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In August 1939, the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany signed the German–Soviet Nonaggression Pact and its Secret Additional Protocol, dividing Central and Eastern Europe into spheres of influence. Lithuania was initially assigned to the German sphere, likely due to its economic dependence on German trade.
On 20 March 1939, Nazi Germany's foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop presented an oral ultimatum to Juozas Urbšys, foreign minister of Lithuania. Germany demanded that Lithuania give up the Klaipėda Region (also known as the Memel Territory) which had been detached from Germany after World War I, or the Wehrmacht would invade Lithuania ...
A secret protocol of the pact places Estonia, Latvia, and Finland in Soviet sphere of interest, Lithuania in Germany's sphere of influence. Poland was effectively divided between Stalin and Hitler. 1 September 1939, Nazi Germany invades Poland. This event signifies the start of World War II in Europe. 14 September 1939, Polish submarine Orzeł ...
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 [26] and to station 25,000 Soviet soldiers in Estonia, 30,000 in Latvia and 20,000 in Lithuania starting October 1939.
Following the Nazi electoral success in Klaipėda in December 1938, Germany decided to take action to secure control of the entire region. On 20 March 1939, just a few days after the German occupation of Czechoslovakia of 15 March, Lithuania received the 1939 German ultimatum to Lithuania from foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop. It ...
Territorial changes of the Baltic states refers to the redrawing of borders of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia after 1940. The three republics, formerly autonomous regions within the former Russian Empire and before that of former Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and as provinces of the Swedish Empire, gained independence in the aftermath of World War I and the Russian Revolution of 1917.
Territory west of the Šešupė River: Lithuanian territory; requested by Nazi Germany in the German-Soviet Boundary and Friendship Treaty on September 28, 1939; occupied by the Soviet Union on June 15, 1940; Nazi Germany relinquished its claims for a compensation in the amount of $7.5 million on January 10, 1941
The Germans agreed to leave the Baltic states, except for Lithuania (which was later ceded in exchange for oil-rich regions of Poland), under the Soviet sphere of influence in the 1939 German–Soviet Pact. The Germans lacked concern for the fate of the Baltic states, and initiated the evacuation of the Baltic Germans. Between October and ...