 293 remained with the VVS, and 60 with the Naval Air Forces, a total of only 652 despite deliveries of several hundred aircraft. By 1 October, on the eve of the German offensive towards Moscow codenamed Operation Typhoon , only 257 were assigned to VVS units, 209 to the PVO, and 46 to the Navy, a total of only 512, a decrease of 140 fighters since 10 July, despite deliveries of over

21450-651: The cancellation of the development of the AM-37 as Mikulin's resources were required for the AM-35 and AM-38 engines already in production. To improve the low-level performance of the MiG-3, one aircraft was tested with the AM-38 engine used by the Il-2 in July 1941. It proved to be 14 km/h (8.7 mph) faster than the normal MiG-3 at sea level and was more maneuverable as well. It was recommended for production after passing its State acceptance trials in September, provided that

21645-548: The castle with masonry and higher, wider walls, four flanking towers , and surrounded by a moat , but before its completion the Crusaders attacked in the summer of 1369, expelled the Lithuanians from the island of Virgalė and with their masonry built Gotteswerder Castle . Gotteswerder Castle was captured after a five-week siege by the Grand Ducal Lithuanian Army , led by Algirdas and Kęstutis, and two wooden castles were built close to it. Nevertheless,

21840-473: The castle's defenders, but the castle was already surrounded by the fortifications of the Crusaders, and they could only watch the collapse of the castle. Most of the 400 castle's defenders were killed in action, and commander Vaidotas of the Kaunas Castle garrison tried to break through with 36 men, but was taken and made a prisoner . It was one of the largest and most important military victory of

22035-557: The castle, and it turned into ruins. Subsequently, a jail was established in one part of the castle, in the middle of the 18th century. At the end of the 18th century, the castle was sometimes used to hold meetings of noble families of Kaunas Powiat. After the third and final partition of the Polish–Lithuanian state in 1795, the city was taken over by the Russian Empire and became a part of Vilna Governorate . During

22230-485: The city from the inside (secure organizations, institutions, enterprises) and declare independence. By the evening of 22 June, the Lithuanians had controlled the Presidential Palace , post office, telephone and telegraph, and radio station. Control of Vilnius and most of the rest of Lithuanian territory was also shortly taken over by the rebels. Multiple Red Army divisions stationed around Kaunas, including

22425-544: The city several times, and in 1701 the city was occupied by the Swedish Army , during the Great Northern War . The bubonic plague struck the area in 1657 and 1708, killing many residents. Fires destroyed parts of the city in 1731 and 1732. In the first half of the 18th century, the northern wall and two towers of the Kaunas Castle collapsed, due to damage from river water, and this led to abandonment of

22620-580: The city. It was the first coordinated Lithuanian–German action. The first German scouts, lieutenant Flohret and four privates, entered Kaunas on 24 June and found it in friendly hands. A day later the main forces marched into the city without obstruction and almost as if they were on parade. On 26 June 1941 the German Oberkommando der Wehrmacht ordered the rebel groups to disband and disarm. Two days later Lithuanian guards and patrols were also relieved of their duties. Already in July, in

22815-551: The confluence of the two largest Lithuanian rivers, the Nemunas and the Neris , and is near the Kaunas Reservoir , the largest body of water in the whole of Lithuania. As defined by Eurostat, the population of Kaunas functional urban area , is estimated at 391,153 (as of 2021), while according to statistics of Kaunas territorial health insurance fund, there are 447,946 permanent inhabitants (as of 2022) in Kaunas and Kaunas district municipalities combined. Moreover,

23010-570: The course of World War II and the subsequent history of the 20th century . The German armies eventually captured five million Soviet Red Army troops and deliberately starved to death or otherwise killed 3.3 million Soviet prisoners of war, and millions of civilians, as the " Hunger Plan " worked to solve German food shortages and exterminate the Slavic population through starvation. Mass shootings and gassing operations , carried out by German death squads or willing collaborators, murdered over

23205-624: The creation of military units. Beginning in July 1940, the Red Army General Staff developed war plans that identified the Wehrmacht as the most dangerous threat to the Soviet Union, and that in the case of a war with Germany, the Wehrmacht ' s main attack would come through the region north of the Pripyat Marshes into Belorussia, which later proved to be correct. Stalin disagreed, and in October, he authorised

