Repressions , executions and mass deportations followed after that in the Baltics . The Soviet Union attempted to Sovietize its occupied territories , by means such as deportations and instituting the Russian language as the only working language . Between 1940 and 1953 , the Soviet government deported more than 200,000 people from the Baltic to remote locations in the Soviet Union . In addition , at least 75,000 were sent to Gulags . About 10 % of the adult Baltic population were deported or sent to labor camps . ( See June deportation , Soviet deportations from Estonia , Sovietization of the Baltic states ) The Soviet control of the Baltic states was interrupted by Nazi German invasion of this region in 1941 . Initially , many Estonians , Latvians , and Lithuanians considered the Germans as liberators . The Baltic countries hoped for the restoration of independence , but instead the Germans established a civil administration , known as the '' Reichskommissariat Ostland '' . During the occupation the Germans carried out discrimination , mass deportations and mass killings , generating Baltic resistance movements ( see German occupation of the Baltic states during World War II ) . Over 190,000 Lithuanian Jews , nearly 95 % of Lithuania 's pre-war Jewish community , and 66,000 Latvian Jews were murdered . The German occupation lasted until late 1944 ( in Courland , until early 1945 ) , when the countries were reoccupied by the Red Army and Soviet rule was re-established , with the passive agreement of the United States and Britain ( see Yalta Conference and Potsdam Agreement )
Yalta Conference
Yalta Conference
Baltic states