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Soviet Invasion Of The Baltics
The Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were invaded and occupied in June 1940 by the Soviet Union, under the leadership of Stalin and auspices of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact that had been signed between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union in August 1939, immediately before the outbreak of World War II. The three countries were then annexed into the Soviet Union (formally as "constituent republics") in August 1940. The United States and most other Western countries never recognised this incorporation, considering it illegal. On 22 June 1941, Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union and within weeks occupied the Baltic territories. In July 1941, the Third Reich incorporated the Baltic territory into its ''Reichskommissariat Ostland''. As a result of the Red Army's Baltic Offensive of 1944, the Soviet Union recaptured most of the Baltic states and trapped the remaining German forces in the Courland pocket until their formal surrender in May 1945. Latvian plenipotentia ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis powers. World War II was a total war that directly involved more than 100 million personnel from more than 30 countries. The major participants in the war threw their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources. Aircraft played a major role in the conflict, enabling the strategic bombing of population centres and deploying the only two nuclear weapons ever used in war. World War II was by far the deadliest conflict in human history; it resulted in 70 to 85 million fatalities, mostly among civilians. Tens of millions died due to genocides (including the Holocaust), starvation, ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Annexed
Annexation (Latin ''ad'', to, and ''nexus'', joining), in international law, is the forcible acquisition of one state's territory by another state, usually following military occupation of the territory. It is generally held to be an illegal act.: "Annexation means the forcible acquisition of territory by one State at the expense of another State. It is one of the principal modes of acquiring territory... in contrast to acquisition a) of terra nullius by means of effective occupation accompanied by the intent to appropriate the territory; b) by cession as a result of a treaty concluded between the States concerned (Treaties), or an act of adjudication, both followed by the effective peaceful transfer of territory; c) by means of prescription defined as the legitimization of a doubtful title to territory by passage of time and presumed acquiescence of the former sovereign; d) by accretion constituting the physical process by which new land is formed close to, or becomes attached to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
European Parliament
The European Parliament (EP) is one of the legislative bodies of the European Union and one of its seven institutions. Together with the Council of the European Union (known as the Council and informally as the Council of Ministers), it adopts European legislation, following a proposal by the European Commission. The Parliament is composed of 705 members (MEPs). It represents the second-largest democratic electorate in the world (after the Parliament of India), with an electorate of 375 million eligible voters in 2009. Since 1979, the Parliament has been directly elected every five years by the citizens of the European Union through universal suffrage. Voter turnout in parliamentary elections decreased each time after 1979 until 2019, when voter turnout increased by eight percentage points, and rose above 50% for the first time since 1994. The voting age is 18 in all EU member states except for Malta and Austria, where it is 16, and Greece, where it is 17. Although the E ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sui Generis
''Sui generis'' ( , ) is a Latin phrase that means "of its/their own kind", "in a class by itself", therefore "unique". A number of disciplines use the term to refer to unique entities. These include: * Biology, for species that do not fit into a genus that includes other species * Creative arts, for artistic works that go beyond conventional genre boundaries * Law, when a special and unique interpretation of a case or authority is necessary ** Intellectual property rights, for types of works not falling under general copyright law but protected through separate statutes * Philosophy, to indicate an idea, an entity, or a reality that cannot be reduced to a lower concept or included in a higher concept Biology In the taxonomical structure "genus → species", a species is described as ''sui generis'' if its genus was created to classify it (i.e. its uniqueness at the time of classification merited the creation of a new genus, the sole member of which was initially the ''sui ge ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kārlis Reinholds Zariņš
Kārlis Reinholds Zariņš (born 4 December 1879, Ipiķi parish – 29 April 1963, London) (international: Charles Zarine) was envoy and consul general of Latvia in the United Kingdom. Shortly before the Soviet occupation of Latvia, on 17 May 1940 the Latvian cabinet of ministers granted Zariņš extraordinary powers. He was delegated to supervise the work of Latvia's representations abroad in time of war or other extraordinary circumstance. He served this role starting from the Soviet occupation in 1940 until his death in 1963. Since then, Arnolds Spekke and later Anatols Dinbergs represented Latvia as chargé d'affaires until restoration of independence in 1991. Zariņš was authorized to: * defend Latvia's interests in all countries (except Estonia, Lithuania, Finland, Sweden, Germany and the USSR); * issue binding orders to institutions representing Latvia; * oversee all property and handle financial resources of these institutions; * relieve envoys of their duties; * transfer ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Plenipotentiary