23400-614: The culture and business of the city. During the Imperial Russian Army 's Great Retreat of World War I , Paul von Hindenburg 's German Tenth Army occupied Kaunas in August 1915. After Vilnius was occupied by the Red Army in 1919, the Government of the Republic of Lithuania established its main base in Kaunas during the Lithuanian Wars of Independence . Later, after the capital, Vilnius, had been annexed by

23595-474: The development of new plans that assumed a German attack would focus on the region south of Pripyat Marshes towards the economically vital regions in Ukraine. This became the basis for all subsequent Soviet war plans and the deployment of their armed forces in preparation for the German invasion. In the Soviet Union, speaking to his generals in December 1940, Stalin mentioned Hitler's references to an attack on

23790-491: The direct control of OKH . These were equipped with 6,867 armoured vehicles, of which 3,350–3,795 were tanks, 2,770–4,389 aircraft (that amounted to 65 percent of the Luftwaffe ), 7,200–23,435 artillery pieces, 17,081 mortars, about 600,000 motor vehicles and 625,000–700,000 horses. Finland slated 14 divisions for the invasion, and Romania offered 13 divisions and eight brigades over the course of Barbarossa. The entire Axis forces, 3.8 million personnel, deployed across

23985-457: The dissemination of the Nazi racial plan, as he informed the 4th Panzer Group that the war against the Soviet Union was "an essential part of the German people's struggle for existence" ( Daseinskampf ), also referring to the imminent battle as the "old struggle of Germans against Slavs" and even stated, "the struggle must aim at the annihilation of today's Russia and must, therefore, be waged with unparalleled harshness." Hoepner also added that

24180-469: The economic dangers of a war with the USSR. It is speculated that this was passed on to General Georg Thomas , who had produced reports that predicted a net economic drain for Germany in the event of an invasion of the Soviet Union unless its economy was captured intact and the Caucasus oilfields seized in the first blow; Thomas revised his future report to fit Hitler's wishes. The Red Army's ineptitude in

24375-490: The end of 1941, and the subsequent Soviet winter counteroffensive pushed the Germans about 250 km (160 mi) back. German high command anticipated a quick collapse of Soviet resistance as in the invasion of Poland , analogous to the reaction Russia had during World War I, but instead the Red Army absorbed the German Wehrmacht ' s strongest blows and bogged it down in a war of attrition for which

24570-593: The engine cowling and synchronized to fire through the propeller arc. In contrast, most versions of the German Messerschmitt Bf 109 that it encountered had one 20 mm (0.79 in) cannon and two 7.92 mm (0.31 in) machine guns (although the Bf 109F used during Operation Barbarossa had a 15 mm MG 151/15, meaning that it was armed little better than the MiG). To remedy this problem, 821 aircraft were built with one 12.7 mm UBK machine gun in

24765-405: The engines had not been properly adjusted. They went as far as arranging for two more flights between Leningrad and Moscow to prove that the MiG-3 could fly 1,000 km (621 mi). Two production aircraft were flown on ranges of 1,100 km (680 mi) and 971 km (603 mi), flying at 90% of maximum speed and at an altitude of 7,300 m (24,000 ft), contradicting the report of

24960-472: The eventual defeat and collapse of Nazi Germany in 1945. The theme of Barbarossa had long been used by the Nazi Party as part of their political imagery, though this was really a continuation of the glorification of the famous Crusader king by German nationalists since the 19th century. According to a Germanic medieval legend, revived in the 19th century by the nationalistic tropes of German Romanticism ,

25155-475: The exact German launch date, but Sorge and other informers had previously given different invasion dates that passed peacefully before the actual invasion. Stalin acknowledged the possibility of an attack in general and therefore made significant preparations, but decided not to run the risk of provoking Hitler. In early 1941, Stalin authorised the State Defence Plan 1941 (DP-41), which along with

25350-537: The fighting between the Crusaders and the Lithuanians for the area went on until the Lithuanians eventually took control in 1404; it was an important point during the 1409 Samogitian Rebellion and the 1410 war with the Crusaders . Grand Duke Vytautas the Great funded Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Kaunas (the construction was completed in 1400) to show his gratitude to

