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Lithuania Karys 32 issues Smetona era Fascist army mags
$ 63.33
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Description
IThis is a collection of 32 issues of Karys the veterans mag of of Free Lithuania exiles who served under the fascistic dictator Antanas Smetona.
(I remember hearing from a pro-soviet Lithuanian years ago that Smetona was killed by lithuanian anti-fascists partisans who set fire to his dwelling when he escaped to the USA from the first Soviet invasion- which is vigorously denied by the post WWII immigration)
This publication was put out by soldiers who escaped to the US and other nations after a dying president Roosevelt and apparently cynical Churchill sold the Baltics into 50 years of communistic dictatorship after Yalta. You may already be familiar with this magazine and its history.
It is in Lithuanian and has many bios and historical info that was of course suppressed in Soviet Occupied Lithuania. These issues span 1981 to 1991.
They were also meant to be smuggled into the Lithuania and cause dissent.
It is not a complete set but there are issues from each year from 1981 to 1991. The photos point to the adoption of German helmets and the militaristic ritualistic stuff that was was popular in Mussolini's Italy and Hitler's Germany who were models for Euro Dictators of those times.
These veterans who made it to the USA were scrutinized in the 1980's for possibly being war criminals by the national socialist hunting Shoah businesses that proliferated at the time. I knew such a investigated fellow who was in the Smetona army, the Soviet Army, the National socialist Army, and at the end of the war in the US army, and then got mustered out while still in Europe and came here to the USA. Actually, the soldiers, especially the officers from the Smetona military had it bad, with the Russians invading they were turned in to that eras Soviet KGB by their pro-soviet neighbors then shot or sent to Siberia, then the Germans came, then the Russians again. So, there is much personal drama in the biographs in these issues that makes for great reading if you are able to read in this interesting language.
This was not a very large group of veterans so this is rare stuff. Who would have known that the USSR would fall apart at the time of these Cold War issues.
On a further note there are articles promoting the freedom fighters in Afghanistan who were actually killing Lithuanian youth conscripted into the Soviet army. Now we know them as the Taliban and
Al-Qaida
. Blind hatred of the Soviet Regime drips like bitter gall from the pages of Karys. To think the editors promoted the Islamic groups that now terrorize the West, but so did the U.S.A. There were even Lithuanian/American mercenaries that went to Afghanistan to help the Mujadin (now Taliban) back in the 1980's sending medical supplies etc., clearly under the control of CIA type structures of the American foreign policy.
There are articles on US military equipment and Regan Star Wars plans, again stressing these magazines were used to spread dissent in Lithuania since many were brought over and got through customs.
This was not just a veterans magazine, but politically active, antisoviet, and probably US State Department funded, that should be considered rare American Cold War propaganda and as such is highly collectible.
The weight of the magazines is over 9 pounds and they are in very good condition and mostly of them are in almost just printed condition.
There are also articles on historical Lithuanian history and local affairs in the immigration which might be of geneological value...
If it costs less to ship via usps media mail i will refund the difference
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