Forest Brothers | |
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Participant in the guerrilla war in the Baltic states | |
Active | 1940–1941, 1944–1956 |
Ideology | National liberation |
Area of operations | Baltic states |
Size | ~50,000 |
Part of | Occupation of the Baltic states |
Allies | British, American and Swedish intelligence services, Finnish army |
Opponents | Red Army, NKVD |
The Forest Brothers (also Brothers of the Forest, Forest Brethren, or Forest Brotherhood; Estonian: metsavennad, Latvian: meža brāļi, Lithuanian: miško broliai) were Estonian, Latvian, and Lithuanian partisans who waged a guerrilla war against Soviet rule during the Soviet invasion and occupation of the three Baltic states during, and after, World War II. Similar anti-Soviet Eastern European resistance groups fought against Soviet and communist rule in Bulgaria, Poland, Romania, and western Ukraine.
The Red Army occupied the independent Baltic states in 1940–1941 and, after a period of German occupation, again in 1944–1945. As Stalinist repression intensified over the following years, 50,000 residents of these countries used the heavily forested countryside as a natural refuge and base for armed anti-Soviet resistance.