Lithuania's state memory institution called Hermann Schleef “exonerated.” The German record says the 1970 proceeding ended for insufficient evidence. In 2021, a Lithuanian diplomatic mission received that record. No public correction has yet been identified.
Grant Arthur Gochin
On February 11, 2020, the Lithuanian Genocide and Resistance Research Centre (LGGRTC) answered my demand for correction with another historical claim. Its signed response, available in the Lithuanian original and in a public English translation, said that the Oldenburg Regional Court had “exonerated” Hermann Schleef on April 27, 1970. The next sentence widened the proposition: German courts, the Centre said, had exonerated the “actual builders and commanders” of the Šiauliai ghetto and concentration camp.
The German file does not say that. The April 27, 1970 order ended the proceeding against Schleef for insufficient evidence. In 2021, the Lower Saxony State Archive transmitted the Schleef records to the Lithuanian Embassy. Since Lithuania obtained that primary German record, I have identified no public correction of the Centre's “exoneration” claim.
Based on the record I have documented over decades, I do not regard the Lithuanian Genocide and Resistance Research Centre (LGGRTC) as a presumptively reliable historical authority. In my assessment, its publications have repeatedly functioned as instruments of national historical advocacy and, in material instances, as vehicles for distorted or fictionalized history.
Accordingly, I assign no independent evidentiary weight to a historical claim merely because it has been published by the Lithuanian Genocide and Resistance Research Centre. Any material proposition originating with the LGGRTC must be independently verified against primary documentation or credible external historical scholarship before it is relied upon.
Until such verification is obtained, the LGGRTC's assertion is treated as unverified and presumptively unreliable, with particular scrutiny for omission, selective quotation, exculpatory reframing, or factual distortion.
Oldenburg did not exonerate Hermann Schleef
The relevant Oldenburg materials are preserved under NLA OL Best. 140-4 Nr. 650 and NLA OL Best. 140-5 Acc. 38/1997 Nr. 459. The criminal investigation also carries the reference StA Oldenburg 2 Js 218/63; the Regional Court proceeding appears as IV AR 17/70.
The April 27, 1970 order of the Fourth Criminal Chamber of the Landgericht Oldenburg did not acquit Schleef after trial. It placed him outside further prosecution “aus dem tatsächlichen Grunde des mangelnden Beweises.” The disposition was based on insufficient evidence.
A May 8, 1970 senior-prosecutor report records the same basis and states that no legal remedy was filed.
“Exonerated” is not a translation of mangelnden Beweises. An insufficient-evidence disposition says that criminal liability could not be proved to the required standard. It does not turn one accused man's procedural disposition into an adjudication of historical innocence, and it does not erase the events under investigation.
LGGRTC's response, in the public English translation, says: “The regional court of Oldenburg also exonerated … commander Hermann Schleef on April 27, 1970.” It then grouped Schleef with German officials whom German courts supposedly “exonerated.”
The claim served a larger argument about Jonas Noreika. I documented the parallel rewriting of the Gewecke–Bub proceedings in Lithuania's False Acquittal. Schleef is a separate proceeding. It supplies a separate test of the same historical method.
The German memorandum records the camp and the proof problem
The prosecution memorandum of March 26, 1970 records the sequence of Schleef's wartime command. It says he was transferred to Schaulen in autumn 1943 and tasked with taking over the existing ghetto labor camp as Lagerführer. After the SS takeover, camp leadership initially remained with SS-Hauptsturmführer Heinrich Förster. Schleef replaced him and, after an eight- to ten-day familiarization period, assumed sole camp leadership in October 1943. The memorandum says he held that post until the camp was dissolved in July 1944.
The investigators examined Schleef's alleged involvement in several crimes. One was the selection of November 5, 1943. The memorandum gives the total as “insgesamt: 796.” Its list comprises children, older men and women, sick and disabled prisoners, and four mothers whom the memorandum records as having gone with their children.
