Global True Lithuania Encyclopedia of Lithuanian heritage worldwide

Germany

Germany has some of Europe’s greatest and most important Lithuanian heritage sites.

Most of them are related to the DPs, some 100,000 Lithuanians who fled Lithuania in 1944 before the Soviets re-occupied it. The majority of them ended up in DP camps in West Germany, and while many emigrated further on, more have remained in Germany for good than in any other European country.

The storied history of Lithuanian sites in Germany far predates that, though. It includes the tragedies of Lithuanians deported to Germany’s concentration camps by the Nazis, the marks left by the pre-WW1 Lithuanians who used Germany’s ports for their embarkation to emigrate to the USA, and the 18th century when, at one time, the same rulers ruled both Lithuania and parts of Germany, leading to possibly hundreds of Lithuanian coat of arms symbols chiseled on various German buildings.

Rennhof Castle, the heart of Germany's Lithuanian community

Lithuanian DP camps in Germany

Germany had occupied Lithuania during World War 2 (1941-1944) and taken thousands to forced labor in Germany. Ironically, after a couple of years, the same German cities became the main refuge for Lithuanians as Lithuania was occupied by an even more brutal force: the Soviet Union. ~100,000 fled westwards as they knew they would be on the Soviet killing lists for their ethnicity, religiousness, and/or the past (e.g. having had an intellectual job or participated in the Boy Scouts movement). ~65 000 of them ended up in West German refugee camps (other sources claim ~200 000), established by Western Allies. There were 113 of them, aimed to maintain a quality of life for refugees not worse than that of ethnic Germans.

The former DP camp in Augsburg

However, the life of those who had just lost their homeland was still hard and their future seemed unknown. Yet even under these conditions Lithuanians swiftly organized. By 1948 there were 158 Lithuanian schools in Germany, of them 26 colleges and even a Baltic University. Lithuanian DP camps were essentially “Little Lithuanias” where, while subjected to the laws of the powers occupying Germany, Lithuanians had a significant cultural freedom

~1948-1952 the USA, Canada, Australia, and other countries agreed to accept Lithuanian refugees and so most of them departed, and their institutions closed. Many monuments Lithuanians built were also lost (e.g. Vytautas monument in Memmingen), likely being demolished by Germans or the new owners of those sites, yet some monuments survived.

Augsburg DP camp

Augsburg is likely the DP camp where the most reminders of Lithuanian DPs survive. The entire district of the town that served as a DP camp survives, yet the most important here are two Lithuanian monuments. In the late 1940s, some 1900 Lithuanian DPs lived in Augsburg alone.

A district that housed a DP camp in Augsburg, Germany

The Lithuanian cross was designed by the famous architect Jonas Mulokas, who later created his most famous works in the USA where he created the modern Lithuanian architectural style. Himself a DP who lived in Augsburg camp, he was still a young architect at the time, yet the huge wooden cross goes beyond Lithuanian traditions, with sculptures of Samogitian bishops Motiejus Valančius, Merkelis Giedraitis, St. Casimir, and Mother Mary surrounding the shaft of the cross. At the bottom of the cross, each side hosts an inscription in a different language: native Lithuanian, local German, as well as English and French (the languages of powers that were then occupying Western Germany).

Augsburg Lithuanian cross

The inscription reads “The Lithuanian emigrants in Augsburg thanking their benefactors and honoring the killed as well as entreating the Lord to bless them erected this Lithuanian cross which was witness that the Lithuanians displaced by the war longed for their native country and yearned after their liberty”. This very much sums up the goals and desires of the DPs at the time.

The cross was renewed in 1984 and 2015.

While living in this DP camp, Lithuanians would have a Lithuanian mass at the St. Canisius Church nearby. There, they put up a plaque in Latin commemorating the Lithuanian pains, which also includes two lines of the Lithuanian national anthem “Tegu meilė Lietuvos dega mūsų širdyse” (“Let the love of Lithuania burn in our hears”).

