Estonia declared neutrality at the outbreak of World War II (1939–1945), but the country was repeatedly contested, invaded and occupied, first by the Soviet Union in 1940, then by Nazi Germany in 1941, and ultimately reinvaded and reoccupied in 1944 by the Soviet Union.
Background
Immediately before the outbreak of World War II, in August 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union signed the Nazi-Soviet Pact (also known as the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, or the 1939 German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact), concerning the partition and disposition of Poland, Finland, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, in its Secret Additional Protocol.
The territory of until then independent Republic of Estonia was invaded and occupied by the Soviet Red Army on 16–17 June 1940. Mass political arrests, deportations, and executions by the Soviet regime followed. In the Summer War during the German Operation Barbarossa in 1941, the pro-independence Forest Brothers captured large parts of southern Estonia from the Soviet NKVD troops and the 8th Army before the arrival of the German 18th Army in the area. At the same time, in June–August 1941, Soviet paramilitary destruction battalions carried out punitive operations in Estonia, including looting and killing, based on the tactics of scorched earth ordered by Joseph Stalin. Estonia was occupied by Germany and incorporated into Reichskommissariat Ostland in 1941–1944.
Upon the German invasion of the USSR in 1941, thousands of Estonians were conscripted into the Soviet army (including the Soviet 8th Estonian Rifle Corps and other units), and in 1941–1944 to the German armed forces. A number of Estonian men who had avoided these conscriptions were able to flee to Finland, and many of them then formed the Finnish Infantry Regiment 200. About 40% of the Estonian pre-war fleet was requisitioned by British authorities and used in Atlantic convoys. Approximately 1000 Estonian sailors served in the British Merchant Navy, 200 of them as officers. A small number of Estonians served in the Royal Air Force, in the British Army and in the U.S. Army.
From February to September 1944, the German army detachment "Narwa" held back the Soviet Estonian Operation. After breaching the defence of II Army Corps across the Emajõgi river and clashing with the pro-independence Estonian troops, Soviet forces reoccupied mainland Estonia in September 1944. After the war, Estonia remained incorporated into the Soviet Union as the Estonian SSR until 1991, although the Atlantic Charter stated that no territorial arrangements would be made.
Preface
Before World War II, the Republic of Estonia and the USSR had signed and ratified the following treaties:
Kellogg-Briand Pact: The 27 August 1928 pact Pact "renounc[ed] war as an instrument of national policy". Ratified by Estonia and the USSR on 24 July 1929.
Non-aggression treaty with the USSR on 4 May 1932.
The Convention for the Definition of Aggression: On 3 July 1933, for the first time in the history of international relations, aggression was defined in a binding treaty signed at the Soviet Embassy in London by the USSR and among others, the Republic of Estonia. Article II defined forms of aggression. "There shall be recognized as an aggressor that State which shall be the first to have committed one of the following actions". Relevant chapters: "Second – invasion by armed forces of the territory of another State even without a declaration of war", and "Fourth – a naval blockade of coasts or ports of another State."
Declaration of neutrality: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania jointly declared their neutrality on 18 November 1938, in Riga, at the Conference of Baltic Foreign Ministers with their respective parliaments passing neutrality laws later that year. Estonia passed a law ratifying its neutrality on 1 December 1938, which was modelled on Sweden's declaration of neutrality of 29 May 1938. Also importantly, Estonia had asserted its neutrality in its very first constitution, as well as the Treaty of Tartu concluded in 1920 between Republic of Estonia and the Russian SFSR.
Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact
Early on the morning of 24 August 1939, the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany signed a 10-year non-aggression pact, called the Molotov–Ribbentrop pact. Most notably, the pact contained a secret protocol, revealed only after Germany's defeat in 1945, according to 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. Poland was to be partitioned in the event of its "political rearrangement"—the areas east of the Narev, Vistula and San Rivers going to the Soviet Union while Germany would occupy the west. Lithuania, adjacent to East Prussia, would be in the German sphere of influence, although a second secret protocol agreed in September 1939 assigned the majority of Lithuania to the USSR.
