740.0011 European War 1939/3447: Telegram
The Chargé in the Soviet Union (Thurston) to the Secretary of State
[Received 12:07 p.m.]
609. Embassy’s telegram No. 608, June 1, 5 p.m.7 The source quoted in the final paragraph of the Embassy’s telegram under reference stated yesterday (24 hours after the conversation reported) that the German Ambassador8 had in the meantime seen Molotov and my informant now has the impression that the possibility of an immediate invasion of Lithuania has decreased. He attributed this chiefly to Soviet preoccupation with the situation in the Mediterranean and its desire to keep a maximum military force in the south undistracted by possible developments in the Baltic.
He recalled that in the Soviet-German agreement9 reported in the Embassy’s telegram 465, August 24, [1939] noon,10 the Soviet Union had been given a free hand in the Baltic and that Germany would not regard a Soviet invasion of Lithuania as in any way directed against itself.
- Post, p. 470.↩
- Friedrich Werner, Count von der Schulenburg.↩
- Treaty of Nonaggression between Germany and the Soviet Union, with secret additional protocol, signed at Moscow on August 23, 1939; for text, see Department of State, Documents on German Foreign Policy, 1918–1945, series D, vol. vii, pp. 245–247.↩
- Foreign Relations, 1939, vol. i, p. 342.↩