Lithuanian plaque at the St. Canisius Church

Besides Jonas Mulokas, many other famous Lithuanians stayed in Augsburg, including writer Antanas Škėma. Colonel Viktoras Reimontas died in Augsburg; he is buried under an iconic gravestone in Hermannstrasse Cemetery.

Viktoras Reimontas gravestone

Flossenbürg Concentration Camp

Flossenbürg Concentration Camp hosts a Lithuanian monument that was one of the first monuments in Germany commemorating the victims of the Nazis. When it was built in 1947, Germans still viewed Nazis favorably, often protesting any attempts to try them as “victor’s justice”.

Flossenbürg Concentration (later DP) camp. Many of the original buildings were demolished

It was possible to build the monument due to unique situation of the Flossenbürg camp. Initially started as a prison for criminals in 1938 who worked in nearby mines, as the World War 2 progressed, the camp transformed into a prison for political prisoners from occupied countries, among them Lithuania. Then, as Nazi Germany was defeated, the camp housed Nazi war prisoners in 1945 and in 1946 it became a DP camp. Unbelievable, Lithuanian (and other) DPs who were fleeing the Soviet occupation were now housed in the same camp where many of their compatriots have been recently murdered. The crematorium, watchtower are standing still, as are the locations were murders took place.

Lithuanian monument at the Flossenbürg camp. Behind it on the left there is a crematorium and in the center - a guard tower.

However, such unique situation allowed the DPs to build the memorials in what was essentially their own territory. The area has numerous “graves” each dedicated by and for some nation whose prisoners were killed by Nazis here. One of these “graves” is Lithuanian. Yet Lithuanians also have their own unique monument which they built right at the beginning. This monument by Adolfas Tylius incorporates Vytis, Three Crosses (likely symbolic of the monument in Vilnius) and phrases in four languages (native Lithuanian, local German, occupying-powers English and French) describing this: “Defending the honour of our country we died, bequeathing as a rich legacy to humanity 2480 Lithuanian martyrs”.

Lithuanian plaque in Flossenbürg

While the nearby museum disputes the exact number, and the estimates of Lithuanian prisoners who were imprisoned in Flossenbürg vary wildly (250, 900, 3000), the number should probably be seen not as that of Lithuanians killed here, but of Lithuanians killed in some wider area by the Nazis, as Lithuanian DPs who lived here soon after the war had no possibility to know which of the Lithuanians were murdered in this camp and which were murdered somewhere else. The total number of people killed in this camp ranges from 30000 to 73296 in various estimates, they belonged to 18 ethnicities.

Valley of national monuments looking from above

The Flossenbürg Museum itself, by the way, was established only in 2007, with the buildings being used for other purposes until that, some of the original buildings were demolished. At the time, the field with the monuments would be marked as a cemetery rather than a concentration camp on the map.

Lithuanian Memorials in Detmold and Wehnen

While Lithuanian monuments survived in a few DP camps, in some of them monuments were built later, commemorating the Lithuanian story.

One such camp is Wehnen, where a metal Lithuanian cross was built by the DP children in 2015. This camp housed some 1000 Lithuanians, although the original buildings were mostly destroyed and a road was constructed. The monument by Dausakalys has an inscription on a separate plaque nearby: „Iš Tėvynės Lietuvos 1944 mes bėgome nuo Sovietų. DP lageryje Wehnen nuo 1946 iki 1959 m. mes radome prieglobstį ir naują Tėvynę. Mes rėmėmės krikščionišku tikėjimu, lietuvių kalba ir tautiškomis tradicijomis. Į visus pasaulio žemynus iš čia kelias vedė toliau naujos Tėvynės link. Tik nedaugelis liko čia Vokietijoje“. This means „We fled our motherland Lithuania in 1944 escaping the Soviets. In the DP lager Wehnen, we found a refuge and a new homeland from 1946 to 1959. Here we were living according to Christian belief, Lithuanian language, and ethnic traditions. From here, a road led to all the continents of the world towards a new motherland. Only a few remained here in Germany“. This sums up the story of the DPs well.