The beginning of World War II
World War II began with the invasion of Poland, an important regional ally of Estonia, by Germany. Although some coordination existed between Germany and the USSR early in the war, the Soviet Union communicated to Nazi Germany its decision to launch its own invasion seventeen days after Germany's invasion, as a result, in part, of the unforeseen rapidity of the Polish military collapse.
On 1 September 1939, Germany invaded its part of Poland under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact.
3 September, Great Britain, France, Australia, and New Zealand declare war on Germany.
14 September, the Polish submarine ORP Orzeł reached Tallinn, Estonia.
On 17 September, the Soviet Union invaded its part of Poland under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact's secret protocol. During this invasion, a close coordination of German and Soviet military activity took place.
18 September, Orzeł incident; the Polish submarine escaped from internment in Tallinn and eventually made her way to the United Kingdom; Estonia's neutrality questioned by the Soviet Union and Germany.
On 24 September 1939, with the fall of Poland to Nazi Germany and the USSR imminent and in light of the Orzeł incident, the Moscow press and radio started violently attacking Estonia as "hostile" to the Soviet Union. Warships of the Red Navy appeared off Estonian ports, and Soviet bombers began a threatening patrol over Tallinn and the nearby countryside. Moscow demanded that Estonia allow the USSR to establish military bases and station 25,000 troops on Estonian soil for the duration of the European war. The government of Estonia accepted the ultimatum signing the corresponding agreement on 28 September 1939.
The pact was made for ten years:
Estonia granted the USSR the right to maintain naval bases and airfields protected by Red Army troops on the strategic islands dominating Tallinn, the Gulf of Finland and the Gulf of Riga;
The Soviet Union agreed to increase her annual trade turnover with Estonia and to give Estonia facilities in case the Baltic is closed to her goods for trading with the outside world via Soviet ports on the Black Sea and White Sea;
The USSR and Estonia undertook to defend each other from "aggression arising on the part of any great European power";
It was declared: the pact "should not affect" the "economic systems and state organizations" of the USSR and Estonia.
There is no consensus in Estonian society about the decisions that the leadership of the Republic of Estonia made at that time.
When Soviet troops marched into Estonia the guns of both nations gave mutual salutes, and bands played both the Estonian anthem and the Internationale, the anthem of the USSR, at the time.
Similar demands were forwarded to Finland, Latvia and Lithuania. Finland resisted, and was attacked by the Soviet Union on 30 November, launching the Winter War. Because the attack was judged as illegal, the Soviet Union was expelled from the League of Nations on 14 December. The war ended with the signing of the Moscow Peace Treaty in March 1940, in which Finland ceded 9% of its territory to the Soviet Union. However, the Soviets' attempt to install their Finnish Democratic Republic puppet government into Helsinki and annex Finland into the Soviet Union had failed.
The first population loss for Estonia was the repatriation of about 12,000–18,000 Baltic Germans to Germany.
Soviet occupation
In the summer of 1940 the occupation of Estonia was carried through as a regular military operation. 160,000 men, supported by 600 tanks were concentrated for the invasion into Estonia. 5 divisions of the Soviet Air Force with 1150 aircraft blockaded the whole Baltic air space against Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia. The Soviet Baltic Fleet blockaded the operation from the sea. The Soviet NKVD was ordered to be ready for the reception of 58,000 prisoners of war.
On 3 June 1940, all Soviet military forces based in the Baltic states were concentrated under the command of Aleksandr Loktionov.
On 9 June, the directive 02622ss/ov was given to the Red Army's Leningrad Military District by Semyon Timoshenko to be ready by 12 June to (a) Capture the vessels of the Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian Navy in their bases and/or at sea; (b) Capture the Estonian and Latvian commercial fleet and all other vessels; (c) Prepare for an invasion and landing in Tallinn and Paldiski; (d) Close the Gulf of Riga and blockade the coasts of Estonia and Latvia in Gulf of Finland and Baltic Sea; (e) Prevent an evacuation of the Estonian and Latvian governments, military forces and assets; (f) Provide naval support for an invasion towards Rakvere; (g) Prevent Estonian and Latvian airplanes from flying either to Finland or Sweden.