25545-566: The first issue of the daily Į laisvę (Towards Freedom) newspaper, the Independence Restoration Declaration was published, which had been previously announced on the radio. It stated that "The established Provisional Government of revived Lithuania declares the restoration of the Free and Independent State of Lithuania. The young Lithuanian state enthusiastically pledges to contribute to the organization of Europe on

25740-548: The former Bernardine Monastery Palace and St. George the Martyr Church . Only selected noblemen were permitted to study in the Seminary, with the only exception being peasant son Antanas Baranauskas , who illegally received the nobleman documents from Karolina Praniauskaitė . He began lectures using the Lithuanian language , rather than Russian, and greatly influenced the spirit of the seminarians by narrating about

25935-449: The former aircraft repair plant at Khodynka Aerodrome (Moscow) was to be transferred to the NKAP, redesignated as Zavod Nr. 165, and begin production of MiG-3s. The German advance disrupted these plans for Zavod 165 and it never produced a single MiG-3. Deliveries to frontline fighter regiments began in the spring of 1941 and were a handful for pilots accustomed to the lower-performance and docile Polikarpov I-152 and I-153 biplanes and

26130-582: The fourth largest city in the Baltic States and an important centre of Lithuanian economic, academic, and cultural life. Kaunas was the largest city and the centre of a county  [ pl ] in the Duchy of Trakai of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Trakai Palatinate since 1413. In the Russian Empire , it was the capital of the Kaunas Governorate from 1843 to 1915. During

26325-849: The high-ranking officials of the state. Both targets of the ultimatum, Minister of the Interior Kazys Skučas and the Director of the State Security Department of Lithuania Augustinas Povilaitis , were transported to Moscow and later executed. Antanas Gustaitis , Kazys Bizauskas , Vytautas Petrulis , Kazimieras Jokantas , Jonas Masiliūnas , Antanas Tamošaitis also faced that fate, and President Aleksandras Stulginskis , Juozas Urbšys , Leonas Bistras , Antanas Merkys , Pranas Dovydaitis , Petras Klimas , Donatas Malinauskas and thousands of others were deported . Stasys Raštikis , persuaded by his wife, secretly crossed

26520-405: The historical coat of arms of Kaunas city was re-established by a special presidential decree. The coat of arms features a white aurochs with a golden cross between its horns , set against a deep red background. The aurochs was the original heraldic symbol of the city, established in 1400. The heraldic seal of Kaunas, introduced in the early 15th century during the reign of Grand Duke Vytautas,

26715-569: The improvements learned from the first four. It was approved for use after trials at the NII VVS. To improve their service ceiling two aircraft were reduced in weight to 3,098 kg (6,830 lb), but no further details are known other than one reached a height of 11,750 metres (38,550 ft). There was also a proposal in 1941 to use the MiG-3 as part of a Zveno combination with a Petlyakov Pe-8 mother ship. The four-engined bomber would carry two MiG-3SPB ( Skorostnoy Pikeeruyushchiy Bombardirovshchik —Fast Dive Bomber) fighters, modified to carry

26910-628: The interwar period and versatile modernism architecture . Kaunas was selected as the European Capital of Culture for 2022, together with Esch-sur-Alzette and Novi Sad . The city is the capital of Kaunas County , and the seat of the Kaunas city municipality and the Kaunas District Municipality . It is also the seat of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Kaunas . Kaunas is located at

27105-512: The interwar period from ~18,000 to ~154,000 residents. Between the World Wars , industry prospered in Kaunas, which was the largest city in Lithuania. Under the direction of Mayor Jonas Vileišis (1921–1931) Kaunas grew rapidly and was extensively modernised. A water and waste water system, costing more than 15 million Lithuanian litas, was put in place, the city expanded from 18 to 40 square kilometres (6.9 to 15.4 sq mi), more than 2,500 buildings were built, plus three modern bridges over

27300-439: The invasion. Buell adds that an unusually wet winter kept rivers at full flood until late spring. The floods may have discouraged an earlier attack, even if they occurred before the end of the Balkans Campaign. The importance of the delay is still debated. William Shirer argued that Hitler's Balkan Campaign had delayed the commencement of Barbarossa by several weeks and thereby jeopardised it. Many later historians argue that