A ''plenipotentiary'' (from the Latin ''plenus'' "full" and ''potens'' "powerful") is a diplomat who has full powers—authorization to sign a treaty or convention on behalf of his or her sovereign. When used as a noun more generally, the word ''plenipotentiary'' can also refer to any person who has full powers. When used an adjective, ''plenipotentiary'' describes something which confers full powers, such as an edict or an assignment. Diplomats Before the era of rapid international transport or essentially instantaneous communication (such as telegraphy in the mid-19th century and then radio), diplomatic mission chiefs were granted full (''plenipotentiary'') powers to represent their government in negotiations with their host nation. Conventionally, any representations made or agreements reached with a plenipotentiary would be recognized and complied with by their government. Historically, the common generic term for high diplomats of the crown or state was ''minister''. It t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Courland Pocket
The Courland Pocket (Blockade of the Courland army group), (german: Kurland-Kessel)/german: Kurland-Brückenkopf (Courland Bridgehead), lv, Kurzemes katls (Courland Cauldron) or ''Kurzemes cietoksnis'' (Courland Fortress)., group=lower-alpha was an area of the Courland Peninsula where Army Group North of Nazi Germany and the Reichskommissariat Ostland were cut off and surrounded by the Red Army for almost a year, lasting from July 1944 until 10 May 1945. The pocket was created during the Red Army's Baltic Offensive, when forces of the 1st Baltic Front reached the Baltic Sea near Memel (Klaipėda) during its lesser Memel Offensive Operation phases. This action isolated the German Army Group North from the rest of the German forces, having been pushed from the south by the Red Army, standing in a front between Tukums and Libau in Latvia, with the Baltic Sea in the West, the Irbe Strait in the North and the Gulf of Riga in the East behind the Germans. Renamed Army Group Courl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and, after 1922, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The army was established in January 1918. The Bolsheviks raised an army to oppose the military confederations (especially the various groups collectively known as the White Army) of their adversaries during the Russian Civil War. Starting in February 1946, the Red Army, along with the Soviet Navy, embodied the main component of the Soviet Armed Forces; taking the official name of "Soviet Army", until its dissolution in 1991. The Red Army provided the largest land force in the Allied victory in the European theatre of World War II, and its invasion of Manchuria assisted the unconditional surrender of Imperial Japan. During operations on the Eastern Front, it accounted for 75–80% of casual ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Reichskommissariat Ostland
The Reichskommissariat Ostland (RKO) was established by Nazi Germany in 1941 during World War II. It became the civilian occupation regime in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and the western part of Byelorussian SSR. German planning documents initially referred to an equivalent ''Reichskommissariat Baltenland''. The political organization for this territory – after an initial period of military administration before its establishment – involved a German civilian administration, nominally under the authority of the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories led by Nazi ideologist Alfred Rosenberg, but actually controlled by the Nazi official Hinrich Lohse, its appointed ''Reichskommissar''. Germany's main political objectives for the ''Reichskommissariat'', as laid out by the Ministry within the framework of Nazism's policies for the east established by Adolf Hitler, included the genocide of the Jewish population, as well as the ''Lebensraum'' settlement of ethnic Germa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa (german: link=no, Unternehmen Barbarossa; ) was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and many of its Axis allies, starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during the Second World War. The operation, code-named after Frederick Barbarossa ("red beard"), a 12th-century Holy Roman emperor and German king, put into action Nazi Germany's ideological goal of conquering the western Soviet Union to repopulate it with Germans. The German aimed to use some of the conquered people as forced labour for the Axis war effort while acquiring the oil reserves of the Caucasus as well as the agricultural resources of various Soviet territories. Their ultimate goal was to create more (living space) for Germany, and the eventual extermination of the indigenous Slavic peoples by mass deportation to Siberia, Germanisation, enslavement, and genocide. In the two years leading up to the invasion, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union signed political and economic pacts for st ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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