Algirdas Klimaitis
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Algirdas Klimaitis (often referred as Jonas Klimaitis in non-Lithuanian literature) was a Lithuanian journalist and military commander.
[edit] Biography
During the outbreak of the Operation Barbarossa, he formed a military unit of roughly 600 members and engaged in the battles with Soviet army for the control of Kaunas. On the evening of June 23, most of the city was in the hands of insurgents [1]. This unit was not subordinate to the Lithuanian Activist Front or the Provisional Government of Lithuania [2]. On the night from 25-26 June, instigated by Nazi Security Police (Sipo) and SD (Sicherheitsdienst or Security Service, the intelligence arm of the Nazi Party), the unit started pogroms of Jews. By 28 June, 1941, according to SS Brigadeführer Franz Walter Stahlecker, 3800 people were killed in Kaunas and further 1200 in other towns of the region [1]. Numbers of victims in Stahlecker's report are probably exaggerated but pogroms indeed have happened [2].
Algirdas Klimaitis was eventually discovered living in Hamburg, Germany in the 1980s. Klimaitis died at the old age in Germany.
[edit] References
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