The incorporation of West Germany into the organization on 9 May 1955 was described as "a decisive turning point in the history of our continent" by Halvard Lange, Foreign Affairs Minister of Norway at the time. In November 1954, the USSR requested a new European Security Treaty, in order to make a final attempt to not have a remilitarized West Germany potentially opposed to the Soviet Union, with no success. On 14 May 1955, the USSR and seven other Eastern European countries "reaffirming their desire for the establishment of a system of European collective security based on the participation of all European states irrespective of their social and political systems" established the Warsaw Pact in response to the integration of the Federal Republic of Germany into NATO, declaring that: "a remilitarized Western Germany and the integration of the latter in the North-Atlantic bloc [...] increase the danger of another war and constitutes a threat to the national security of the peaceable states; [...] in these circumstances the peaceable European states must take the necessary measures to safeguard their security". One of the founding members, East Germany, was allowed to re-arm by the Soviet Union and the National People's Army was established as the armed forces of the country to counter the rearmament of West Germany. In November 1956, Soviet forces invaded Hungary, a Warsaw Pact member state, and put down the Hungarian Revolution. After that, the USSR made bilateral 20-year-treaties with Poland (17 December 1956), GDR (12 March 1957), Romania (15 April 1957; Nikita Khrushchev withdrew them from Romania in April 1958) and Hungary (27 May 1957 ) that Soviet troops were deployed in these countries. Members The founding signatories of the Pact consisted of the following communist governments: People's Socialist Republic of Albania (withheld support in 1961 because of the Soviet–Albanian split, but formally withdrew on 13 September 1968) People's Republic of Bulgaria Czechoslovak Socialist Republic (German Democratic Republic; officially withdrew on 24 September 1990 in preparation for German reunification, with Soviet consent and a "remarkable yet hardly noticed" ceremony, ceasing to exist altogether at midnight on 3 October) Hungarian People's Republic (temporarily withdrew from 1–4 November 1956 during the Hungarian Revolution) Polish People's Republic Socialist Republic of Romania (the only independent permanent non-Soviet member of the Warsaw Pact, having freed itself from its Soviet satellite status by the early 1960s) Observers : In July 1963, the Mongolian People's