Estonia in WWII (1939-1945)

Estonia spawned from the Versailles Treaty of 1920 that ended World War I (1914-1918). In 1939 it bordered both Latvia and Russia on the Baltic Sea. Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin (1878-1953) used the Nazi-Soviet Pact of August 1939 not only to partition Poland but also to set spheres of influence with Germany. Under the condition of the pact the Soviet Union had free reign to invade Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia under the terms of the Soviet–German Boundary and Friendship Treaty.¹

In June of 1940 the Soviet Union invaded and occupied Estonia and forced the democratically elected government to rig a plebiscite legitimizing Soviet rule. Stalin then proceeded to purge Estonian society through deportations and executions. These ended for a short time when German Army Group North invaded Estonia on it’s way to Leningrad in June of 1941. The repressive Nazi regime remained until the Soviet Union retook Estonia in September of 1944 and imposed communist rule on the country once again.²