The region has, for the past half-century, been under the control of three separate governments, twice by the USSR and once by Nazi Germany in World War II, and by the current government since 1991. It was occupied by the Soviets in 1940 after the national government caved to their threat of invasion, fell to the Nazis within a year, and stayed under their control until 1944, when the Soviet Red Army retook the region, leaving it under the heel of Communism for the next forty-six years. At last, in March 1990, following the collapse of the Warsaw Pact and the Berlin Wall the previous year, Baltica declared its independence, which was formally recognized by the USSR in September 1991.