Background , with later adjustments Early in the morning of 24 August 1939, the Soviet Union and Germany signed a ten-year non-aggression pact, called the
Molotov–Ribbentrop pact. The pact contained a secret protocol by which the states of
Northern and
Eastern Europe were divided into German and Soviet "
spheres of influence". In the north,
Finland,
Estonia and
Latvia were assigned to the Soviet sphere. Under the secret protocol, Lithuania would regain its historical capital
Vilnius, previously subjugated during the inter-war period by
Poland. Following the end of the
Soviet invasion of Poland on 6 October, the Soviets pressured Finland and the Baltic states to conclude mutual assistance treaties. The Soviets questioned the neutrality of Estonia after the
escape of an interned Polish submarine on 18 September. On 24 September, the Estonian foreign minister was given an
ultimatum: the Soviets demanded a treaty of mutual assistance to establish military bases in Estonia. The Estonians were coerced to accept naval, air, and army bases on two Estonian islands and at the port of
Paldiski. Their model was the
Finnish Democratic Republic, a puppet regime set up by the Soviets on the first day of the
Winter War. The Soviets organised a press campaign against the allegedly pro-Allied sympathies of the Baltic governments. In May 1940, the Germans
invaded France, which was overrun and occupied a month later. In late May and early June 1940, the Baltic states were accused of military collaboration against the Soviet Union by holding meetings the previous winter. On 15 June 1940, the Lithuanian government was extorted to
agree to the Soviet ultimatum and permit the entry of an unspecified number of Soviet troops. President
Antanas Smetona proposed armed resistance to the Soviets but the government refused, and
Central Asia respectively. In June 1941, the new Soviet governments carried out
mass deportations of "
enemies of the people". Estonia alone lost an estimated 60,000 citizens. The Soviet Union immediately started to erect border fortifications along its newly acquired western border—the so-called
Molotov Line.
German occupation (1941–1945) Ostland province and the Holocaust , committed by the Soviet NKVD on 24–25 June 1941 On 22 June 1941, the Germans
invaded the Soviet Union. The Baltic states, recently Sovietized by threats, force, and fraud, generally welcomed the German armed forces. In Lithuania, a revolt broke out and an independent provisional government was established. As the German armies approached
Riga and
Tallinn, attempts to reestablish national governments were made. Baltic citizens hoped that the Germans would reestablish Baltic independence. Such hopes soon evaporated and Baltic cooperation became less forthright or ceased altogether. The Germans aimed to annex the Baltic territories into the
Third Reich, where "suitable elements" would be assimilated and "unsuitable elements" exterminated. In practice, the implementation of occupation policy was more complex; for administrative convenience, the Baltic states were included with
Belorussia in the
Reichskommissariat Ostland. The area was governed by
Hinrich Lohse, who was obsessed with bureaucratic regulations. '' execution in Lithuania|left
Nazi racial attitudes to the peoples of the three Baltic countries differed between Nazi authorities. In practice, racial policies were directed not against the majority of Balts but rather against the
Jews. Large numbers of Jews were living in the major cities, notably in
Vilnius,
Kaunas, and
Riga. The German
mobile killing units slaughtered hundreds of thousands of Jews;
Einsatzgruppe A, assigned to the Baltic area, was the most effective of four units. Only about 75 percent of
Estonian and 10 percent of
Latvian and
Lithuanian Jews survived the war. However, for the majority of Lithuanians, Latvians and Estonians, the German rule was less harsh than Soviet rule had been, and it was less brutal than German occupations elsewhere in eastern Europe. Local
puppet regimes performed administrative tasks and schools were permitted to function. However, most people were denied the right to own land or businesses. During the German invasion, the Soviets conducted a forced general mobilisation that took place in violation of the
international law. Under the
Geneva Conventions, this act of violence is seen as a grave breach and war crime, because the mobilised men were treated as arrestants from the very beginning. In comparison with the general mobilisation proclaimed in the Soviet Union, the age range was extended by 9 years in the Baltics; all reserve officers were also taken. The aim was to deport all men capable to fight to Russia, where they were sent to
convict camps. Almost half of them perished because of the transportation conditions, slave labour, hunger, diseases, and the repressive measures of the
NKVD. In addition,
