Executive Order 8389 Protecting Funds of Victims of Aggression [1] was issued by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt on April 10, 1940, following the invasions of Denmark and Norway by Nazi Germany.
Executive Order 8389 Protecting Funds of Victims of Aggression [1] was issued by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt on April 10, 1940, following the invasions of Denmark and Norway by Nazi Germany.
One of the primary concerns of the U.S. government in the early years of World War II was to prevent the Nazis from using the financial resources of the United States to finance their military campaigns and occupation costs. [2] The task of enforcing this goal by controlling financial assets fell to the US Treasury Department, and President Roosevelt enabled its actions by issuing Executive Order 8389 on April 10, 1940, which froze Norwegian and Danish assets in the United States. As precedent, Roosevelt invoked an act of October 6, 1917, and Executive Order 6560 of January 15, 1934. [3]
In doing so, Roosevelt not only offered symbolic support to the occupied nations of Europe, but also guaranteed future practical assistance by assuring that the assets of such states would be returned once the aggressors were defeated. [4] : 34 The Order, initially ruling only on Norwegian and Danish assets, was later amended to include those of most European states, with the notable exemption of Great Britain. The subsequent amendments were filed under separate Order numbers. [5]
After the occupation and annexation of the Baltic States (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) by the Soviet Union, Order 8389 was amended via Executive Order 8484 on 15 July 1940 to include those states. [6] The Soviet government condemned the freezing of the Baltic states' assets, asserting that there was no legal basis for suspending the transfer. [4] : 35 Sumner Welles, acting Secretary of State, addressed the objection in a statement:
The attempt to transfer the gold belonging to the Banks of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia was made at a time when it had become apparent that the governments and peoples of those countries were being deprived of freedom of action by foreign troops which had entered their territories by force or threats of force. [4] : 35
Prior to the inclusion of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, all the other European states affected by the Order had come under the military occupation of Nazi Germany. [4] : 35 In conjunction with the Welles declaration, Executive Order 8484 and its enforcement by the Treasury Department offered both immediate and long-term benefits to the Baltic states. [4] : 42
A postcard was sent in 1940 by a German Company in Germany to a firm in New York. In the postcard there is a mention of Munich Reich Bank, that triggered application of this Roosevelt Executive order. Upon arrival to the US this marking was added: "SUPPOSED TO CONTAIN MATTER SUBJECT TO THE PROVISIONS OF EXECUTIVED ORDER 8389 AS AMENDED." The German firm was Wackerchemic of Munich and the PC was sent to Sager & Malcolm in NYC.
The Baltic states or the Baltic countries, also known as the Baltic nations, and less often as the "Baltic republics", the "Baltic lands", or simply the Baltics, is a modern unofficial geopolitical term, typically used to group the three sovereign states on the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea: Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. The term is not used in the context of cultural areas, national identity, or language, because while the majority of people in Latvia and Lithuania are Baltic people, the majority in Estonia are Finnic. The three governments engage in intergovernmental and parliamentary cooperation. There is frequent cooperation in foreign and security policy, defence, energy, and transportation.
The Trading with the Enemy Act (TWEA) of 1917 is a United States federal law, enacted on October 6, 1917, that gives the President of the United States the power to oversee or restrict any and all trade between the United States and its enemies in times of war. TWEA was amended in 1933 by the Emergency Banking Act to extend the president’s authority also in peace time. It was amended again in 1977 by the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to restrict the application of TWEA only in times of war, while the IEEPA was intended to be used in peace time.
The Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic, also known as Soviet Latvia or Latvia, was a de facto republic of the Soviet Union.
The occupation of the Baltic states involved the June 1940 invasion of the Red Army, and the subsequent military occupation of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania by the Soviet Union, under the leadership of Stalin and auspices of the August 1939 Nazi-Soviet Pact that had been signed immediately before the outbreak of World War II. The three countries were then annexed into the Soviet Union as constituent "republics" in August 1940, though 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.
The Baltic Way or Baltic Chain was a peaceful political demonstration that occurred on 23 August 1989. Approximately two million people joined their hands to form a human chain spanning 675.5 kilometres (419.7 mi) across the three Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, which at the time were constituent republics of the Soviet Union.
Occupation of the Baltic states by Nazi Germany occurred during Operation Barbarossa from 1941 to 1944. Initially, many Estonians, Latvians, and Lithuanians considered the Germans as liberators from the Soviet Union.
Before the outbreak of the Second World War, Germany and the Soviet Union signed the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact, concerning the partition and disposition of sovereign states, including Estonia, and in particular its Secret Additional Protocol of August 1939.