Lithuanina cross in Wehnen

Monument's dedication in Wehnen

On the now-student-dormitory where DPs were housed in Detmold was adorned by the statue of Lithuanian philosopher Vydūnas, as well as a plaque commemorating him. The plaque says “Lai bus atmintas Vydūnas ir jo krašto žmonės, po II pasaulinio karo radę prieglobstį šiuose namuose” (“Let Vydūnas and the people of his country, who found a refuge in this home after World War 2, be commemorated”). It also includes a quote representing Vydūnas’s philosophy that had “married” Lithuanian patriotism with Hindu mysticism: „Niekas pats savaime nepasidarė. Kiekvienas kilęs iš Didžiojo Slėpinio. Ir niekieno būtis nepriklauso nuo to, ką jis pats apie save žino“ (“No one has just naturally made itself. Everyone descends from the Great Secret. And no one’s being is correlated to what he knows about himself”).

Dormitory in Detmold that used to house Lithuanian DPs

Vydūnas belonged to Lithuanians of Lithuania Minor – the part of Lithuania which was ruled by Germany before World War 1. Unlike the rest of Lithuanians, Lithuania Minor Lithuanians were Lutherans and they had a different story than Lithuanian DPs: both Nazi Germany and Soviet Union saw them as „mostly Germans“, so Nazi Germany tried to evacuate them but Soviet Union persecuted them and killed many of them.

Vydūnas bust in Detmold

When in Germany, many Lithuanians from Lithuania Minor assimilated rather quickly, without joining the Lithuanian institutions and abandoning the language. Vydūnas, whose philosophy „married“ Lithuanian patriotism with eastern religiosity, was an exception, remaining with the Lithuanians until his death. With the total number of Lutheran Lithuanians who ended up in Germany far outnumbering that of the DPs (possibly ~200 000 or more), it is not strange that even with a low participation these Lutheran Lithuanians at first formed a considerable part of various Lithuanian organizations, unlike in any other countries (e.g. 50%).

Vydūnas plaque in Detmold

February 16th Lithuanian Private High School (castle)

Rennhof Castle in the small town of Hüttenfeld is the grandest Lithuanian site in Germany that has few equals in Western Europe. This castle, originally built in 1853 by the famous Rothschild banker family, was acquired by the Lithuanian National Executive Committee in Germany in 1953, using donations from Lithuanians worldwide. Lithuanians have renamed the castle Romuva; while this word means a Lithuanian pagan shrine, it was the word's similarity to the original name "Rennhof" rather than its meaning that made it a preferred choice to become a new name for the castle.

Rennhof Castle from above

At the time the castle was acquired, the DP camps almost empty, with most Lithuanians having departed for the USA, Canada, Australia or South America. Some 7000 Lithuanians remained in Germany, however (not counting the assimilating people from Lithuania Minor). Yet, they were spread across a large number of cities in West Germany. There were too few of them anywhere to actually keep the DP-established network of Lithuanian schools or other institutions operational (at one time in the 1940s, this network consisted of 26 high schools (gymnasiums), 14 middle schools (progymnasiums), 5 vocational schools, and 112 primary schools). As such, they decided to acquire a single large building that would serve as the main HQ for Germany’s Lithuanians with, most famously, the western world’s only Lithuanian boarding school, moved here from Diepholz DP camp in 1954, where it had been established in 1950. The current location is said to have been chosen to be as far from East Germany as possible, as, at the time, it was believed that Soviets could try to expand East Germany by attacking West Germany.

