Nazi-Soviet Pact in the context of "Amnesty for Polish citizens in the Soviet Union"

The German–Soviet Credit Agreement (also referred to as the German–Soviet Trade and Credit Agreement) was an economic arrangement between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union whereby the latter received an acceptance credit of 200 million ℛ︁ℳ︁ over seven years with an effective interest rate of 4.5 percent. The credit line was to be used during the next two years for purchase of capital goods (factory equipment, installations, machinery and machine tools, ships, vehicles, and other means of transport) in Germany and was to be paid off by means of Soviet material shipment from 1946 onwards. The economic agreement was the first step toward improvement in relations between the Soviet Union and Germany.

On 11 May 1939, the day after the Credit Agreement, the Soviet Union went to war against Japan in a successful four-week military campaign in the Far East. The Nazi-Soviet Pact was signed four days after the Credit Agreement. The 1939 German–Soviet Commercial Agreement renewed declined German–Soviet economic relations and was adjusted and expanded with the larger German–Soviet Commercial Agreement in February 1940 and January 1941 German–Soviet Border and Commercial Agreement. German shipments to the Soviets became tardy and failed to provide all that was promised the closer the date of Barbarossa came. The Soviets fulfilled their obligations to the letter right up until the invasion, wanting to avoid provoking Germany. All these agreements were terminated when Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, in violation of the treaties between the two countries. Soviet trade with Germany in the pre-invasion period ended up providing the Germans with many of the resources they needed for their invasion of the Soviet Union.

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 army of the three Baltic countries – Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania – and refusing to diplomatically recognize their subsequent annexation into the Soviet Union. 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.

The 1940 Soviet invasion was an implementation of its 1939 Nazi-Soviet Pact, which contained a secret protocol by which Nazi Germany and Stalinist USSR agreed to partition the independent nations between them. After the pact, the Soviets engaged in a series of ultimatums and actions ending in the annexation of the Baltic states during the summer of 1940. The area held little strategic importance to the United States, but several legations of the US State Department had established diplomatic relationships there. The United States and the United Kingdom anticipated future involvement in the war, but US non-interventionism and a foreseeable British–Soviet alliance deterred open confrontation over the Baltic states.