Battle of Murowana Oszmianka

The Battle of Murowana Oszmianka of 13–14 May 1944 was the largest clash between the Polish resistance movement organization Home Army (Armia Krajowa, AK) and the Lithuanian Territorial Defense Force (LTDF); a Lithuanian volunteer security force subordinated to Nazi Germany occupational administration. The battle took place in and near the village of Murowana Oszmianka in Generalbezirk Litauen, part of the Reichskommissariat Ostland. The outcome of the battle was that the 301st LTDF battalion was routed and the entire force was disbanded by the Germans soon afterwards due to its members refusing to take an oath to Hitler and be subordinate to German commanders. In late April and early May 1944, the German authorities decided to transfer a significant part of the police duties in Lithuania to the newly created LTDF formation, which was ordered to initiate a wide anti-partisan operation against the Polish and Soviet partisans in the area. Three Lithuanian battalions were dispatched to man garrisons in and around the town of Ašmena. However, the battalions were dispersed into companies on the orders of the SS. The AK commander for the Vilnius region Aleksander "Wilk" Krzyżanowski mobilized the region's partisan troops in response, but they were ordered not to engage the German allied LTDF in order to prevent the escalation of Polish-Lithuanian hostilities. According to Povilas Plechavičius, While sending the battalions to the Vilnius region, it was secretly ordered to the battalion commanders to avoid engagements with already existing Polish partisans, because it was not in our interest to fight or destroy them. I ordered publicly that [LTDF] should behave in a knightly fashion with the local inhabitants, regardless of their spoken language. The Lithuanian troops, however, satisfied by their perceived superiority, started suppressing the local Polish communities suspected of harboring the anti-Nazi partisans; numerous war crimes were committed by the LTDF, notably atrocities against Polish civilians in lt, lt and pl.