On 12 June 1940, the order for a total military blockade on Estonia was given to the Soviet Baltic Fleet, according to the director of the Russian State Archive of the Naval Department Pavel Petrov (C.Phil.) referring to the records in the archive.
On 13 June at 10:40 am the Soviet forces started to move to their positions and were ready by 14 June at 10 pm. (a) 4 submarines and a number of light navy units were positioned in the Baltic Sea, to the gulfs of Riga and Finland to isolate the Baltic states by sea. (b) A navy squadron including three destroyer divisions were positioned to the west of Naissaar in order to support the invasion. (c) The 1st marine brigade's four battalions on transportation ships Sibir, 2nd Pjatiletka and Elton were positioned for landing and invasion of Naissaare and Aegna; (d) Transportation ship Dnester and destroyers Storozevoi and Silnoi were positioned with troops for the invasion of the capital Tallinn; (e) the 50th battalion was positioned on ships for an invasion near Kunda. In the naval blockade participated in total 120 Soviet vessels including 1 cruiser, 7 destroyers, and 17 submarines; 219 airplanes including the 8th air-brigade with 84 bombers: DB-3 and Tupolev SB and the 10th brigade with 62 airplanes.
On 14 June while the world's attention was focused on the fall of Paris to Nazi Germany a day earlier, the Soviet military blockade on Estonia went into effect. Two Soviet bombers downed a Finnish passenger airplane "Kaleva" flying from Tallinn to Helsinki carrying three diplomatic pouches from the U.S. legations in Tallinn, Riga and Helsinki and over 120 kilograms of diplomatic mail by two French embassy couriers. The US Foreign Service employee Henry W. Antheil Jr., the French couriers and other passengers were killed in the crash.
Vyacheslav Molotov had accused the Baltic states of conspiracy against the Soviet Union and delivered an ultimatum to Estonia for the establishment of a government the Soviets approve of. The Estonian government decided according to the Kellogg-Briand Pact not to use war as an instrument of national policy. On 17 June 1940, the Soviet Union invaded Estonia. The Red Army exited from their military bases in Estonia, some 90,000 additional Soviet troops entered the country. Given the overwhelming Soviet force both on the borders and inside the country, not to resist, to avoid bloodshed and open war.
On 17 June, the day France surrendered to Germany. The military occupation of the Republic of Estonia was complete by 21 June 1940, and rendered "official" by a communist coup d'état supported by the Soviet troops.
Most of the Estonian Defence Forces and the Estonian Defence League surrendered according to the orders of the Estonian Government believing that resistance was useless and were disarmed by the Red Army. Only the Estonian Independent Signal Battalion stationed in Tallinn at Raua Street showed resistance to Red Army, along with a Communist militia called "People's Self-Defence", (Estonian: Rahva Omakaitse) on 21 June 1940. As the Red Army brought in additional reinforcements supported by six armoured fighting vehicles, the battle lasted several hours until sundown. Finally the military resistance was ended with negotiations and the Independent Signal Battalion surrendered and was disarmed. There were 2 dead Estonian servicemen, Aleksei Männikus and Johannes Mandre, and several wounded on the Estonian side and about 10 killed and more wounded on the Soviet side. On the same day, 21 June 1940, the Flag of Estonia was replaced with a Red flag on Pikk Hermann tower, the symbol of the government in force in Estonia.