Independent survivor evidence establishes the historical reality of that day. In testimony preserved by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Nesse Godin described the November 5, 1943 roundup and said she learned after the war that those taken that day were sent to Auschwitz and murdered there. The Museum’s ID card for her father, Pinchas Galperin, records the family’s account: his wife, Sara, later learned that he had been deported to Auschwitz and gassed on arrival. It is a second family witness to the destination and fate of those taken that day, not an independent institutional finding by the Museum.
The German prosecutors did not write that the selection was invented. They did not write that the deportation had not occurred. The memorandum states that the destination of the transport and the fate of the victims could not be clarified in the investigation. The USHMM material cited above preserves later survivor evidence about the transport's destination. What was missing in 1970 was proof sufficient to establish Schleef's individual knowledge, intent and participation to the criminal standard required for prosecution. Other alleged shootings were examined against conflicting, indirect or otherwise insufficient witness evidence.
The prosecution stopped because it could not prove the charged criminal liability to the required standard. LGGRTC transformed that failure of proof into “exoneration.”
There is another German judgment in the file. In 1947, a Spruchgericht convicted Schleef in a separate postwar proceeding and imposed a sentence of two and a half years connected with his SS membership and his knowledge of the organization's criminal activity. That judgment did not adjudicate the homicide allegations later investigated in 1963–1970, and I do not use it as proof of those allegations. It does show why the German postwar record cannot honestly be reduced to one clean judicial vindication of Hermann Schleef.
“Exonerated” was part of a state historical argument
The Schleef sentence did not appear in isolation.
LGGRTC's December 17, 2019 memorandum on Jonas Noreika had already imported a court-clearing narrative about Hans Gewecke and Ewald Bub. The memorandum was prepared by Dalius Egidijus Stancikas and signed by Director General Teresė Birutė Burauskaitė. Six days later, Stancikas publicly repeated the theory that Gewecke had been acquitted of Holocaust-participation accusations in a December 23, 2019 article.
I demanded correction. Burauskaitė's February 11, 2020 response did not narrow the court story. It added Schleef by name and said Oldenburg had exonerated him.
Public repetitions followed. On July 13, 2020, Stancikas wrote that those whose orders Noreika transmitted “are not Holocaust participants, they were acquitted,” and specifically added that a German court had acquitted the later Šiauliai camp head “H. Šliofą.” The article remains public.
On September 14, 2020, Stancikas again wrote that German courts had acquitted the German officials he described as the real creators and leaders of the Šiauliai district ghettos, including the concentration-camp commander he rendered as “H. Shliofą.” That interview also remains public.
I do not allege that Stancikas had seen the Oldenburg file. These publications show how far the exoneration narrative had travelled before the date, still unknown, on which the Lithuanian Embassy received the primary German record.
Two MPs tried to put the same history into Lithuania's diplomatic system
On April 22, 2020, MPs Audronius Ažubalis and Laurynas Kasčiūnas published a letter to Foreign Minister Linas Linkevičius.
They described LGGRTC as the state institution responsible for forming state policy in this field and asked the minister to send LGGRTC's latest Noreika conclusion to all Lithuanian diplomatic missions so that the missions could rely on it when necessary.
The letter repeated the German-court story. It said German courts had rejected Holocaust-participation accusations against Gewecke, Bub and the later Šiauliai ghetto-concentration-camp head whom the MPs called “Hermanui Shflöfui.”
The spelling is evidence worth preserving. Stancikas used “Šliof” and “Shliof,” neither with an umlaut. The MPs wrote “Shflöf.” The 2021 inquiry received in Oldenburg asked for “Hermann Schlöf.” Neither is the German surname Schleef. The inquiry's Schlöf tracks the parliamentary Shflöf more closely than either Stancikas rendering.
That does not prove who ordered the Embassy search. It creates a testable routing inference. The original 2021 inquiry may show whether it came from the parliamentary text, from the diplomatic-distribution chain the MPs demanded, or from another source.
Two more publications appeared in 2021
The exact date on which the Lithuanian Embassy received the Oldenburg scans is not yet established. That prevents me from placing every 2021 publication on one side or the other of state notice.
On February 9, 2021, Stancikas published “Kaip perrašoma istorija?”. He continued the broader Gewecke–Bub acquittal narrative. On April 26, 2021, Vytautas Sinica wrote in the Lithuania Tribune that “both American and German courts found [Gewecke] not guilty.”
