The secret protocols to the August 1939 nonaggression treaty between the Soviet Union and Germany are cited by residents of the Soviet Union's Baltic republics in support of their argument that the Soviet annexation of the area was illegal. Here are the texts of the protocols, as translated by the United States Government from microfilm copies of the original German Foreign Ministry documents, which were turned over to the Allies at the end of World War II:
Secret Additional Protocol
On the occasion of the signature of the nonaggression treaty between the German Reich and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the undersigned plenipotentiaries of the two parties discussed in strictly confidential conversations the question of the delimitation of their respective spheres of interest in Eastern Europe. These conversations led to the following result: 1. In the event of a territorial and political transformation in the territories belonging to the Baltic States (Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania), the northern frontier of Lithuania shall represent the frontier of the spheres of interest both of Germany and the U.S.S.R.
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