German–Soviet Frontier Treaty
The German–Soviet Frontier Treaty was a second supplementary protocol, of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of 23 August. It was a secret clause as amended on September 28, 1939, by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union after their joint invasion and occupation of sovereign Poland. It was signed by Joachim von Ribbentrop and Vyacheslav Molotov, the foreign ministers of Germany and the Soviet Union respectively, in the presence of Joseph Stalin. Only a small portion of the protocol, which superseded the first treaty, was publicly announced while the spheres of influence of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union remained classified. The third secret protocol of the Pact was signed on January 10, 1941, by Friedrich Werner von Schulenburg, and Molotov, wherein Germany renounced its claims to portions of Lithuania, only a few months before their anti-Soviet Operation Barbarossa.Secret articles
Several secret articles were attached to the treaty. These articles allowed for the exchange of Soviet and German nationals between the two occupied zones of Poland, redrew parts of the central European spheres of interest dictated by the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, and also stated that neither party to the treaty would allow on its territory any "Polish agitation" directed at the other party.
During the western invasion of Poland, the German Wehrmacht had taken control of the Lublin Voivodeship and eastern Warsaw Voivodeship - territories which according to the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact were in the Soviet sphere of influence. To compensate the Soviet Union for this "loss", the treaty's secret attachment transferred Lithuania to the Soviet sphere of influence, with the exception of a small territory, referred to as the "Lithuania Strip", the left bank of river Šešupė, was to remain a German sphere of influence.
After this transfer, the Soviet Union issued an ultimatum to Lithuania, occupied it on June 15, 1940, and established the Lithuanian SSR.