This school is the February 16th Gymnasium, named after Lithuania’s independence day. Over time, the gymnasium outgrew the castle, with a separate school building constructed in 1963-1965, a girls’ dormitory in 1972, a boys’ dormitory in 1985-1987, and a school building extension to meet the tightening German rules was built in 2012. The expansions of the gymnasium were funded by Lithuanians all over the world who saw it as a primary Lithuanian hub in Europe, especially while Lithuania was occupied from 1940 to 1990, as well as the governments of Lithuania and Germany. Note: while "February 16th Gymnasium" is the official name for the school in the Lithuanian language since 1951 ("Vasario 16-osios gimnazija"), in German language, it is typically referred to just as "Private Lithuanian Gymnasium" ("Privates Litauisches Gymnasium"), with gymnasium meaning a higher level high school in both Germany and Lithuania.

1963-1965 building of the gymnasium

Initially, the February 16th gymnasium taught Lithuanian children from all over Germany as no Lithuanian schools remained in their cities. The children would live in the dormitories, coming home only sometimes. Over time, Lithuanian-American, Lithuanian-Australian and other DP children also discovered this school, where they typically learned better Lithuanian than anywhere else, both because of the teaching methods developed here and the mere fact that with Lithuanian children from different parts of the world studying and living together, Lithuanian language was the only one they had in common, making it the language they used to talk among themselves (unlike in their countries of birth where they would often use “more convenient” local languages to speak to their Lithuanian peers). Lithuanian-American Lithuanian Foundation would also fund Lithuanians from South America to study here, often for a year after completing their education at home; many of these February 16th gymnasium alumni now are the best-speakers of Lithuanian in their communities and the souls of various Lithuanian clubs of Argentina, Uruguay, and Brazil. This program ended in 2009.

Lithuanian sculptures in the gymnasium

After Lithuania became independent in 1990, however, the school lost the German support awarded to it as a refugee school. In order to have continuing state support, the school received full state accreditation 1999, beginning to accept German students and having a German curriculum; by 2012, nearly all the lessons were conducted in German language. However, the Lithuanian students (now mostly the children of post-1990 migrants to Germany) still learn Lithuanian language and history in Lithuanian, while German students (now a majority) have lessons about Lithuania taught in German. The school is Christian; it offers religious education for both Catholics and Lutherans.

Schedule of the gymnasium uses Lithuanian symbols

Over the time, the number of students in the gymnasium varied. In 1954, it had 180 students (100 protestants and 80 Catholics). However, by that time, many Lithuanian DPs were still leaving Germany, with 51 students eventually emigrating. In 1957, only 123 students remained (65 Catholics and 58 Protestants); among them were 15 students from other European countries. In 1968 there were 103 students, in 1972 – 77. Currently, there are ~180 students (but two thirds of them are not of Lithuanian descent).

While the gymnasium now mostly operates outside the castle itself, the castle includes:
*Lithuanian Cultural Institute with a library of Lithuanian books, an archive of Lithuanian materials, and a collection of Lithuanian traditional artworks, established in 1981. Many of the artworks that were taken out of Lithuania by the escaping DPs or created in the Lithuanian DP camps eventually ended up in the Rennhof Castle.
*The official HQ of the entire Lithuanian Community in Germany.
*A chapel of Lithuanian saints, opened in 1989 after the castle was renovated after the 1984 fire. A stained-glass window by Antanas Grabauskas was installed in 1993. It includes St. Casimir, Blessed Jurgis Matulaitis, the churches where they are buried, a traditional Lithuanian cross, a Lithuanian coat of arms, and other symbols. Next to the chapel, a plaque for priest Alfonsas Bernatonis (1914-1988) is installed. He found the Rennhof castle when looking for a new location for the school.

Lithuanian chapel in the Rennhof castle

Close-up of the stained-glass window

The castle complex also includes a park with many sculptural benches based on the Lithuanian and German folk tales. Other sculptures are based on the top sites of Lithuania or its legends, such as the Vilnius Gediminas Castle or the Iron wolf.