27495-460: The last being withdrawn from service before the end of the war. The large number of defects noted during flight testing of the MiG-1 forced Mikoyan and Gurevich to make a number of modifications to the design. Testing was done on a full-size aircraft in the T-1 wind tunnel belonging to the Central Aero and Hydrodynamics Institute (TsAGI) to evaluate the problems and their proposed solutions. The first aircraft to see all of these changes applied

27690-449: The meeting in which the ministers participated together with the former President Kazys Grinius , Bishop Vincentas Brizgys and others. Ministers expressed distress at the atrocities being committed against the Jews but advised only that "despite all the measures which must be taken against the Jews for their Communist activity and harm done to the German Army , partisans and individuals should avoid public executions of Jews". According to

27885-506: The name of the city of Kaunas is that it is derived from an old adjective which is not in use anymore and which meant "deep", "low", "located in the valley". Before Lithuania regained independence, the city was generally known in English as Kovno , the traditional Slavicized form of its name. The Polish name is Kowno [ˈkɔvnɔ] , and the names in Belarusian include Koўна ( Kowna [ˈkou̯nɐ] ) and Каўнас ( Kawnas [ˈkau̯nɐs] ). The Yiddish name

28080-505: The negotiations differently and were willing to make huge economic concessions to secure a relationship under general terms acceptable to the Germans just a year before. On 25 November 1940, the Soviet Union offered a written counter-proposal to join the Axis if Germany would agree to refrain from interference in the Soviet Union's sphere of influence, but Germany did not respond. As both sides began colliding with each other in Eastern Europe, conflict appeared more likely, although they did sign

28275-435: The new Provisional Government, but they did not take any action to dissolve it. The Provisional Government, not agreeing to continue to be an instrument of the German occupiers, disbanded itself on 5 August 1941 after signing a protest for the Germans action of suspending the Lithuanian Government powers. Members of the Provisional Government then went as a body to the Garden of the Vytautas the Great War Museum , where they laid

28470-455: The non-German populations in the East. Himmler believed the Germanisation process in Eastern Europe would be complete when "in the East dwell only men with truly German, Germanic blood." The Nazi secret plan Generalplan Ost , prepared in 1941 and confirmed in 1942, called for a "new order of ethnographical relations" in the territories occupied by Nazi Germany in Eastern Europe. It envisaged ethnic cleansing , executions and enslavement of

28665-399: The officers dismissed during the Great Purge were reinstated by 1941. Also, between January 1939 and May 1941, 161 new divisions were activated. Therefore, although about 75 percent of all the officers had been in their position for less than one year at the start of the German invasion of 1941, many of the short tenures can be attributed not only to the purge but also to the rapid increase in

28860-506: The operation was to be carried out. Hitler also renamed the operation to Barbarossa in honor of medieval Emperor Friedrich I of the Holy Roman Empire, a leader of the Third Crusade in the 12th century. The Barbarossa Decree , issued by Hitler on 30 March 1941, supplemented the Directive by decreeing that the war against the Soviet Union would be one of annihilation and legally sanctioned the eradication of all Communist political leaders and intellectual elites in Eastern Europe. The invasion

29055-410: The operational objective of any invasion of the Soviet Union. This assault would extend from the northern city of Arkhangelsk on the Arctic Sea through Gorky and Rostov to the port city of Astrakhan at the mouth of the Volga on the Caspian Sea . The report concluded that—once established—this military border would reduce the threat to Germany from attacks by enemy bombers . Although Hitler

29250-401: The outcome of these conversations, all preparations for the East previously ordered orally are to be continued. [Written] directives on that will follow as soon as the basic elements of the army's plan for the operation have been submitted to me and approved by me." There would be no "long-term agreement with Russia" given that the Nazis intended to go to war with them; but the Soviets approached

29445-412: The pilots were forced to bail out , one being killed. The NII VVS sent an engineer to investigate and he found that the pilots had flown very few hours on the MiG-3 and that that was their first high-altitude sortie. Other problems included insufficient fuel and oil pressure at altitude due to problems with the pumps. The MiG-3's top speed of 640 km/h (398 mph) at 7,200 metres (23,622 ft)

