"Baltic Sea campaigns (1939–45) The Baltic Sea Campaigns were conducted by Axis and Allied naval forces in the Baltic Sea, its coastal regions, and the Gulf of Finland during World War II. After early fighting between Polish and German forces, the main combatants were Germany and Finland, opposed by the Soviet Union. Sweden's navy and merchant fleet played important roles, and the British Royal Navy planned Operation Catherine for the control of the Baltic Sea and its exit choke point into the North Sea. While operations included surface and sub-surface combat, aerial combat, amphibious landings, and support of large-scale ground"
"Occupation of the Baltic states The occupation of the Baltic states involved the military occupation of the three Baltic states—Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania—by the Soviet Union under the auspices of the 1939 Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact in June 1940. They were then incorporated into the Soviet Union as constituent republics in August 1940, though most Western powers never recognised their incorporation. On 22 June 1941, Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union and within weeks occupied the Baltic territories. In July 1941, the Third Reich incorporated the Baltic territory into its ""Reichskommissariat Ostland"". As a result of the Red Army's Baltic Offensive of"
"invasion. The Soviet Union on September 17. Soon after that, the Soviet Union occupied Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, in addition, it annexed Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina from Romania. The Soviet Union attacked Finland on November 30, 1939 which started the Winter War. Finnish defence prevented a complete occupation of the country, but Finland was forced to cede strategically important border areas near Leningrad. The Soviet Union supported Germany in the war effort against Western Europe through the German–Soviet Commercial Agreement with exports of raw materials (phosphates, chromium and iron ore, mineral oil, grain, cotton, rubber). These and other export goods"
"Baltic states, demanding that they allow Soviet military bases to be established and troops stationed on their soil. The Baltic governments acquiesced to these demands and signed agreements in September and October. In October 1939, the Soviet Union attempted to negotiate with Finland to cede Finnish territory on the Karelian Isthmus and the islands of the Gulf of Finland, and to establish a Soviet military base near the Finnish capital of Helsinki. The Finnish government refused, and the Red Army invaded Finland on 30 November 1939. The USSR was expelled from the League of Nations and condemned by the international"
"Soviet occupation of the Baltic states (1940) The Soviet occupation of the Baltic states covers the period from the Soviet–Baltic mutual assistance pacts in 1939, to their invasion and annexation in 1940, to the mass deportations of 1941. In September and October 1939 the Soviet government compelled the much smaller Baltic states to conclude mutual assistance pacts which gave the Soviets the right to establish military bases there. Following invasion by the Red Army in the summer of 1940, Soviet authorities compelled the Baltic governments to resign. The presidents of Estonia and Latvia were imprisoned and later died in Siberia."
"December 1939 the USSR invaded Finland, beginning a campaign known as the Winter War (1939–40). The war took a heavy death toll on the Red Army but forced Finland to sign a Moscow Peace Treaty and cede the Karelian Isthmus and Ladoga Karelia. In summer 1940 the USSR issued an ultimatum to Romania forcing it to cede the territories of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina. At the same time, the Soviet Union also occupied the three formerly independent Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania). The peace with Germany was tense, as both sides were preparing for the military conflict, and abruptly"
"states of Northern and Eastern Europe were divided into German and Soviet ""spheres of influence"". In the north, Latvia, Finland and Estonia were assigned to the Soviet sphere. A week later, on 1 September 1939, Germany and on 17 September, the Soviet Union invaded Poland. After the conclusion of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, most of the Baltic Germans left Latvia by agreement between Ulmanis' government and Nazi Germany under the Heim ins Reich programme. In total 50,000 Baltic Germans left by the deadline of December 1939, with 1,600 remaining to conclude business and 13,000 choosing to remain in Latvia. Most of"
"informed Joachim Ribbentrop that the Soviet government was willing to cede the city of Vilnius and its environs. On 8 October 1939, a new Nazi–Soviet agreement was reached by an exchange of letters between Vyacheslav Molotov and the German Ambassador. The Baltic States of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania were given no choice but to sign a so-called ""Pact of defence and mutual assistance"" which permitted the Soviet Union to station troops in them. After the Baltic states were forced to accept treaties, Stalin turned his sights on Finland, confident that Finnish capitulation could be attained without great effort. The Soviets"