State continuity of the Baltic states describes the continuity of the Baltic states as legal entities under international law while under Soviet rule and German occupation from 1940 to 1991. The prevailing opinion accepts the Baltic thesis of illegal occupation and the actions of the USSR are regarded as contrary to international law in general and to the bilateral treaties between the USSR and the Baltic states in particular.
The Soviet occupation of Latvia in 1940 refers to the military occupation of the Republic of Latvia by the Soviet Union under the provisions of the 1939 Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact with Nazi Germany and its Secret Additional Protocol signed in August 1939. The occupation took place according to the European Court of Human Rights, the Government of Latvia, the United States Department of State, and the European Union. In 1989, the USSR also condemned the 1939 secret protocol between Nazi Germany and herself that had led to the invasion and occupation of the three Baltic countries, including Latvia.
The Select Committee to Investigate Communist Aggression and the Forced Incorporation of the Baltic States into the U.S.S.R., also known as the Kersten Committee after its chairman, U.S. Representative Charles J. Kersten was established in 1953 to investigate the annexation of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania into the Soviet Union. The committee terminated March 4, 1954, when it was replaced by the Select Committee on Communist Aggression.
The Soviet re-occupation of Latvia in 1944 refers to the military occupation of Latvia by the Soviet Union in 1944. During World War II Latvia was first occupied by the Soviet Union in June 1940 and then was occupied by Nazi Germany in 1941–1944 after which it was re-occupied by the Soviet Union.
Relevant events began regarding the Baltic states and the Soviet Union when, following Bolshevist Russia's conflict with the Baltic states—Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia—several peace treaties were signed with Russia and its successor, the Soviet Union. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, the Soviet Union and all three Baltic States further signed non-aggression treaties. The Soviet Union also confirmed that it would adhere to the Kellogg–Briand Pact with regard to its neighbors, including Estonia and Latvia, and entered into a convention defining "aggression" that included all three Baltic countries.
The Welles Declaration was a diplomatic statement issued on July 23, 1940, by Sumner Welles, the acting US Secretary of State, condemning the June 1940 occupation by the Soviet Union of the three Baltic states and refusing to recognize their annexation as Soviet republics. It was an application of the 1932 Stimson Doctrine of nonrecognition of international territorial changes that were executed by force and was consistent with US President Franklin Roosevelt's attitude towards violent territorial expansion.
Timeline of the occupation of the Baltic States lists key events in the military occupation of the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania by the Soviet Union and by Nazi Germany during World War II.
Executive Order 8484, issued on July 10, 1940, by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, was one of a series of amendments to Executive Order 8389.
The Sovietization of the Baltic states refers to the sovietization of all spheres of life in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania when they were under control of the Soviet Union. The first period deals with the occupation from June 1940 to July 1941 when the German occupation began. The second period covers 1944 when the Soviet forces pushed the German out, until 1991 when independence was declared.
The background of the occupation of the Baltic states covers the period before the first Soviet occupation on 14 June 1940, stretching from independence in 1918 to the Soviet ultimatums in 1939–1940. Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia gained independence in the aftermath of the Russian revolutions of 1917 and the German occupation which in the Baltic countries lasted until the end of World War I in November 1918. All three countries signed non-aggression treaties with the Soviet Union in the 1920s and 1930s. Despite the treaties, in the aftermath of the 1939 German–Soviet pact, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were occupied, and thereafter forcibly incorporated into the Soviet Union, in 1940.
The Soviet occupation of the Baltic states covers the period from the Soviet–Baltic mutual assistance pacts in 1939, to their invasion and annexation in 1940, to the mass deportations of 1941.
The Soviet Union occupied most of the territory of the Baltic states in its 1944 Baltic Offensive during World War II. The Red Army regained control over the three Baltic capitals and encircled retreating Wehrmacht and Latvian forces in the Courland Pocket where they held out until the final German surrender at the end of the war. The German forces were deported and the leaders of Latvian collaborating forces were executed as traitors. After the war, the Baltic territories were reorganized into constituent republics of the USSR until they declared independence in 1990 amid the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The Guerrilla war in the Baltic states was an armed struggle waged by the Latvian, Lithuanian and Estonian partisans, called the Forest Brothers, against the Soviet Union during the Soviet invasion and occupation of the three Baltic states during and after World War II. Similar anti-Soviet Central and Eastern European resistance groups fought against Soviet and communist rule in Bulgaria, Poland, Romania, and western Ukraine.
Whereas on July 15, 1940, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order No. 8484, which froze Baltic assets in the United States to prevent them from falling into Soviet hands