29640-452: The plan for Barbarossa. This belief later led to disputes between Hitler and several German senior officers, including Heinz Guderian , Gerhard Engel , Fedor von Bock and Franz Halder , who believed the decisive victory could only be delivered at Moscow. They were unable to sway Hitler, who had grown overconfident in his own military judgment as a result of the rapid successes in Western Europe. The Germans had begun massing troops near

29835-405: The plans of Lithuania's "legal accession to the USSR", on 1 July, the Seimas of Lithuania was dismissed, and elections to the puppet People's Seimas were announced. The controlled (passports had imprints) and falsified elections to the People's Seimas were won by the Lithuanian Labour People's Union, which obeyed the occupiers' proposal to "ask" the Soviet authorities to have Lithuania admitted to

30030-511: The populations of conquered countries, with very small percentages undergoing Germanisation, expulsion into the depths of Russia or other fates, while the conquered territories would be Germanised. The plan had two parts, the Kleine Planung ('small plan'), which covered actions to be taken during the war and the Große Planung ('large plan'), which covered policies after the war was won, to be implemented gradually over 25 to 30 years. A speech given by General Erich Hoepner demonstrates

30225-446: The range results as their calculations showed that the MiG-3 could reach 1,010 km (630 mi) based on a specific fuel consumption (SFC) of 0.46 kg/km (1.64 lb/mile). During the State acceptance trials the SFC was 0.48 kg/km (1.71 lb/mile) but the operational trials conducted earlier showed a SFC of 0.38 kg/km (1.35 lb/mile). They blamed the deficiency on a failure to use an altitude correction and that

30420-412: The rapid defeat of France at the hands of the "invincible" Wehrmacht and by traditional German stereotypes of Russia as a primitive, backward "Asiatic" country. Red Army soldiers were considered brave and tough, but the officer corps was held in contempt. The leadership of the Wehrmacht paid little attention to politics, culture, and the considerable industrial capacity of the Soviet Union, in favour of

30615-424: The reality of the repressive and brutal Soviet rule, in the early morning of 22 June 1941 (the first day when the Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union ), Lithuanians began the June Uprising , which was organized by the Lithuanian Activist Front , in Kaunas, where its main forces were concentrated. The uprising soon expanded to Vilnius and other locations. Its main goal was not to fight the Soviets but to secure

30810-443: The rebellion was taking place in the country, the insurgents took Kaunas and the Proclamation of the Independence Restoration of Lithuania and the list of the Provisional Government were announced by Leonas Prapuolenis . The message was being repeated several times in different languages. The Provisional Government hoped that Nazi Germany would re-establish Lithuanian independence or at least allow some degree of autonomy (similar to

31005-509: The rest of Europe. Other historians contend that Stalin did not plan for such an attack in June 1941, given the parlous state of the Red Army at the time of the invasion. Stalin's reputation as a brutal dictator contributed both to the Nazis' justification of their assault and to their expectations of success, as Stalin's Great Purge of the 1930s had executed many competent and experienced military officers, leaving Red Army leadership weaker than their German adversary. The Nazis often emphasized

31200-409: The rest of the world learned of this pact but were unaware of the provisions to partition Poland. The pact stunned the world because of the parties' earlier mutual hostility and their conflicting ideologies . The conclusion of this pact was followed by the German invasion of Poland on 1 September that triggered the outbreak of World War II in Europe , then the Soviet invasion of Poland that led to

31395-403: The role of political commissars at the divisional level and below to oversee the political loyalty of the army to the regime. The commissars held a position equal to that of the commander of the unit they were overseeing. But in spite of efforts to ensure the political subservience of the armed forces, in the wake of Red Army's poor performance in Poland and in the Winter War, about 80 percent of

31590-431: The shelters deliberately fired on the Red Army, the detachments suffering heavy losses of soldiers and military equipment". About 5,000 occupants were killed in Lithuania. On 23 June 1941 at 9:28 am Tautiška giesmė , the national anthem of Lithuania, was played on the radio in Kaunas. Many people listened to the Lithuanian national anthem with tears in their eyes. From Kaunas radio broadcasts, Lithuania learned that

31785-431: The situation. He approached the Kaunas War Field Commandant General Oswald Pohl and the Military Command Representative General Karl von Roques by trying to plead for him to spare the Jews, but they replied that the Gestapo is handling those issues and that they could not help. Furthermore, in the beginning of the occupation, the prime minister of the Provisional Government of Lithuania, Juozas Ambrazevičius , convened

