Gaigalaitis, Vilius, 1870-1945

Vilius Gaigalaitis or Wilhelm Gaigalat (27 September 1870 – 30 November 1945) was a Lutheran priest and Prussian Lithuanian activist. He was a member of the Prussian House of Representatives (1903–1918), director of the consistory of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Lithuania (1925–1933), and professor at Vytautas Magnus University (1925–1936). Educated at the University of Königsberg, Gaigalaitis was ordained priest and received doctorate in philosophy in 1900. He worked as priest in Ramučiai (1900–1902), Priekulė (1902–1915), and Katyčiai (1915–1919). As a representative of the Lithuanian Conservative Election Societies, Gaigalaitis was elected to the Landtag of Prussia in 1903, 1908, and 1913. He aligned with the German Conservative Party and defended the use of the Lithuanian language in schools and churches. During World War I, he supported Lithuania's independence and the idea of uniting Lithuania Minor with Lithuania Proper. In 1918, he was elected chairman of the National Council of Lithuania Minor but did not sign the Act of Tilsit. After Lithuania gained control of the Klaipėda Region in January 1923, Gaigalaitis became a member of the Directorate of the Klaipėda Region but resigned within a year due to disagreements and withdrew from further political work. Gaigalaitis was a member and co-founder of numerous cultural and educational Lithuanian societies. He was the long-term chairman of the Sandora Society and editor of its newspaper Pagalba. After World War I, he worked on establishing Lithuanian schools. He taught at the Faculty of the Evangelical Theology at Vytautas Magnus University from its establishment in 1925 to its closure in 1936. In 1925, he became the director of the consistory of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Lithuania and took measures against pro-German priests. Various Lithuanian schools and societies were liquidated after Lithuania lost Klaipėda Region to Nazi Germany in March 1939, destroying Gaigalaitis' life's work. He retreated to Lithuania and then to Germany where he died in Bretten in 1945. In total, Gaigalaitis published 25 books, including a study on Gemeinschaftsbewegung (Community Movement) among Prussian Lithuanians and the first Lithuanian-language work on poet Kristijonas Donelaitis.