On 14–15 July, rigged and likely fabricated elections were held in which only Soviet-supported candidates were permitted to run. Those who failed to have their passports stamped for voting for a communist candidate risked getting shot in the back of the head. Tribunals were set up to punish "traitors to the people", those who had fallen short of the "political duty" of voting Estonia into the USSR. The "parliament" so elected proclaimed Estonia a socialist republic on 21 July 1940, and unanimously requested Estonia to be "accepted" into the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union annexed Estonia on 6 August and renamed the Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic. The 1940 occupation and annexation of Estonia into the Soviet Union was considered illegal and never officially recognized by Great Britain, the United States and other Western democracies. The annexation abrogated numerous prior treaties entered into by the Soviet Union and its predecessor, Bolshevist Russia.
Soviet terror
Having seized control over Estonia, the Soviet authorities rapidly moved to stamp out any potential opposition to their rule. During the first year of the occupation (1940–1941) over 8,000 people, including most of the country's leading politicians and military officers, were arrested. About 2,200 of them were executed in Estonia, while the rest were removed to prison camps in Russia, from whence very few returned alive. On 19 July 1940, the Commander-in-chief of the Estonian Army Johan Laidoner was captured by the NKVD and deported together with his spouse to the town of Penza. Laidoner died in the Vladimir Prison Camp, Russia on 13 March 1953. President of Estonia, Konstantin Päts was arrested and deported by the Soviets to Ufa in Russia on 30 July; he died in a psychiatric hospital at Kalinin (currently Tver), Russia in 1956. In all about 800 Estonian officers were arrested, about half of whom were executed, arrested or starved to death in prison camps.
When Estonia was proclaimed a Soviet Republic (SSR), the crews of 42 Estonian ships in foreign waters refused to return to their homeland (about 40% of the pre-war Estonian fleet). These ships were requisitioned by the British powers and were used in Atlantic convoys. During the war, approximately 1000 Estonian seamen served in the British merchant marine, 200 of them as officers. A small number of Estonians served in the Royal Air Force, in the British Army and in the US Army, altogether no more than two hundred.
Soviet repression of Russian emigres
Immediately after the Soviet takeover, local Russian institutions (societies, newspapers etc.) were closed down. The cultural life that had developed during Estonia's independence was destroyed. Almost all of the leading Russian emigres were arrested and later executed.
Some of the Russian White emigres had already been arrested before 21 June 1940 by the Estonian political police, probably in order to avoid "provocations" during the Red Army's invasion, and those arrested were consequently handed over to the NKVD torture chambers after the Communist takeover.
Summer War
On 22 June 1941, Nazi Germany launched their invasion of the Soviet Union. On 3 July, Joseph Stalin made his public statement over the radio calling for a scorched earth policy in the areas to be abandoned. In North Estonia, the Soviet destruction battalions had the greatest impact, being the last Baltic territory captured by the Germans. Pro-independence Forest Brothers, numbering 12,000, attacked the forces of the NKVD and the 8th Army (Major General Ljubovtsev). The fight against Forest Brothers and the implementation of the scorched earth tactics were accompanied by terror against the civilian population, which was treated as supporters or shelterers of the insurgents. Destruction battalions burnt down farms and some small boroughs. In turn, the members of the extermination battalions were at risk of reprisals by the anti-Soviet partisans.
Thousands of people including a large proportion of women and children were killed, while dozens of villages, schools and public buildings were burned to the ground. In August 1941, all residents of the village of Viru-Kabala were killed including a two-year-old child and a six-day-old infant. In the Kautla massacre, twenty people, all civilians, were murdered — many of them after torture — and tens of farms destroyed. The low toll of human deaths in comparison with the number of burned farms is due to the Erna long-range reconnaissance group breaking the Red Army blockade on the area, allowing many civilians to escape. Occasionally, the battalions burned people alive. The destruction battalions murdered 1,850 people in Estonia. Almost all of them were partisans or unarmed civilians.
On 8 August 1941, Soviet Naval Aviation used an abandoned air field on Saaremaa to launch a bombing campaign on Berlin in response of German air raids on Moscow during Operation Barbarossa.