"accept the conditions. The Baltic states acceded to the Soviet demands and signed mutual assistance treaties on September 28, October 5, and October 10, 1939, respectively (for ten years for Estonia and Latvia and fifteen years for Lithuania). The tension included the internment of a submarine crew in the Orzeł incident. On October 18, October 29, and November 3, 1939, the first Soviet troops entered Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania under the Pact. The Soviet Union had been discontented with the Baltic states leaning toward Britain and France, the so-called Baltic Entente dating back to 1934, which could potentially be reoriented"
"that Estonia allow the Soviet military bases and stationed 25,000 troops on Estonian soil for the duration of the European war. On 28 September 1939, the government of Estonia accepted the ultimatum and signed the mutual assistance treaty. Paldiski was made a Soviet Naval Base and its population was expelled from the town. With its new military bases in Northern Estonia, the Soviet Union invaded Finland on 30 November 1939, starting the Winter War. During 1939-1940, most of the Baltic German population from Tallinn and the Harju County countryside fled to Germany (""Umsiedlung""). On 14 June 1940, the Soviet Navy"
"then annexed by Poland) was even smaller, about 2.5%. Following the terms of the 1939 Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, the Soviet Union invaded and occupied and subsequently annexed Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania as Soviet republics in 1940. Germany invaded and occupied the Baltic states in 1941 a week after the first Soviet-conducted mass deportation. Communist party members who had arrived in the area with the initial annexation in 1940 and the puppet regimes established evacuated to other parts of the Soviet Union; those who fell into German hands were treated harshly or murdered. The Soviet Union reoccupied the Baltic states in 1944–1945"
"of the Baltic states and they initiated the evacuation of the Baltic Germans. Between October and December 1939 the Germans evacuated 13,700 people from Estonia and 52,583 from Latvia, who were resettled in Polish territories incorporated into the Nazi Germany. The following summer, the Soviets occupied and illegally annexed all three states. On 22 June 1941 the Germans carried out Operation Barbarossa. The Soviets had executed sovietization earlier, including the first mass deportation of 14 June, 8 days prior, with the result that the majority of Balts welcomed the German armed forces when they crossed the frontiers of Lithuania. In"
"and army bases on two Estonian islands and at the port of Paldiski. The corresponding agreement was signed on 28 September 1939. Latvia followed on 5 October 1939 and Lithuania shortly thereafter, on 10 October 1939. The agreements permitted the Soviet Union to establish military bases on the Baltic states' territory for the duration of the European war, and station 25,000 Soviet soldiers in Estonia, 30,000 in Latvia and 20,000 in Lithuania from October 1939. In 1939 Finland had rejected similar Soviet demands for Finland ceding or leasing parts of its territory. Consequently, the Soviet Union attacked Finland, starting the"
"Baltic neighbours, the Lithuanians had to accede to the ultimatum. In September, the Germans occupied Czechoslovakia. Next, the Germans aimed to regain the Polish Corridor and Klaipėda in Lithuania. On 20 March 1939, the Germans demanded Klaipėda from Lithuania. Two days later the Lithuanians agreed, losing 30 percent of their industrial capacity and their only major sea port. The dismemberment of Czechoslovakia caused France and Great Britain to guarantee Polish integrity on 30 March. The Soviet Union remained conciliatory with Baltic states in 1937–1938. Moscow had welcomed the Baltic Entente earlier and Soviet marshal Alexander Yegorov visited all three Baltic"
"actively resist and better to avoid bloodshed in an unwinnable war. The occupation of the Baltic states coincided with a communist coup d'état in each country, supported by the Soviet troops. On 15 June the USSR invaded Lithuania. The Soviet troops attacked the Latvian border guards at Masļenki. On 16 June 1940 the USSR invaded Estonia and Latvia. According to a ""Time"" magazine article published at the time of the invasions, in a matter of days around 500,000 Soviet Red Army troops occupied the three Baltic states – just one week before the Fall of France to Nazi Germany. Soviet"
"just over half of all Polish territory, and the Allied powers had demonstrated themselves incapable of military intervention on the Eastern front. There were no impediments remaining to Stalin, in concert with Hitler, achieving his aims in the Baltics. On September 24, 1939, warships of the Red Navy appeared off Latvia's northern neighbour, Estonian ports, Soviet bombers began a threatening patrol over Tallinn and the nearby countryside. USSR then violated the air space of all three Baltic states, flying massive intelligence gathering operations on September 25. Moscow demanded that Baltic countries allow the USSR to establish military bases and station"
"Soviet Union. When Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, Lithuania maintained a policy of strict neutrality, refusing repeated German offers for a joint attack on Poland to capture Vilnius. Instead, Lithuania interned about 15,000 Polish soldiers and accepted about 35,000 Polish civilian refugees. The Soviet Union returned Vilnius to Lithuania after the Soviet invasion of Eastern Poland in September 1939. Neither country was aware at the time of the secret protocols of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, signed in August 1939, in which Germany and the Soviet Union agreed to divide the region into their spheres of influence. In June 1940, the"
