Soviet Military Preparations in Estonia during the Year beforeLBarbarossa

Abstract

This chapter focuses on Soviet military preparations in Estonia during the year prior to the German invasion of the Soviet Union. At the end of the 1930s the attempts by the League of Nations and Western powers to keep the peace in Europe had failed. During the Finnish Winter War, Estonia was forced into a humiliating and disgraceful formal neutrality, and was powerless to resist or even protest against the Soviet violation of international law or use of Estonian territory for operations against Finland. The first months of the war against Germany were a disaster for the Soviet Union. The three armies deployed on the territories of the Baltic States were defeated and by September the Baltic Fleet had been pushed back to Kronstadt and Leningrad. Latvia and Lithuania were overrun quickly, but Estonia remained a combat zone throughout the summer, causing civilian casualties and mobilised conscripts being transported east. Keywords:Baltic Fleet; Barbarossa; Estonia; Finnish Winter War; German invasion; international law; Latvia; Soviet military; Soviet Union