31980-528: The southern section was in Romania. The German forces in the rear (mostly Waffen-SS and Einsatzgruppen units) were to operate in conquered territories to counter any partisan activity in areas they controlled, as well as to execute captured Soviet political commissars and Jews. On 17 June, Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) chief Reinhard Heydrich briefed around thirty to fifty Einsatzgruppen commanders on "the policy of eliminating Jews in Soviet territories, at least in general terms". While

32175-553: The start of the invasion, the manpower of the Soviet military force that had been mobilised was 5.3–5.5 million, and it was still increasing as the Soviet reserve force of 14 million, with at least basic military training, continued to mobilise. The Red Army was dispersed and still preparing when the invasion commenced. Their units were often separated and lacked adequate transportation. While transportation remained insufficient for Red Army forces, when Operation Barbarossa kicked off, they possessed some 33,000 pieces of artillery,

32370-462: The third-leading Soviet, and Allied, ace of the war, with 53 official air victories (plus six shared), recorded a number of those victories while flying a MiG-3 at the beginning of the war. He later recalled: “Its designers rarely succeeded in matching both the fighter's flight characteristics with its firepower… the operational advantage of the MiG-3 seemed to be obscured by its certain defects. However, these advantages could undoubtedly be exploited by

32565-513: The time and widespread café culture. The interim capital and the country itself also had a Western standard of living with sufficiently high salaries and low prices. At the time, qualified workers there were earning very similar real wages to workers in Germany , Italy , Switzerland and France , the country also had a high natural increase in population of 9.7 and the industrial production of Lithuania increased by 160% from 1913 to 1940. The population of Kaunas increased 8,6 times during

32760-450: The trucks for supplies. The most advanced Soviet tank models—the KV-1 and T-34 —which were superior to all current German tanks, as well as all designs still in development as of the summer 1941, were not available in large numbers at the time the invasion commenced. Furthermore, in the autumn of 1939, the Soviets disbanded their mechanised corps and partly dispersed their tanks to infantry divisions; but following their observation of

32955-412: The untrained pilots of the 31st Fighter Regiment, those of the 4th Fighter Regiment were able to claim three German high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft shot down before war broke out in June 1941. High-altitude combat of this sort was to be rare on the Eastern Front where most air-to-air engagements were at altitudes well below 5,000 m (16,000 ft). At these altitudes the MiG-3 was outclassed by

33150-407: The use of forced labour to stimulate Germany's overall economy and the expansion of territory to improve Germany's efforts to isolate the United Kingdom. Hitler was further convinced that Britain would sue for peace once the Germans triumphed in the Soviet Union, and if they did not, he would use the resources gained in the East to defeat the British Empire . We only have to kick in the door and

33345-399: The victories in Western Europe finally freed his hands for a "final showdown" with Bolshevism. With the successful end to the campaign in France , General Erich Marcks was assigned the task of drawing up the initial invasion plans of the Soviet Union. The first battle plans were entitled Operation Draft East (colloquially known as the Marcks Plan ). His report advocated the A-A line as

33540-412: The war began, the Nazis issued a ban on sexual relations between Germans and foreign slaves . There were regulations enacted against the Ost-Arbeiter ('Eastern workers') that included the death penalty for sexual relations with a German. Heinrich Himmler , in his secret memorandum, Reflections on the Treatment of Peoples of Alien Races in the East (dated 25 May 1940), outlined the Nazi plans for

33735-519: The wax processing, and woolen cloth-trimming facilities. The power of the self-governing Kaunas was shared by three interrelated major institutions: vaitas (the Mayor ), the Magistrate (12 lay judges and 4 burgomasters ), and the so-called Benchers ' Court (12 persons). Kaunas began to gain prominence, since it was at the intersection of trade routes and a river port . At the time, Kaunas became an important port and centre of trade with Western Europe , thus rapidly growing. In 1441, Kaunas joined

33930-419: The whole rotten structure will come crashing down. Hitler received the final military plans for the invasion on 5 December 1940, which the German High Command had been working on since July 1940, under the codename "Operation Otto." Upon reviewing the plans, Hitler formally committed Germany to the invasion when he issued Führer Directive 21 on 18 December 1940, where he outlined the precise manner in which

