The Nazi-Soviet Pact, also known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact after the foreign ministers from Germany and the USSR, was a non-aggression deal made in August 1939. This agreement let Adolf Hitler, the head of Nazi Germany, invade Poland and then move into Western Europe without worrying about a Soviet army coming at him from the east. At the same time, Joseph Stalin, the leader of the USSR, got some breathing room in Eastern Europe and had extra time to build up his military.
This pact split Central and Eastern Europe into two zones of influence for the two countries, leading to the occupation of several independent nations and shaping where a lot of the battles took place during the first couple of years of World War II (1939-1945). However, things fell apart when Germany launched an attack on the USSR in June 1941.
Hitler’s Foreign Policy
To get why the USSR decided to strike a deal with Germany instead of Britain or France in 1939, we need to look back at the crazy events happening in Europe throughout the 1930s. When Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany in 1933, he kicked off an aggressive foreign policy aimed at taking over neighboring lands. He had actually laid this out in his 1925 book Mein Kampf, where he talked about needing Lebensraum (which means ‘living space’) for the German people—basically, new territories for them to thrive in, particularly in the East. Plus, Hitler had promised the German public that he would reverse the humiliating losses and restrictions from the Treaty of Versailles, which ended World War I and was a major blow to Germany. He started by reclaiming the Saar region in 1935, remilitarizing the Rhineland in 1936, and then annexing Austria into his Third Reich in 1938. By that same year, he had his eyes set on Czechoslovakia.
It’s worth noting that Stalin wasn’t invited to the Munich Conference in 1938.
The League of Nations, which was supposed to keep the peace after WWI (kind of like today’s UN), really dropped the ball when it came to stopping aggressive countries from picking on weaker ones. This became super clear when Japan invaded Manchuria in China in 1931 and Italy invaded Ethiopia in 1935. Even Hitler’s bold moves didn’t provoke any serious action from the League. You can imagine that Stalin was watching all these developments unfold with a sense of dread as Germany pushed further east.
The Munich Conference
Hitler’s push for the Czech Sudetenland to join Germany kicked off what we now call the Czech Crisis. Back in 1935, the USSR and France had signed a treaty promising to protect Czechoslovakia from outside threats, but the catch was that the USSR would only step in if France took action first. Hitler figured France wouldn’t act without Britain’s backing, and Britain seemed pretty set on dodging war at all costs. Meanwhile, French Prime Minister Edouard Daladier knew his country wasn’t ready for a fight.
Notably, Stalin didn’t get an invite to the Munich Conference on September 29-30, 1938. The leaders of Britain, France, Italy, and Germany gathered in Munich to try to prevent a war over Hitler’s plans for Czechoslovakia. British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain didn’t trust Stalin one bit. Czechoslovakia itself wasn’t invited either, since everyone decided to just hand over the Sudetenland. With the U.S. sticking to its isolationist stance, Britain and France weren’t ready to go to war with Germany, so they opted for appeasement—basically giving in to Hitler’s demands in hopes it would satisfy him. Looking back, this strategy turned out to be a huge mistake since Hitler was hell-bent on taking over all of Europe. The Munich Agreement said Germany had to respect the rest of Czechoslovakia’s sovereignty, but when Hitler occupied the rest of the country in March 1939, it became pretty clear what he was up to. He then started talking about invading Poland, completely shattering any hopes from Munich and appeasement.
As one Soviet diplomat pointed out, not being at Munich meant avoiding a bad situation (Taylor, 237). By 1939, Stalin realized that if Germany attacked the USSR, neither the major powers nor the League of Nations would come to help. So, making some kind of deal with Germany seemed like the best way to keep the USSR out of a war. Even if a pact with Hitler was just a temporary fix, it would give Stalin time to build up military strength and possibly negotiate some land to create a buffer zone between the two countries. Plus, if Germany went after Britain and France, their armies might weaken each other enough for Stalin to take advantage of the situation.
Shifting Alliances
In 1936, Hitler solidified his southern defenses by teaming up with Italy’s fascist leader, Benito Mussolini. This partnership became known as the Rome-Berlin Axis. They casually agreed at the Munich Conference to back each other in any upcoming conflict. Then, on May 22, 1939, Germany and Italy officially signed a military alliance called the ‘Pact of Steel.’ After that, Hitler turned his attention to securing his eastern side. The Anti-Comintern Pact from 1936-37, which included Germany, Italy, and Japan, was all about mutual support for expanding their empires and standing against communism. But that didn’t stop Hitler from wanting to keep the USSR in check while he took over Western Europe. Even though Stalin had signed a non-aggression pact with Poland back in 1932, he still started chatting with Hitler to see how much of Poland he could snatch up. Both leaders were pretty much just looking out for their own interests.
When Stalin appointed Molotov, it hinted to Hitler that there might be a chance for some kind of deal.
Meanwhile, in Britain during the summer of 1939, many people thought the USSR could be a great ally against Hitler. The Labour Party and figures like Winston Churchill were all for a treaty with the Soviets. A poll in June showed that 84% of Brits supported teaming up with Stalin. However, Prime Minister Chamberlain was firmly against any dealings with Stalin, partly because he believed Stalin’s military was weakened after his brutal purges. A minor official from the British foreign office, William Strang, was sent to Moscow to gauge the situation, but talks hit a snag because Poland wouldn’t allow Soviet troops on its land if they got attacked. Ultimately, the British-Soviet discussions went nowhere.