"the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, which included secret protocols dividing eastern Europe into ""spheres of influence"", with Latvia and Estonia falling within the Soviets' sphere. A later amendment to the secret protocols placed Lithuania within the Soviets' sphere. In June 1940, the Soviet Union invaded the Baltic countries and annexed those countries as the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic, Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic and Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic. In 1941, as part of Operation Barbarossa, Germany invaded the Baltic countries, subsequently administered under Germany's Ostland until 1944. In 1944, the Soviet Union re-invaded the Baltic states. The territories of Baltic states remained under"
"States, and the European Union (EU), regard Latvia as being occupied by the Soviet Union in 1940 under the provisions of the 1939 Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. The European Parliament in recognising the occupation of the Baltic states from 1940 until the fall of the Soviet Union as illegal, led to the early acceptance of the Baltic states into the NATO alliance. Up to the reassessment of Soviet history in USSR that began during Perestroika, before the USSR had condemned the 1939 secret protocol between Nazi Germany and itself that had led to the invasion and occupation of the three Baltic countries,"
"Soviet Union in World War II The Soviet Union signed a non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany on 23 August 1939. In addition to stipulations of non-aggression, the treaty included a secret protocol that divided territories of Romania, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Belarus, Ukraine, and Finland into German and Soviet ""spheres of influence"", anticipating potential ""territorial and political rearrangements"" of these countries. Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler later traded proposals after a Soviet entry into the Axis Pact. Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939. Stalin waited until 17 September before launching his own invasion of Poland. Part of the Karelia"
"Background of the occupation of the Baltic states The background of the occupation of the Baltic states covers the period before the first Soviet occupation on 14 June 1940, stretching from independence in 1918 to the Soviet ultimatums in 1939–1940. The Baltic states gained their independence during and after the Russian revolutions of 1917; Lenin's government allowed them to secede. They managed to sign non-aggression treaties in the 1920s and 1930s. Despite the treaties, the Baltic states were forcibly incorporated into the Soviet Union in 1940 in the aftermath of the German–Soviet pact of 1939. The Russian Empire acquired the"
"Baltic–Soviet relations Relevant events began regarding the Baltic states and the Soviet Union when, following Bolshevist Russia's conflict with the Baltic states—Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia—several peace treaties were signed with Russia and its successor, the Soviet Union. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, the Soviet Union and all three Baltic States further signed non-aggression treaties. The Soviet Union also confirmed that it would adhere to the Kellogg–Briand Pact with regard to its neighbors, including Estonia and Latvia, and entered into a convention defining ""aggression"" that included all three Baltic countries. In 1939, the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany entered"
"those territories. On 1 September, barely a week after the pact had been signed, Germany invaded Poland. The Soviet Union invaded Poland from the east on 17 September and on 28 September signed a secret treaty with Nazi Germany to arrange coordination of fighting against Polish resistance. The Soviets targeted intelligence, entrepreneurs, and officers, committing a string of atrocities that culminated in the Katyn massacre and mass relocation to the Gulag in Siberia. Soon thereafter, the Soviet Union occupied the Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, and annexed Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina from Romania. The Soviet Union attacked Finland"
"Union occupied and annexed Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia in 1940. After Germany attacked the Soviet Union in 1941, the three countries quickly fell under German control. Many Russians, especially Communist party members who had arrived in the area with the initial annexation, retreated to Russia; those who fell into German hands were treated harshly, many were murdered. As the war drew to a close, the Soviet Union resumed its occupation of the Baltic states in 1944–1945. Western democracies did not recognize the Soviet occupation. Immediately after the war, Joseph Stalin carried out a major resettlement campaign in the three Baltic"