Neither article establishes a post-receipt repetition of the specific Schleef claim because the Embassy receipt date is still unknown. I do not allege that either writer had seen the Oldenburg file. Their publications belong in the chronology because they show that the German-court exculpation theory remained active in 2021, the same year the Embassy’s inquiry reached Oldenburg.
In 2021, the Lithuanian state had the German file
On September 21, 2026, Dr. Kerstin Rahn, head of the Oldenburg division of the Lower Saxony State Archive, confirmed in writing that the Schleef scans she sent me were the same scans she had transmitted to the Lithuanian Embassy in 2021 in response to an inquiry for “Hermann Schlöf.”
The exact 2021 transmission date has not yet been established. I have not identified a public repetition of the specific Schleef “exoneration” claim after that receipt.
What I have identified is the absence of a public correction.
A diplomatic mission is an organ of the Republic. Receipt by the Embassy establishes possession within the Lithuanian state. It does not establish that every ministry employee, historian, parliamentarian or LGGRTC official personally read the file. Those are individual-knowledge and routing questions that must be proved separately.
The Republic cannot treat its Embassy as Lithuania when the Embassy receives German evidence and as a stranger when that evidence contradicts Lithuania's published history.
The correction record is now part of the evidence
Before state receipt, the repeated “exoneration” thesis could be defended as bad research, mistranslation or procedural ignorance. After a Lithuanian diplomatic mission received the German file, the accountability question changed.
I am not converting the absence of a public correction into proof of any named person's private intent. The records may show failed routing, negligence, an internal legal or historical assessment, a correction that was never made public, or a decision not to correct. Each possibility leaves a different documentary trail.
The German order itself does not change. The state's published description was false. The state later possessed the source showing why it was false. The unresolved question is what Lithuania did with the source after receipt.
Four records requests are now pending
On September 21, 2026, I sent four QES-signed requests directed at the 2021 inquiry and the custody chain that followed.
The request to the Lithuanian Embassy seeks the original inquiry, any tasking behind it, the archive's response, registration metadata, every attachment, every onward transmission, translations, summaries and internal assessments.
The request to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs seeks the central custody chain and the diplomatic-distribution record. The Ministry registered it as No. 2-15976.
The request to LGGRTC asks for the source of the 2020 Schleef “exoneration” claim and every record showing whether LGGRTC later received, reviewed or was informed of the Oldenburg material. It also seeks correction records, including any record of a decision not to correct. LGGRTC registered it as No. 7R-1181.
The request to the Seimas Chancellery seeks the parliamentary side of the diplomatic-distribution initiative and any document that may identify the origin of the 2021 Schlöf inquiry.
The response periods have not expired. On the ordinary 20-working-day administrative timetable, the present window runs to approximately October 19–20, 2026, absent referral, clarification or extension. I do not characterize the current lack of substantive answers as obstruction.
Dr. Rahn has separately been asked for the originating Lithuanian inquiry and the transmission correspondence. That remains the single highest-value missing document because it may identify who asked the Embassy to search for Schlöf.
Why I call this historical fraud
I use historical fraud as my characterization of an institutional historical process. I do not use it as a declaration that a particular person has been found guilty of the criminal offense of fraud.
The documented sequence is concrete. A foreign criminal proceeding ended for insufficient evidence. Lithuania's state memory institution described it as exoneration. The claim supported an exculpatory argument concerning Jonas Noreika. It was repeated in public. Two MPs incorporated the German-court story into an argument for distributing LGGRTC's Noreika position through Lithuania's diplomatic system. In 2021, a Lithuanian diplomatic mission received the primary German record that contradicted the Schleef formulation.
Since that receipt, I have identified no public correction.
The records requests are designed to distinguish among the possible explanations. If the file stopped at the Embassy, the routing trail should show it. If it moved into the Ministry, the Seimas or LGGRTC, the receiving records should identify when and to whom. Any analysis of the word “exonerated,” any proposed correction, or any decision not to correct should also leave records.