34125-510: Was a centre of Jewish learning, and the yeshiva in Slobodka ( Vilijampolė ) was one of Europe's most prestigious institutes of higher Jewish learning. Kaunas had a rich and varied Jewish culture . There were almost 100 Jewish organizations, 40 synagogues, many Yiddish schools, 4 Hebrew high schools , a Jewish hospital , and scores of Jewish-owned businesses. It was also an important Zionist centre. Initially prior to World War II , Lithuania declared neutrality . However, on 7 October 1939,

34320-405: Was based on Ultra information obtained from broken Enigma traffic. But Stalin's distrust of the British led him to ignore their warnings in the belief that they were a trick designed to bring the Soviet Union into the war on their side. Soviet intelligence also received word of an invasion around 20 June from Mao Zedong whose spy, Yan Baohang, had overheard talk of the plans at a dinner with

34515-427: Was established on the site of the current Kaunas Old Town, at the confluence of two large rivers, by at latest the 10th century AD and more settlements developed in the 11th century AD. Kaunas was first mentioned in written sources in 1361 and at the end of the 13th century the brick Kaunas Castle was constructed to defend the residents from attacks by the Teutonic Order . At the time only two brick castles stood near

34710-409: Was exacerbated by the MiG-3's poor climb performance, its instability at high speeds (which can make aerial gunnery difficult due to the point of aim "wandering" and requiring constant pilot input to remain on target), and its underpowered armament. The MiG-3's standard armament was one 12.7 mm (0.50 in) UBS machine gun and two 7.62 mm (0.30 in) ShKAS machine guns , all mounted in

34905-585: Was executed or imprisoned. Many of their replacements, appointed by Stalin for political reasons, lacked military competence. Of the five Marshals of the Soviet Union appointed in 1935, only Kliment Voroshilov and Semyon Budyonny survived Stalin's purge. Tukhachevsky was killed in 1937. Fifteen of 16 army commanders, 50 of the 57 corps commanders, 154 of the 186 divisional commanders, and 401 of 456 colonels were killed, and many other officers were dismissed. In total, about 30,000 Red Army personnel were executed. Stalin further underscored his control by reasserting

35100-404: Was faster than the 615 km/h (382 mph) of the German Messerschmitt Bf 109 F-2 in service at the beginning of 1941 and the British Supermarine Spitfire V 's 603 km/h (375 mph). At lower altitudes the MiG's speed advantage disappeared as its maximum speed at sea level was only 505 km/h (314 mph) while the Bf 109F-2 could do 515 km/h (320 mph). Unfortunately for

35295-536: Was formed in 1843. In 1862, a railway connecting the Russian Empire and Imperial Germany was built, making Kaunas a significant railway hub with one of the first railway tunnels in the Empire, completed in 1861. In 1898 the first power plant in Lithuania started operating. After the unsuccessful January Uprising in 1863 against the Russian Empire, the tsarist authority moved the Catholic Seminary of Varniai , prominent bishop Motiejus Valančius and Samogitian diocese institutions to Kaunas, where they were given

35490-429: Was its gunsights , which were inaccurate: that's why we closed in as much as we could and fired point blank". On 22 June 1941, most MiG-3s and MiG-1s were in the border military districts of the Soviet Union. The Leningrad Military District had 164, 135 were in the Baltic Military District , 233 in the Western Special Military District , 190 in the Kiev Military District and 195 in the Odessa Military District for

35685-436: Was largely organized by the military, especially general Povilas Plechavičius , and resulted in the replacement of the democratically elected Government and President Kazys Grinius with a conservative nationalist authoritarian Government led by Antanas Smetona . Shortly afterwards, tension between Antanas Smetona and Augustinas Voldemaras , supported by the Iron Wolf Association , arose seeking to gain authority. After

35880-449: Was little danger of a large-scale retreat of the Red Army into the Russian interior, as it could not afford to give up the Baltic countries, Ukraine, or the Moscow and Leningrad regions, all of which were vital to the Red Army for supply reasons and would thus, have to be defended. Hitler and his generals disagreed on where Germany should focus its energy. Hitler, in many discussions with his generals, repeated his order of "Leningrad first,

