German–Soviet Boundary and Friendship Treaty
The German–Soviet Frontier Treaty was a second supplementary protocol,[1] of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of 23 August.[2] It was a secret clause as amended on September 28, 1939, by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union after their joint invasion and occupation of sovereign Poland.[3] It was signed by Joachim von Ribbentrop and Vyacheslav Molotov, the foreign ministers of Germany and the Soviet Union respectively, in the presence of Joseph Stalin. Only a small portion of the protocol, which superseded the first treaty, was publicly announced while the spheres of influence of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union remained classified. The third secret protocol of the Pact was signed on January 10, 1941, by Friedrich Werner von Schulenburg, and Molotov, wherein Germany renounced its claims to portions of Lithuania, only a few months before their anti-Soviet Operation Barbarossa.[4]
Secret articles
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/00/Bundesarchiv_Bild_183-H27343%2C_Dtsch.-Sowjet._Grenz-_u._Freundschaftsvertrag.jpg/170px-Bundesarchiv_Bild_183-H27343%2C_Dtsch.-Sowjet._Grenz-_u._Freundschaftsvertrag.jpg)
Several secret articles were attached to the treaty. These articles allowed for the exchange of Soviet and German nationals between the two occupied zones of Poland, redrew parts of the central European spheres of interest dictated by the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, and also stated that neither party to the treaty would allow on its territory any "Polish agitation" directed at the other party.
During the western invasion of Poland, the German Wehrmacht had taken control of the Lublin Voivodeship and eastern Warsaw Voivodeship - territories which according to the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact were in the Soviet sphere of influence. To compensate the Soviet Union for this "loss", the treaty's secret attachment transferred Lithuania to the Soviet sphere of influence, with the exception of a small territory, referred to as the "Lithuania Strip", the left bank of river Šešupė, was to remain a German sphere of influence. After this transfer, the Soviet Union issued an ultimatum to Lithuania, occupied it on June 15, 1940, and established the Lithuanian SSR.
References
- ^ Sharon Korman (1996). The Right of Conquest : The Acquisition of Territory by Force in International Law and Practice. Oxford University Press. p. 167. ISBN 0191583804. Retrieved 25 April 2015.
For the text of the German-Soviet Frontier Treaty see Degras, Soviet Documents on Foreign Policy, iii. 377.
- ^ Davies 2008, page 30 (ibidem).
- ^ Davies, Norman (2008) [1996]. Europe: a History. Oxford University Press, Pan Macmillan. pp. 1001, 1004. ISBN 0-19-820171-0.
- ^ Britannica (2015). "A secret supplementary protocol (signed September 28, 1939)". German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact. Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 25 April 2015.
- Eidintas, Alfonsas; Vytautas Žalys; Alfred Erich Senn (September 1999). Ed. Edvardas Tuskenis (ed.). Lithuania in European Politics: The Years of the First Republic, 1918–1940 (Paperback ed.). New York: St. Martin's Press. p. 170. ISBN 0-312-22458-3.
External links
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- Boundary treaties
- Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact
- 1939 in the Soviet Union
- 1939 in Germany
- Treaties of Nazi Germany
- Treaties of the Soviet Union
- Secret treaties
- World War II treaties
- Borders of Germany
- Borders of the Soviet Union
- 1939 in Lithuania
- Treaties concluded in 1939
- Treaties entered into force in 1939
- Germany–Soviet Union relations