High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Occupation of the Baltic states by Nazi Germany occurred during Operation Barbarossa in 1941. Initially, many Estonians, Latvians, and Lithuanians considered the Germans as liberators from Soviet Union. In Lithuania a revolt broke out on the first day of the war, and a provisional government was established. As the German armies approached Riga and Tallinn, attempts to reestablish national governments were made. It was hoped that the Germans would reestablish Baltic independence. Such political hopes soon evaporated and Baltic cooperation became less forthright or ceased altogether. A growing proportion of the local populations turned against the Nazi regime as Germany turned the Baltic states except for the Memel (Klaipeda) region annexed into Greater Germany in 1939 and most of Belarus into the Reichskommissariat Ostland, a colony in all but name in which the four predominant nationalities had little role in governance. Hinrich Lohse,a German Nazi politician, was Reichskommissar until fleeing face of the Red Army's advance in 1944.