How did Nicholas II expand russia?

Answer 1

East Germany was gained from WW2.

Stalin's goal was to create a buffer region between the western capitalist countries and the Soviet Union. Near the end of World War 2, Stalin could have driven straight to Berlin, but he chose to go south into the Balkans first in order to create a Soviet presence in Romania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Yugoslavia and parts of Poland. He wanted Greece too but didn't get it because of British opposition. He set up communist regimes that were answerable to him in all but Yugoslavia. It became communist under Tito, but he would not knuckle under to Stalin. Communist governments which were Stalin were installed and which then became satellite states of the Soviet Union.

In the north, Stalin demanded and got from the Allies, the rights to impose Soviet power over Finland and the Baltic states, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, which were traditionally Russian influenced anyway.

In the west, 3 months after the war in Europe ended, Stalin declared war on Japan. The Soviet Union regained all territory which it had lost in the Russo-Japanese War. The Soviet Union gained Manchuria, North Korea, most of the Kuril Islands, Inner Mongolia and other lands.