Soviet Union. The guerrilla war in the Baltic states was an insurgency waged by Baltic Latvian , Lithuanian and Estonian partisans against the Soviet Union from to Soviet forces, consisting primarily of the Red Army , occupied the Baltic states in , completing their occupation by As Soviet political repression intensified over the following years, tens of thousands of partisans from the Baltics began to use the countryside as a base for an anti-Soviet insurgency. According to some estimates, at least 50, partisans 10, in Estonia, 10, in Latvia and 30, in Lithuania in addition to their supporters were involved in the insurgency.
The partisans continued to carry out an armed struggle until , when the superiority of the Soviet security forces, largely in the form of secret agents which infiltrated the partisan groups, caused the Baltic population to change tactics and use other forms of resistance.
Varying sources refer to the forest brothers of this era either as peasants revolting [ 7 ] or as schoolteachers seeking refuge in the forest. Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania gained their independence in after the collapse of the Russian Empire. Lithuanians re-established a sovereign state with a rich former history, the largest country in Europe during the 14th century, [ 10 ] occupied by the Russian Empire since In the aftermath of the MolotovβRibbentrop Pact , all three Baltic states were occupied by the Soviet Union in , a move that the Western Allies deemed illegitimate.
After the departure of Soviet troops from the region, formal independence to the Baltic states was not restored by Germany. Meanwhile, Allied declarations such as the Atlantic Charter offered promise of a post-war world in which the three Baltic states could re-establish themselves. Having already experienced occupation by the Soviet regime then the Nazi regime, many people were unwilling to accept another occupation at the end of the war.
The Germans came to see this force as a nationalist threat to their occupation. Approximately half the remaining forces formed guerrilla units and dissolved into the countryside to prepare for partisan operations against the Red Army as the Eastern Front approached. Guerrilla operations in Estonia and Latvia had some basis in Adolf Hitler 's authorization to withdraw from Estonia in mid-September β he allowed soldiers of his Estonian forces, primarily the 20th Waffen-SS Division 1st Estonian who wished to stay and defend their homes to do so [ citation needed ] β and in the fate of Army Group Courland , among the last of Hitler's forces to surrender after it became trapped in the Courland Pocket on the Courland Peninsula in Many Estonian and Latvian soldiers, and a few Germans, evaded capture and fought as Forest Brothers for years after the war.
