Estonia declared neutrality at the outbreak of World War II (1939–1945), but the country was repeatedly contested, invaded and occupied, first by the Stalinist 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.
World War II losses in Estonia, estimated at around 25% of the population, were among the highest proportion in Europe. War and occupation deaths listed in the current reports total at 81,000. These include deaths in Soviet deportations in 1941, Soviet executions, German deportations, and victims of the Holocaust in Estonia.
Preface
Before World War II, the Republic of Estonia and the USSR had signed and ratified the following treaties:
Kellogg-Briand Pact
August 27, 1928, Kellogg-Briand Pact "renouncing war as an instrument of national policy". Ratified by Estonia and the USSR on July 24, 1929.
Non-aggression treaty
With USSR on May 4, 1932.
The Convention for the Definition of Aggression
On July 3, 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 defines 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." "Fourth – a naval blockade of coasts or ports of another State."
Declaration of neutrality
Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania jointly declared their neutrality on November 18, 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 December 1st, 1938, which was modelled on Sweden's declaration of neutrality of May 29, 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.