My characterization will be tested against those documents. The state now has the opportunity to produce them.
I will ask the Prosecutor General to assess the criminal-law question
This article is the public historical record. The criminal-law question is separate.
After publication, I intend to supplement my September 18, 2026 submission to Lithuania's Prosecutor General with the Schleef evidence. I am not a lawyer, and I am not declaring that a criminal offense has been established. I will ask prosecutors to assess whether the documented conduct falls within Article 170² of the Lithuanian Criminal Code or any other applicable provision.
For conduct in 2019–2021, the starting point is the version of Article 170² then in force. In the official consolidated edition valid May 1–7, 2020, the Nazi-crimes limb read: “SSRS ar nacistinės Vokietijos įvykdytiems Lietuvos Respublikos teritorijoje ar prieš Lietuvos Respublikos gyventojus genocido ar kitiems nusikaltimams žmoniškumui arba karo nusikaltimams … jeigu tai padaryta grasinančiu, užgauliu ar įžeidžiančiu būdu arba dėl to buvo sutrikdyta viešoji tvarka.” That wording remained unchanged through 2021. Law XIV-1065, adopted April 28, 2022 and effective May 5, 2022, removed that territorial/resident wording and added the alternative that public order “could have been disturbed.” Those later changes were not in force in 2019–2021. The Holocaust crimes at issue were committed against residents of Lithuania confined in the Šiauliai ghetto, so the older limitation is not an obvious obstacle.
My translation: “genocide or other crimes against humanity or war crimes committed by the USSR or Nazi Germany in the territory of the Republic of Lithuania or against residents of the Republic of Lithuania … if done in a threatening, abusive or insulting manner or if public order was disturbed.”
The older Article 170² did not criminalize inaccurate history by itself. It required a public act and one of the additional conditions in the quoted text. I do not claim in this article that those elements are met. The legal question is whether the public statements and omissions, viewed in context, fall within the statute; that is a question I will ask prosecutors to assess.
The February 11, 2020 LGGRTC response was sent to me. Standing alone, that response does not establish publicity. The public record includes the Stancikas publications and the Ažubalis–Kasčiūnas letter. There is also a protected-object question: misdescribing one accused man's procedural disposition is not self-evidently denial or gross trivialization of genocide. I will ask prosecutors to assess the statement in its full context, including the repeated use of supposed German exonerations to reframe responsibility for the Šiauliai ghetto and the Holocaust crimes committed there.
Limitation also requires care. Article 170² carried a maximum two-year prison term, placing it within the non-serious intentional-offense category under Article 11. The version of Article 95 in force during 2020–2021 provided an eight-year limitation period for a non-serious intentional offense. The current consolidated text still states eight years for that category, and I have not identified an enacted post-2021 amendment changing that period. On the law in force when the public statements were made, conduct in 2020 or 2021 therefore points to 2028 or 2029, subject to Article 95’s other conditions. Article 3 provides that a later criminal law that improves an accused person’s legal position has retroactive effect, while one that worsens it does not. I will ask the Prosecutor General to confirm the applicable limitation analysis and, if the Office identifies any later law it considers relevant, its effect under Article 3.
Some statements in this record were made by persons who are or have been members of the Seimas. Any criminal proceeding touching a sitting member would also encounter Article 62 of the Constitution, which requires Seimas consent before a sitting member may be held criminally liable.
Those thresholds belong in the prosecutorial assessment. The evidence package will identify the German documents, LGGRTC's signed 2020 response, the public publications, the 2021 state receipt and the pending custody requests. The article is the synthesis. The primary documents are the evidence.
Lithuania now owes the routing record
Germany does not need to answer the central question again. The April 27, 1970 order is in hand. It says insufficient evidence. LGGRTC's response says exonerated. The Lower Saxony State Archive has confirmed that a Lithuanian diplomatic mission received the Schleef material in 2021.
What remains is Lithuania's own record: who asked, who received, who forwarded, who reviewed, and whether anyone corrected the historical claim after the primary evidence arrived.
Lithuania's own diplomatic mission received the file. What Lithuania did next is the record it now owes.