The Reichskommissariat Ostland (RKO) was established by Nazi Germany in 1941 during World War II. It became the civilian occupation regime in the Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania) and the western part of the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic. German planning documents initially referred to an equivalent Reichskommissariat Baltenland ("Baltic Land"). The political organization for this territory – after an initial period of military administration before its establishment – involved a German civilian administration, nominally under the authority of the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories led by Nazi ideologist Alfred Rosenberg, but actually controlled by the Nazi official Hinrich Lohse, its appointed Reichskommissar.