After the German 18th Army crossed the Estonian southern border on 7–9 July, the Forest Brothers organized themselves into bigger units. They took on the 8th Army units and destruction battalions at Antsla on 5 July 1941. The next day, a larger offensive happened in Vastseliina where the Forest Brothers prevented Soviet destruction of the town and trapped the extermination battalion chiefs and local communist administrators. On 7 July, the Forest Brothers were able to hoist the Estonian flag in Vasteliina. Võru was subsequently liberated and by the time the 18th army arrived, the blue-black-white flags were already at full mast and the Forest Brothers had organised into the Omakaitse militia.
The battle of Tartu lasted for two weeks and destroyed a large part of the city. Under the leadership of Friedrich Kurg, the Forest Brothers drove the Soviets out of Tartu, behind the Pärnu River – Emajõgi line and secured southern Estonia under Estonian control by 10 July. The NKVD murdered 193 people in Tartu Prison on their retreat on 8 July.
The 18th Army resumed their advance in Estonia by working in cooperation with the Forest Brothers. The joint Estonian-German forces took Narva on 17 August. By the end of August, Tallinn was surrounded, while in the harbor was the majority of the Baltic Fleet. On 19 August, the final German assault on Tallinn began. The joint Estonian-German forces took the Estonian capital on 28 August. The Soviet evacuation of Tallinn carried heavy losses. On that day, the Red flag shot down earlier on Pikk Hermann was replaced with the flag of Estonia. After the Soviets were driven out from Estonia, German troops disarmed all the Forest Brother groups. The Estonian flag was replaced shortly with the flag of Germany.
On 8 September, German and Estonian units launched Operation Beowulf to clear Soviet forces from the West Estonian archipelago. There were a series of diversionary attacks to confuse the Soviet defenders. The operation had achieved its objectives by 21 October.
Damages
2,199 people were killed by the Soviet state security agencies, the destruction battalions, the Red Army and the Baltic Fleet, among them 264 women and 82 minors. Grave damage was caused to the Estonian Co-operative Wholesale Society, the Estonian Meat Export Company and the Central Association of Co-operative Dairies. 3,237 farms were destroyed. Altogether, 13,500 buildings were destroyed. The data of the 1939 livestock and fowl differed from the 1942 by the following numbers: there were 30,600 (14%) fewer horses, 239,800 (34%) fewer dairy cattle, 223,600 (50%) fewer pigs, 320,000 (46%) fewer sheep, and 470,000 (27.5%) fewer fowl. The following equipment was evacuated to the Soviet Union: those of the Tallinn Engineering Works "Red Krull", radio factory "Radio Pioneer", and the Northern Pulp and Paper Mills. The dismantling of the oil shale industry also began. Additionally raw materials, semi-manufactured products and finished production were evacuated. Altogether, 36,849 Rbls worth of industrial equipment, 362,721 Rbls worth of means of transport, 82,913 Rbls worth of finished products and 94,315 Rbls worth of materials were carried out. Added to the inventory, semi-manufactured products and foodstuff, a total of 606,632 Rbls worth of assets were evacuated.
In the fires of 12 and 13 July, the headquarters of the Estonian Defence League, the campus of the Faculty of Veterinary and Agriculture of the University of Tartu and more university buildings were burnt down. Several libraries of the university and 135 major private libraries were destroyed, totalling 465,000 books, many archive materials and 2,500 pieces of art lost. Among them were the libraries of Aino and Gustav Suits and Aurora and Johannes Semper.
German occupation
Most Estonians greeted the Germans with relatively open arms and hoped for restoration of independence. In Southern Estonia pro-independence administrations were set up, led by Jüri Uluots, and a co-ordinating council was set up in Tartu as soon as the Soviet regime retreated and before German troops arrived. The Forest Brothers who drove the Red Army from Tartu made this possible. This was all for nothing since the Germans disbanded the provisional government and Estonia became a part of the German-occupied Reichskommissariat Ostland. A Sicherheitspolizei was established for internal security under the leadership of Ain-Ervin Mere.