destruction battalions were formed under the command of the NKVD. Hence, Baltic nationals fought in both German and Soviet army ranks. There was the 201st Latvian Rifle Division. The 308th Latvian Rifle Division was awarded the Red Banner Order after the expulsion of the Germans from Riga in the autumn of 1944. During 1940, on the basis of the disbanded Lithuanian Army, the Soviet authorities organized the 29th Territorial Rifle Corps. The decrease in quality of life and service conditions, and forceful indoctrination of Communist ideology, caused discontent amongst recently Sovietized military units. Soviet authorities responded with repressions against Lithuanian officers of the 29th Corps, arresting over 100 officers and soldiers and subsequently executing around 20 in Autumn 1940. By that time, allegedly nearly 3,200 officers and soldiers of the 29th Corps were considered "politically unreliable". Due to high tensions and soldiers' discontent, the 26th Cavalry Regiment was disbanded. During the 1941
June deportations, over 320 officers and soldiers of the 29th Corps were arrested and deported to concentration camps or executed. The 29th Corps collapsed with the German invasion into Soviet Union; on June 25–26, a rebellion broke in its 184th Rifle Division. The other division of the 29th Corps, the 179th Rifle Division, lost most of its soldiers during the retreat from Germans, mostly to deserting of its soldiers. A total of less than 1,500 soldiers from the initial strength of around 12,000 reached the area of Pskov by August 1941. By the second part of 1942, most of the Lithuanians remaining in the Soviet ranks, as well as male war refugees from Lithuania, were organized into the
16th Rifle Division during its second formation. 16th Rifle Division, despite officially called "Lithuanian" and mostly commanded by officers of Lithuanian origin, including
Adolfas Urbšas, was ethnically very mixed, with up to 1/4 of its personnel made of Jews and thus being the largest Jewish formation of Soviet Army. A popular joke of those years said that the 16th Division was called Lithuanian, because there were 16 Lithuanians among its ranks. The 7000-strong 22nd Estonian Territorial Rifle Corps got heavily beaten in the battles around
Porkhov during the German invasion in summer 1941, as 2000 were killed or wounded in action, and 4500 surrendered. The 25,000–30,000 strong
8th Estonian Rifle Corps lost 3/4 of its troops in the
Battle of Velikiye Luki in winter 1942/43. It participated in the
capture of Tallinn in September 1944.
Baltic nationals in the German forces parade through Riga before deploying to the Eastern Front. December 1943. The Nazi administration also conscripted Baltic nationals into the German armies. The
Lithuanian Territorial Defense Force, composed of volunteers, was formed in 1944. The LTDF reached a size of roughly 10,000 men. Its goal was to fight the approaching Red Army, provide security, and conduct anti-partisan operations within the territory claimed by Lithuanians. After brief engagements against
Soviet and
Polish partisans, the force self-disbanded. Its leaders were arrested and sent to
Nazi concentration camps, The
Latvian Legion, created in 1943, consisted of two conscripted divisions of the Waffen-SS. On 1 July 1944, the Latvian Legion had 87,550 men. Another 23,000 Latvians were serving as Wehrmacht "auxiliaries". Among other battles, they participated in the
Siege of Leningrad, in the
Courland Pocket fighting, the defence of the
Pomeranian Wall, at the
Velikaya River for Hill "93,4", and in the
defence of Berlin. The
20th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (1st Estonian) was formed in January 1944 through conscription. Consisting of 38,000 men, it took part in the
Battle of Narva, the
Battle of Tannenberg Line, the
Battle of Tartu, and
Operation Aster.
Attempts to restore independence and the Soviet offensive of 1944 lead the disarmed soldiers of the
Red Army in Kaunas. There were several attempts to restore
independence during the occupation. On 22 June 1941, the
Lithuanians overthrew Soviet rule two days before the
Wehrmacht arrived in Kaunas, where the Germans then allowed a
Provisional Government to function for over a month. The
Latvian Central Council was set up as an underground organisation in 1943, but it was destroyed by the
Gestapo in 1945. In Estonia in 1941,
Jüri Uluots proposed restoration of independence; later, by 1944, he had become a key figure in the secret
National Committee. In September 1944, Uluots briefly became acting president of independent Estonia. Unlike the
French and the
Poles, the Baltic states had no
governments in exile located in the West. Consequently, Great Britain and the United States lacked any interest in the Baltic cause while the war against Germany remained undecided. By 1 March 1944, the
siege of Leningrad was over and Soviet troops were
on the border with Estonia. The Soviets launched the
Baltic Offensive, a twofold military-political operation to rout German forces, on 14 September. On 16 September, the
High Command of the German Army issued a plan in which Estonian forces would cover the German withdrawal. The Soviets soon reached the Estonian capital Tallinn, where the
NKVD's first mission was to stop anyone escaping from the state; however, many refugees did manage to escape to the West. The NKVD also targeted the members of the
National Committee of the Republic of Estonia. German and Latvian forces remained trapped in the Courland Pocket until the end of the war, capitulating on 10 May 1945.