36075-445: Was moved to Žaliakalnis , armed with advanced and brand new tanks, including the famous Renault FT , Vickers-Armstrong Model 1933 and Model 1936. In May 1919, the Lithuanian Aircraft State Factory was founded in Freda to repair and to supply the army with military aircraft . It was considerably modernized by Antanas Gustaitis and started to build Lithuanian ANBO military aircraft. The exceptional discipline and regularity caused

36270-419: Was tentatively set for May 1941, but it was delayed for over a month to allow for further preparations and possibly better weather. the purpose of the Russian campaign [is] the decimation of the Slavic population by thirty million. According to a 1978 essay by German historian Andreas Hillgruber , the invasion plans drawn up by the German military elite were substantially coloured by hubris, stemming from

36465-399: Was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and many of its Axis allies , starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during World War II . It was the largest and costliest land offensive in human history, with around 10 million combatants taking part, and over 8 million casualties by the end of the operation. The operation, code-named after Frederick I "Barbarossa" ("red beard"),

36660-502: Was the fourth prototype of the I-200. It first flew on 29 October 1940 and was approved for production after passing its State acceptance trials. The first MiG-3, as the improved aircraft was named on 9 December, was completed on 20 December 1940 and another 20 were delivered by the end of the year. These changes included: State acceptance testing of two production aircraft was conducted between 27 January and 26 February 1941. They were found to be over 250 kg (550 lb) heavier than

36855-407: Was the pair of MiG-3s dispatched from the 55th on a reconnaissance mission to Ploieşti that failed to properly calculate their fuel consumption and both were forced to land when they ran out of fuel. Most of the MiG-3s assigned to the interior military districts were transferred to the PVO where their lack of performance at low altitudes was not so important. On 10 July 299 were assigned to the PVO,

37050-654: Was the real target. These simulated preparations in Norway and the English Channel coast included activities such as ship concentrations, reconnaissance flights and training exercises. The reasons for the postponement of Barbarossa from the initially planned date of 15 May to the actual invasion date of 22 June 1941 (a 38-day delay) are debated. The reason most commonly cited is the unforeseen contingency of invading Yugoslavia and Greece on 6 April 1941 until June 1941. Historian Thomas B. Buell indicates that Finland and Romania, which weren't involved in initial German planning, needed additional time to prepare to participate in

37245-424: Was to create more Lebensraum (living space) for Germany, and the eventual extermination of the native Slavic peoples by mass deportation to Siberia , Germanisation , enslavement, and genocide . In the two years leading up to the invasion, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union signed political and economic pacts for strategic purposes. Following the Soviet occupation of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina ,

37440-619: Was to follow the Drang nach Osten ('turn to the East') as it did "600 years ago" (see Ostsiedlung ). Accordingly, it was a partially secret but well-documented Nazi policy to kill, deport, or enslave the majority of Russian and other Slavic populations and repopulate the land west of the Urals with Germanic peoples, under Generalplan Ost (General Plan for the East). The Nazis' belief in their ethnic superiority pervades official records and pseudoscientific articles in German periodicals, on topics such as "how to deal with alien populations." While older histories tended to emphasize

37635-480: Was to operate in far northern Scandinavia and bordering Soviet territories . Army Group North was to march through Latvia and Estonia into northern Russia, then either take or destroy the city of Leningrad , and link up with Finnish forces. Army Group Centre, the army group equipped with the most armour and air power, was to strike from Poland into Belorussia and the west-central regions of Russia proper, and advance to Smolensk and then Moscow. Army Group South

37830-441: Was to strike the heavily populated and agricultural heartland of Ukraine, taking Kiev before continuing eastward over the steppes of southern USSR to the Volga with the aim of controlling the oil-rich Caucasus . Army Group South was deployed in two sections separated by a 198-mile (319 km) gap. The northern section, which contained the army group's only panzer group, was in southern Poland right next to Army Group Centre, and

38025-421: Was warned by many high-ranking military officers, such as Friedrich Paulus , that occupying Western Russia would create "more of a drain than a relief for Germany's economic situation," he anticipated compensatory benefits such as the demobilisation of entire divisions to relieve the acute labour shortage in German industry, the exploitation of Ukraine as a reliable and immense source of agricultural products,

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