Original 1918 Lithuanian independence act found in Germany

VILNIUS, Lithuania – A Lithuanian university says a scholar has discovered a missing copy of the Baltic country’s 1918 Independence Act in the archives of Germany’s foreign ministry in Berlin.

Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite has asked the government in Berlin how and when Lithuania can get back the document, found this week by Liudas Mazylis of the Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas — Lithuania’s former capital.

Mazylis said Thursday: “To me it was a sense of some very important victory.”

The document was apparently sent in 1918 to inform Germany it could no longer control the territory that was occupied by German Empire troops. The original was kept in Kaunas but disappeared in 1940 when Soviet Russia occupied the country.

Lithuania was independent from 1918 to 1940, and regained its freedom in 1990.