A folktale-inspired bench and a copy of the Gediminas Castle

In front of the gymnasium a traditional Lithuanian sun-cross stands. Originally built in the Seligenstadt Lithuanian DP camp, it was moved to Rennhof Castle when the camp was closed. The deteriorated original was replaced by the current cross in 1988/1989 by gymnasium students Robertas Ibarra (from Uruguay) and Mykolas Vaigelis (from West Germany). The original German-Latin-Lithuanian plaque asking God for blessings in a difficult journey of exile (signed “Exiled people who loved God and Fatherland” – originally “Viešpatie, maldaujame tavo globos ir pagalbos sunkioje tremties kelionėje! Čia gyveno lietuviai tremtiniai, kurie mylėjo Dievą ir Tėvynę”) was reinstalled on the cross.

Lithuanian cross of the Gymnasium

Lithuanian-Latvian-Estonian palace in Haus Annaberg

In Bonn, the former capital of West Germany, Lithuanians, Latvians, and Estonians acquired a palace. While the Lithuanian, Latvian, and Estonian DP histories are very similar, this is the only building anywhere in the world operated by the three groups together.

The idea of such an institution came to Jazeps Urdze. He was an ethnically Latvian Lutheran priest who spent his pre-refugee life in Lithuania, thus becoming acquainted with both languages and cultures. He traveled through the Baltic DP camps, encouraging Lithuanians, Latvians, and Estonians to search for God through the tragedy of World War 2. Urdze said to have received a vision of God asking him to create a home where these people could live together.

Haus Annaberg

Initially, his community lived in an abandoned airport given to them by the Allied occupational authorities but, after renovating that airport with their own labor and the donations of other Lutherans, they had it taken away by the newly independent West Germany. Then, they acquired the 1898-built Haus Annaberg palace in 1952, which was then expanded by a dormitory where Baltic students studying in Bonn could live.

Haus Annaberg park

To this day, Haus Annaberg hosts Lithuanian, Latvian, and Estonian events, although there are more of the latter. It has some 50 members, most of them German-born. Some ethnic Germans of the Baltic states who were allowed to emigrate by the Soviets after World War 2 also joined. The opulent authentic rooms of the palace could be rented as it also serves as a hotel.

Most famously, when, after declaring its independence in 1990, Lithuania was attacked by the Soviet Union in January 1991, the foreign minister of Lithuania Algirdas Saudargas spent a night here, with a mission to establish a Lithuanian government in exile in case Lithuania falls again to the Soviet Union (which didn’t happen).

Haus Annaberg interior

Lithuanian Plaza and Chapel in Bad Wörishofen

A small town of Bad Wörishofen in Bavaria has a Lithuanian Square [Litauenplatz], while the modern St. Ulrich church that stands at this square has a St. Casimir Chapel. A German inscription at its entrance says “Chapel of St. Casimir, patron of the Lithuanian people”, while behind the chapel’s altar, there is a mural of the Hill of Crosses in Lithuania.

St. Casimir Chapel

Inside the St. Casimir Chapel

These places were made possible by a Lithuanian DP priest who served this otherwise regular German parish Antanas Bunga. He served here until 1985 but the Lithuanian history continued, as another Lithuanian Antanas Deksnys worked here until 1999. During World War 2, some 25% of all Lithuanian priests fled, knowing that they were prime targets of the atheist Soviet occupational regime. There were more such priests than were needed to staff Lithuanian parishes worldwide, therefore, some were posted at non-Lithuanian parishes. That said, in addition to serving their parish, the priests of Bad Wörishofen also served the Lithuanians of Germany (while Antanas Deksnys was made a “bishop for all Lithuanians in Western Europe” in 1969). Being especially patriotic, these priests also tried to remind the locals about Lithuania and its plight, as evident in the Lithuanian sites of Bad Wörishofen.