Second Soviet occupation (1944–1991) Resistance and deportations created by the Soviet
MGB in 1945 After reoccupying the Baltic states, the Soviets implemented a program of
sovietization, which was achieved through large-scale
industrialisation rather than by overt attacks on culture, religion, or freedom of expression. The Soviets carried out massive
deportations to eliminate any resistance to
collectivisation or support of
partisans. The Soviets had previously carried out mass deportations in 1940–41, but the deportations between 1944 and 1952 were even greater. One estimate for the number of Lithuanians deported from 1945-1946 was 100,000. About 60,000 were estimated to have been deported from Latvia from 1945-1946. The total number deported in 1944–55 has been estimated at over half a million: 124,000 in
Estonia, 136,000 in Latvia and 245,000 in Lithuania. The estimated death toll among Lithuanian deportees between 1945 and 1958 was 20,000, including 5,000 children. The deportees were allowed to return after
Nikita Khrushchev's
secret speech in 1956 denouncing the excesses of
Stalinism; however, many did not survive their years of exile in
Siberia. After the war, the Soviets
outlined new borders for the Baltic republics.
Lithuania gained the regions of Vilnius and Klaipėda, while the
Russian SFSR annexed territory from the eastern parts of
Estonia (5% of prewar territory) and
Latvia (2%). In all three republics, manufacturing industry was developed, resulting in some of the best industrial complexes in the sphere of electronics and textile production. The rural economy suffered from the lack of investments and the collectivization. Baltic urban areas had been damaged during wartime and it took ten years to recuperate housing losses. New constructions were often of poor quality and ethnic Russian immigrants were favored in housing. Estonia and Latvia received large-scale immigration of industrial workers from other parts of the Soviet Union that changed the
demographics dramatically. Lithuania also received immigration but on a smaller scale. , the leader of the
Communist Party of Lithuania from 1940 to 1974 Ethnic Estonians constituted 88 percent of the population before the war, but in 1970, the figure dropped to 60 percent. Ethnic Latvians constituted 75 percent, but the figure dropped 57 percent in 1970, and further down to 50.7 percent in 1989. In contrast, the drop in Lithuania was only 4 percent. For example, the important post of second secretary of local Communist party was almost always ethnic Russian or a member of another
Slavic nationality. Party membership continued to be heavily Russian long into the postwar period. During the last quarter of 1944, the Estonian Communist Party had only 56 members, and recruitment in 1945 totaled a few hundred. The new Lithuanian Communist Party was only 38% Lithuanian in 1953. The Latvian Communist Party was 52% Latvian in 1949. Estonians made up 42% of Estonia’s Communist Party in 1946. Thousands of non-indigenous administrators were imported at all levels in Lithuania, Russian settlers in particular. Even the native Lithuanian population included a group that lived in Russia, 13% of the ministers of Russian Lithuanians out of a total indigenous percentage of 32% in 1947. In March 1949, of the 30 non-staff lecturers in the Agitprop Department of the City of Riga, only 8 knew Latvian, and these people were tasked with spreading Soviet ideology among the native population. Home-grown Communists in all three countries represented about one-third of the total membership around 1949. Despite the career opportunities involved in the occupation regimes, only 0.3% of the Lithuanians and 0.7% of the Latvians and Estonians had joined the Communist Parties after five years of continuous Russian occupation, reflecting the unpopularity of the occupation. This rate was 5 to 10 times less than the Soviet Union's average for Soviet Republics at the time. The Baltic States were net contributors rather than beneficiaries during the illegal occupation. Detailed archival records of budget revenues and expenditures demonstrate that significantly more money was extracted from these territories than was ever invested back, even including large Soviet expenditures on its military and other repressive structures created to oppress the native population. The myth of generous Soviet "aid" in industrializing and developing the Baltics is false propaganda that conceals the substantial revenues and profits that were siphoned off by the occupying Soviets. In Latvia’s case specifically, archival evidence proves that from 1946 to 1990, the USSR drew far more resources from Latvian territory than it spent on it, with over 18% of revenues net-transferred out of the republic. The same pattern holds true for Estonia and Lithuania. This economic exploitation and heavy militarization explain why the Baltic nations, which had been relatively advanced before the war, became economically stunted compared to Western Europe, underlining the extractive nature of the Soviet occupation. The first major demonstrations against the environment were in
