Nazi Germany established the Reichskommissariat Ostland (RKO) in 1941 as the civilian occupation regime in the Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania), the northeastern part of Poland and the west part of the Belarusian SSR during World War II. It was also known initially as Reichskommissariat Baltenland ("Baltic Land"). The political organization for this territory—after an initial period of military administration before its establishment—was that of a German civilian administration, nominally under the authority of the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories (German:Reichsministerium für die besetzten Ostgebiete) led by Nazi ideologist Alfred Rosenberg, but actually controlled by the Nazi official Hinrich Lohse, its appointed Reichskommissar.