ABSTRACT
On August 23, 1939 Germany and the Soviet Union contracted an alliance and agreed on a plan to divide Central Europe between these two totalitarian powers. The implementation commenced, when on September 1 and 17, 1939, respectively, the Third Reich and the Red Army attacked and partitioned Poland. In 1940 the Soviets annexed Romania’s Bessarabia (and northern Bukovina), Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Despite a concentrated effort to conquer Finland, the Red Army managed to grab only 10 percent of the country’s territory, though complete with its second largest city, Viipuri (Vyborg).