"early 1940 Finland sued for an alliance with Sweden but both the Soviet Union and Germany opposed it. In April, Germany occupied Denmark and Norway. In June the Soviet Union occupied the Baltic states. The next year, Finland negotiated their participation in the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union. The 1939 Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact clarified Soviet–German relations and enabled the Soviet Union to bring pressure to bear on the small Baltic republics and Finland, perhaps in order to better its strategic position in Eastern Europe in case of a widening of the war. The Baltic republics soon gave in to Soviet"
"Baltic Operation The Baltic Operation, also known as the Defensive operation in Lithuania and Latvia encompassed the operations of the Red Army from 22 June to 9 July 1941 conducted over the territories of the occupied Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia in response to an offensive launched by the German army. The operation consisted of three distinct smaller operations The principal Red Army formations of the operation were the Northwestern Front and the Baltic Fleet, with the major ground forces consisting of the 8th (commander General Major P.P. Sobennikov), 11th (commander General Lieutenant Morozov) and later 27th Armies. The operation was"
"the invasion to start in November. On 5 October 1939, the Soviet Union invited a Finnish delegation to Moscow for negotiations. J.K. Paasikivi, the Finnish envoy to Sweden, was sent to Moscow to represent the Finnish Government. The Soviet delegation demanded that the border between the USSR and Finland on the Karelian Isthmus be moved westward to a point only east of Vyborg () and that Finland destroy all existing fortifications on the Karelian Isthmus. Likewise, the delegation demanded the cession of islands in the Gulf of Finland as well as Rybachy Peninsula (). The Finns would have to lease"
"Baltic states' territory for the duration of the European war and to station 25,000 Soviet soldiers in Estonia, 30,000 in Latvia and 20,000 in Lithuania from October 1939. In September and October 1939, the Soviet government compelled the Baltic states to conclude mutual assistance pacts which gave it the right to establish Soviet military bases. In May 1940, the Soviets turned to the idea of direct military intervention, but still intended to rule through puppet regimes. Their model was the Finnish Democratic Republic, a puppet regime set up by the Soviets on the first day of the Winter War. The"
"Soviet evacuation of Tallinn The Soviet evacuation of Tallinn, also called Tallinn disaster or Russian Dunkirk, was a Soviet operation to evacuate the 190 ships of the Baltic Fleet, units of the Red Army, and pro-Soviet civilians from the fleet's encircled main base of Tallinn in Soviet-occupied Estonia during August 1941. Soviet forces had occupied Estonia in June 1940. After the German invasion of the Soviet Union began on 22 June 1941, German forces advanced rapidly through the Soviet-occupied Baltic states, and by the end of August the Estonian capital of Tallinn was surrounded by German forces, while a large"
"Vilno region; in addition, Germany declared complete disinterest in Bessarabia. Thereafter, Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939. Soviet Union leader Joseph Stalin ordered the Soviet invasion of Poland on 17 September, one day after a Soviet–Japanese ceasefire at the Khalkhin Gol came into effect. After the invasion, the new border between the two powers were confirmed by the supplementary protocol of the German–Soviet Frontier Treaty. In March 1940, parts of the Karelia and Salla regions in Finland were annexed by the Soviet Union after the Winter War. This was followed by Soviet annexations of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and parts"
"their territory. The Baltic Republics were occupied by the Soviet army in June 1940, and finally annexed to the Soviet Union in August 1940. The Soviet Union wanted to annex Finland and offered a union agreement, but Finland rejected it, which caused the Soviet Union to attack Finland on November 30. This began the Winter War. After five months of hard fighting, Finns were only pushed from a strip of land bordering Russia, in spite of Soviet numerical superiority, the Soviet Union gave up attempts to subdue the whole country. In the Moscow Peace Treaty of 12 March 1940, Finland"
"50 years of Soviet occupation. After the Munich Agreement demonstrated the failure of collective security system, Latvia on December 13, 1938 proclaimed absolute neutrality. On March 28, 1939 Soviet Union without any discussions announced that it is interested in maintaining and defending Latvia's independence. On June 7, 1939 Latvia and Germany signed non-aggression treaty. The Soviet Union guaranteed its interests in the Baltics with the signing of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany on August 23, 1939. Under threat of invasion, Latvia (along with Estonia and Lithuania) signed the Soviet–Latvian Mutual Assistance Treaty with Soviet Union,"
"Russian soldier left Skrunda-1 in October 1999, thus marking a symbolic end to the Russian military presence on the soil of the Baltic countries. Baltic states under Soviet rule (1944–91) This Baltic states were under Soviet rule from the end of World War II in 1945, from Sovietization onwards until independence was regained in 1991. The Baltic states were occupied and annexed, becoming the Soviet socialist republics of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. After their annexation by Nazi Germany, the USSR reoccupied the Baltic territories in 1944 and maintained control there until the Baltic states regained their independence nearly 50 years"