Battle of Kautla 1941
Recorded location from Wikidata; battle sites are often approximate.
Key facts
| Date | 24 July 1941 | Wikidata |
|---|---|---|
| Year | 1941 | Wikidata P585 (point in time) |
| Era | World War II era (1939–1945) | derived from year |
| Location | Estonia | Natural Earth (modern borders) |
| Continent | Europe | Natural Earth |
| War / conflict | Occupation of the Baltic states | Wikidata P361 |
| Coordinates | 59.1272, 25.4450 | Wikidata P625 |
About the battle
The Battle of Kautla (Estonian: Kautla lahing, Kautla veresaun or Kautla veretöö) took place between Soviet destruction battalions and Estonian Forest Brothers in Kautla, Estonia in July 1941. It included series of murders of civilians committed by destruction battalions, known as Kautla massacre.
On 24 July 1941, an extermination battalion murdered Gustav and Rosalie Viljamaa of Simisalu farm and set the farm on fire. In the coming days, the extermination battalion undertook the systematic murder of all civilians in the region and burning their farms. The Kautla farm was burned down by the Red Army with the family and staff inside, murdering Johannes Lindemann, Oskar Mallene, Ida Hallorava, Arnold Kivipõld, Alfred Kukk and Johannes Ummus. In total, more than twenty people, all civilians, were murdered—many of them after torture—and dozens of farms destroyed. The low toll of human deaths in comparison with the number of burned farms is due to the Erna long-range reconnaissance group breaking the Red Army blockade on the area, allowing many civilians to escape.
On the night of 10 July the Erna platoon had made a landing on the northern coast of Estonia with 42 men arriving onshore and hiding in the Kautla Marshes 60 km south east of Tallinn.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article Battle of Kautla (revision 1379727414), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section; shortened by selecting paragraphs and trimming at a sentence boundary; formatting and citations removed. No text added.
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