Litauenplatz at Bad Worishofen

Saxon mile-posts with Lithuanian symbols

To this day many towns of Saxony are adorned by elaborate mileposts dating to the 18th century when Lithuania, Poland, and Saxony were ruled by the same monarchs for a period of 65 years (August II the Strong and August III). Many of them are adorned with a coat of arms of Lithuania-Poland and Saxony. This coat of arms includes two Lithuanian coats of arms (Vytis). Such mileposts were first erected in 1721 to mark the distances from market squares or city/town gates to the neighboring cities/towns. ~200 out of ~300 are said to survive, many of them renovated in recent decades as a pride of their towns.

Vytis (Lithuanian coat of arms) on a town center milepost

Not every milepost includes the Lithuanian coat of arms, however. There were, generally, several types of mileposts: the most elaborate ones (with the coat of arms) were built near the town gates (showing the distances to the nearby towns in that direction) or, later, in the central squares (showing the distances to all the nearby towns and cities in all directions). In addition to those, there were roadside mileposts built at a similar distance from each other (~566 m) – these do not include the coats of arms.

A city center milepost

A roadside milepost, without coats of arms

The Lithuanian coat of arms dating to the era appears many more locations in Saxony than just these mileposts. For example, the Pöppelmannbrücke bridge in Grimma is marked by a large Lithuanian coat of arms (the bridge had been commissioned by August II). Many Vytis signs also exist on the most famous buildings of Dresden, then capital of Saxony, including its Zwinger Palace, the Dresden Cathedral, the “Golden Horseman” monument to August II himself, and a Fürstenzug mosaic showing the history of Saxony.

Vytis and Polish coats of arms on the bridge at Grimma

Fürstenzug mosaic with Vytis

Lithuanian pre-WW1 migrant heritage

World War 2 era was not the first time Germany served as a transitional point for Lithuanians who left their homeland. This also happened before World War 1, when some 300 000 Lithuanians emigrated to the USA. With no direct shipping routes from Lithuania to the USA, most of them would go by land to Germany and board ships at its ports, such as Hamburg or Bremerhaven. No direct Lithuanian heritage sites remain from this era, but the German museums of emigration in these port cities includes stories that were typical to them (and other Eastern European migrants who boarded vessels to their new lives here).

Emigration museum in Bermerhaven

”Lithuanian” monuments in Berlin

Berlin, in theory, has several places related to Lithuania.

The Soviet memorial in Treptower Park (of what was East Berlin) has 16 concrete slabs that supposedly commemorate the 16 Soviet Socialist Republics of the Soviet Union that existed at the time of its construction (1949). One of them was the then-recently-occupied Lithuanian SSR. That said, each of the slabs is adorned with generic Soviet propaganda and Stalin quotes (in Russian language with German translations) with nothing at all related to the Soviet Socialist Republics they claim to represent. This was common in the Stalinist era when the memorial was built, when Soviet Socialist Republics were just meant to be russified and underwent genocides. The number of slabs thus simply represents the extent of conquests by the Soviet Union and not its nations or cultures. While many such memorials have falled in Eastern Europe, this one continues to be maintained and even was renovated by the unified Germany long after the communist East Germany ceased to exist.

A concrete block representing one of the "Soviet Socialist Republics" of the Soviet Union

A more unique story is that of a 10 m Obelisk 11 March by Braco Dimitrijević in Charlottenburg Park. The monument says “March 11th, this could be a day of historical importance“. It was erected in 1979. In 1990, Lithuania declared its independence from the Soviet Union on March 11th, thus seemingly fulfilling the prophecy on the monument. This fact made the monument popular among Berlin Lithuanians for various events, the supposed “prophechy coming true” even mentioned by the foreign minister of Lithuania. That said, Dmitrijevic built numerous such memorials for „non-famous places and times that may be famous“, while the reason why he chose March 11th for this particular monument was because he asked a passer-by for his birthday, and the passer-by replied “March 11th“.

Obelisk 11 March

March 11th inscription