PABRADE, Lithuania — When German forces arrived in Lithuania during World War II as part of Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union, many locals greeted them with flowers, hailing what they believed were their liberators from Moscow’s brutal occupation.

Almost eight decades later, the Germans are back — and Lithuanians are again welcoming them with enthusiasm.

This time, some 650 Bundeswehr soldiers are heading up a multinational NATO infantry battalion of around 1,400 troops — part of the alliance’s “enhanced Forward Presence” program.

“They applauded us as we went through one town — that’s never happened to me before,” said Michael, a lance corporal who for security reasons could not provide his last name.

Others say they’ve been told “thank you” and “we’re very glad you’re here.” A recent poll had Germans as Lithuanians’ second favorite nationality — after Latvians.

Soldiers here studiously avoided mentioning Russia as the country most likely to invade, and emphasized that theirs is a “peacetime” training deployment.

The trigger for this outburst of emotion once again lies to the east, in Russia.

NATO decided on the deployment of troops in response to growing nervousness over the Kremlin’s aggressive behavior.

At a summit in Warsaw last year, the alliance took the decision to send “battle groups” to Poland and the three Baltic nations for the first time in its history.

The biggest fear of NATO's easternmost members' demands was that when push came to shove, NATO wouldn’t trigger its own Article 5 to defend the countries on its edge. Now, with soldiers on the frontline, the Eastern Europeans are breathing easier.

“Before we had soft assurances,” Lithuanian Defense Minister Raimundas Karoblis told POLITICO. “But now we have an absolutely different situation. It’s game-changing.”

Delaying tactics

On a late spring day in Pabrade, German tanks displaying the Iron Cross insignia, and with names such as Elfriede, Brunhilde and Clementine written in gothic lettering on their sides gathered in a Lithuanian field.

Nearby, two groups of German soldiers, their faces painted and foliage hanging from their helmets, darted among fir trees and fired laser-sighted rifles at each other in mock battle.

The NATO forces have two bases in Lithuania: Pabrade is used for military exercises while the main camp is in Rukla, to the west.

Officially, they’re under the command of the Lithuanian army, and are part of a mission to instruct their Eastern European counterparts in delaying tactics in case of invasion — the likes of blowing up bridges and quick artillery movements.

However, in contrast to officials in Brussels — who openly acknowledge the Kremlin threat to the alliance — soldiers here studiously avoided mentioning Russia as the country most likely to invade, and emphasized that theirs is a “peacetime” training deployment.

Still, the large number of Russian soldiers just over the border are not far from peoples’ minds.

“This is a really strong symbol of NATO solidarity,” Lieutenant Colonel Christoph Huber, the force commander, told POLITICO. “And an attack on Vilnius will also be an attack, for this battle group, on Berlin, on Brussels, on Oslo and every other capital.”

In an address marking the battalion’s arrival in February, German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen conjured up ghosts of the 1940s, when Lithuania was annexed by the Soviet Union after the war.

“Today, we have come together to declare our strong commitment to the future of Lithuania,” she said. “Never again will Lithuania stand alone.”

More troops please

This was music to the ears not just of Lithuanian officials, but of NATO’s other Eastern European members, who have been increasingly worried about its future since U.S. President Donald Trump voiced doubts about the need for the alliance.

Last month’s NATO summit in Brussels went a little way toward assuaging these fears, but a large question mark still hangs over the U.S. position.

In Lithuania, these issues are very much of the moment. Defense Minister Karoblis said Russia is capable of launching an attack in 24 to 48 hours. “All that’s needed is the political decision,” he said.

In response, the government in Vilnius updated its civil defense handbook, telling citizens what to do in case of invasion, and how to live in the wild.

The NATO deployment seems to have upped the ante. Officials believe that Russian cyber activists could have been behind two stories that appeared not long after the troops’ arrival — one that falsely accused the soldiers of rape, and another that claimed Lt. Colonel Huber was a Russian agent.

The fact that Germany was now Lithuania’s guarantor of independence was not in any way paradoxical, but rather an indicator of bigger things to come for Berlin.

Moreover, Moscow’s envoy to the alliance, Alexander Grushko, said earlier this month that the troop build-up on Russia’s borders had “not gone unnoticed” and would elicit a “military planning response” from the Kremlin, though he didn’t go into details.

Amid these heightened tensions, if there is one complaint among the Lithuanians about the Germans, it’s that there aren’t more of them.

Karoblis said he would like the alliance to increase its numbers to full brigade strength — 4,000-5,000 soldiers — and add to the air defense capabilities. “The number of troops should be proportional to the threat,” he said.

Still, he added, the most important thing was “the message” the deployment sent.

In his view, the fact that Germany was now Lithuania’s guarantor of independence was not in any way paradoxical, but rather an indicator of bigger things to come for Berlin.

“I think the interest of all NATO is to have Germany take more responsibility for the security and defense in Europe and generally the world,” Karoblis said. “If the [Lithuanian deployment] helps them move to another stage of cooperation and leadership, it’s the best for all of us.”

Skulls and crossbones

A simple memorial a short distance from the NATO camp underlines the contrast between Germany’s past and future in Lithuania. A granite stone about the size of a flat-screen television marks the spot where Nazi soldiers and local collaborators shot the town’s Jewish residents in 1941.

Before the war, Lithuania was a major center of Jewish life and culture, which was almost completely wiped out in the Holocaust.

Lt. Colonel Huber said German forces are educated about this legacy before shipping out. “We are aware of our history, also of our not very positive history. And all the bad things that German soldiers, German men did in this region — particularly to the Jewish population,” he said.

These memories are also buried deep in Lithuania’s collective DNA.

Fania Brantsovskaya was a Jewish partisan fighter who escaped the Vilnius ghetto and whose entire family was killed.

Today, however, she counts many Germans as close friends and travels there regularly, speaking to schoolchildren about the Holocaust. German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier sent her a personal message of congratulations on her 95th birthday.

“I meet with Germans; many Germans help us,” she said, adding that she fully supported the NATO contingent’s presence. “But there’s a feeling still, somewhere very deep inside of me.”

Mechislav Beresnevich was born in 1932 to a Polish family in a village near Pabrade and remembers “skull insignia on the hats” of the S.S.

“Our house burned down and so we moved into another that had belonged to a Jewish family, which was right across the street from the ghetto,” he said. He saw the local Jews being taken to the outskirts of town to be shot.

“I knew a number of the people who were killed there,” he said.

Beresnevich also witnessed the Nazis seizing local youths to send to work back in Germany. Despite all that, he counted himself among the many Lithuanians who welcomed the Germans’ return.

“Of course it’s good,” he said. “Now we’ll all sleep peacefully.”

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story misspelled the name of the former partisan fighter Fania Brantsovskaya.