Riga in November 1986 and the following spring in
Tallinn. Small successful protests encouraged key individuals and by the end of 1988, the reform wing had gained the decisive positions in the Baltic republics. At the same time, coalitions of reformists and populist
forces assembled under the Popular Fronts. The Supreme Soviet of the Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic made the
Estonian language the
state language again in January 1989, and similar legislation was passed in Latvia and Lithuania soon after. The Baltic republics declared their aim for sovereignty: Estonia in November 1988, Lithuania in May 1989, and Latvia in July 1989. The
Baltic Way, that took place on 23 August 1989, became the biggest manifestation of opposition to the Soviet rule. In December 1989, the
Congress of People's Deputies of the Soviet Union condemned the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact and its secret protocol as "legally untenable and invalid." On 11 March 1990, the Lithuanian Supreme Soviet
declared Lithuania's independence. Pro-independence candidates had received an overwhelming majority in the Supreme Soviet elections held earlier that year. On 30 March 1990, seeing full restoration of independence not yet feasible due to large Soviet presence, the Estonian Supreme Soviet declared the Soviet Union an occupying power and announced the start of a transitional period to independence. On 4 May 1990, the Latvian Supreme Soviet made a similar declaration. The Soviet Union immediately condemned all three declarations as illegal, saying that they had to go through the process of secession outlined in the
Soviet Constitution of 1977. However, the Baltic states argued that the entire occupation process violated both international law and their own law. Therefore, they argued, they were merely reasserting an independence that still existed under international law. By mid-June, after unsuccessful
economic blockade of Lithuania, the Soviets started negotiations with Lithuania and the other two Baltic republics. The Soviets had a bigger challenge elsewhere, as the Russian Federal Republic
proclaimed sovereignty in June. Simultaneously the Baltic republics also started to negotiate directly with the Russian Federal Republic. In August 1991, the hard-line members
attempted to take control of the Soviet Union. A day after the coup on 21 August, the Estonians proclaimed full independence, after an
independence referendum was held in
Estonia on 3 March 1991, alongside a
similar referendum in
Latvia the same month. It was approved by 78.4% of voters, with an 82.9% turnout. Independence was restored by the Estonian Supreme Council on the night of 20 August. After the coup collapsed, the Soviet government recognised the independence of all three Baltic states on 6 September 1991.
Withdrawal of Russian troops and decommissioning the radars The Russian Federation assumed the burden and the subsequent withdrawal of the occupation force, consisting of about 150,000 former Soviet, now Russian, troops stationed in the Baltic states. In 1992, there were still 120,000 Russian troops there, as well as a large number of military pensioners, particularly in Estonia and Latvia. During the period of negotiations, Russia hoped to retain facilities such as the
Liepāja naval base, the
Skrunda anti-ballistic missile radar station, the
Ventspils space-monitoring station in Latvia, and the
Paldiski submarine base in Estonia, as well as transit rights to
Kaliningrad through Lithuania. Contention arose when Russia threatened to keep its troops where they were. Moscow tied its concessions to specific legislation guaranteeing the civil rights of ethnic Russians, which was seen as an implied threat in the West, in the U.N. General Assembly, and by Baltic leaders, who viewed it as Russian imperialism.—owing in part to the Kaliningrad issue. Continued linkage on the part of Russia resulted in a threat by the U.S. Senate in mid-July to halt all aid to Russia in case the forces were not withdrawn by the end of August. Some Russian troops remained stationed in Estonia in
Paldiski until the Russian military base was dismantled and the nuclear reactors suspended operations on 26 September 1995. Russia operated the
Skrunda-1 radar station until it was decommissioned on 31 August 1998. The Russian Government then had to dismantle and remove the radar equipment; this work was completed by October 1999 when the site was returned to Latvia. The last Russian soldier left the region that month, marking a symbolic end to the Russian military presence on Baltic soil. ==Civilian toll==