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Molotov & Ribbentrop
Vyacheslav Molotov (1890-1986) was a key player in the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution and got his start in politics under Vladimir Lenin. He took over as the People’s Commissar of Foreign Affairs from Max Litvinov in May 1939, after Litvinov had spent the ’30s making sure the USSR joined the League of Nations and standing firm against Nazi Germany. Litvinov was all about collective security with Britain and France, so when Stalin picked Molotov for the job, it sent a signal to Hitler that there might be room for some talks between Germany and the USSR. Plus, Molotov had a reputation for being a tough negotiator—his name even means “hammer.”
On the German side, Molotov’s counterpart was Joachim von Ribbentrop (1893-1946), who had just stepped into the role in February 1938. Ribbentrop was a WWI vet and had lived abroad, even serving as ambassador to Britain where he managed to rub everyone the wrong way, including giving King George VI a Nazi salute. Honestly, it’s hard to find anyone saying anything nice about Ribbentrop, but he was fiercely loyal to Hitler. He played a big part in negotiating the Anglo-German Naval Agreement in 1935 and helped Japan sign the Anti-Comintern Pact.
Features of the Nazi-Soviet Pact
So, Germany and the USSR kicked off some diplomatic talks in June 1939, but officially, they were just about trade. Things started heating up in August when Ribbentrop sent a message to Germany’s ambassador in Moscow to pass along to Molotov. The gist of it was:
“Germany and Russia don’t really have any major conflicts… We can totally sort out any issues between the Baltic and Black Sea to everyone’s satisfaction.”
Molotov got the message but made it clear that working things out would take time and involve three steps: first a trade deal, then a non-aggression pact, and finally, discussions about territories. Meanwhile, Hitler was in a rush since he planned to invade Poland on September 1, no matter what (the army was already gearing up, and autumn rains would complicate things). He reached out directly to Stalin, saying he was cool with letting the USSR have free reign in Eastern Europe. By August 21, they had agreed on a trade treaty, and soon after, Ribbentrop was invited to Moscow. In a surprising turn of events, the two foreign ministers signed the German-Soviet Treaty of Non-Aggression on August 23, 1939. They kept it pretty straightforward, skipping all the usual diplomatic fluff because, as Stalin put it, the Soviet Government couldn’t just suddenly act like they were friends after being trashed by the Nazis for six years. This agreement was all about keeping each other at a distance while avoiding conflict. It promised that neither country would attack the other, and if one got attacked by someone else, the other wouldn’t help that attacker or their allies.
Not long after, they struck a broader deal regarding Central and Eastern Europe. Then, on September 28, they signed the German-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation, and Demarcation. Together, these agreements are generally known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact or Nazi-Soviet Pact.
The only part of the Nazi-Soviet Pact that was about not attacking each other was just a promise between the two countries; everyone else was basically open for attack. There were secret agreements that let Germany and the USSR go after their neighbors, which meant they could split up Central and Eastern Europe between themselves. These hidden deals didn’t come to light until 1945 when some German documents were captured. The Soviets kept denying these secret protocols existed until the late 20th century. The USSR got to do what it wanted in places like eastern Poland, Bessarabia, Finland, Estonia, and Latvia (Lithuania was added later). Meanwhile, Germany had its interests in western Poland and the southern countries. Plus, Stalin agreed to send Hitler raw materials and food in return for industrial gear and machinery.
Reaction to the Pact
Politicians and diplomats in Britain and France were pretty taken aback by this risky new situation. A lot of communists outside the USSR started to distance themselves from Stalin because he was making deals with Hitler, who had been attacking communists in Germany for ages. Chamberlain and Daladier couldn’t wrap their heads around the fact that Hitler had suddenly switched his long-held anti-communist stance. They claimed that Stalin had basically given Hitler a free pass to go after the West. Hitler might have even thought that the Nazi-Soviet Pact would make Britain and France back off from their promise to protect Poland made the previous spring. As he told his generals in August 1939, he believed there was still a good chance that the West wouldn’t step in. He said they had to take the risk with no hesitation, adding that the East would provide them with grain, cattle, coal, lead, and zinc. But Hitler was mistaken about Britain and France. The British government had already made it clear on August 22 that any deal between Germany and the USSR wouldn’t change their duty to defend Poland. Plus, the French ambassador to Germany reassured Hitler of the same thing during a meeting on August 25.
War Breaks Out
On September 1, 1939, Hitler kicked off the invasion of Poland. True to their word, Britain and France declared war on Germany just two days later, marking the start of World War II. Then, on September 17, the Soviet Union’s Red Army rolled into the eastern part of Poland, claiming they were there to protect the Belorussian and Ukrainian Slavs living in Poland. Unfortunately for Poland, their military was pretty outdated, and most of their air force got wiped out by German bombers within the first couple of days. Germany’s blitzkrieg strategy, which combined fast-moving air and ground forces, really paid off. Kraków fell on September 6, and Warsaw, the capital, surrendered on September 27. By October 7, the main fighting had wrapped up. Poland ended up split along the River Bug, with Germany taking a bigger chunk, allowing the USSR to do as it pleased with Lithuania. This new division was formalized in the German-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation, and Demarcation on September 28. The USSR also took control of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, but Finland put up a fight against the Red Army (they signed a peace treaty in March 1940).
Eventually, Hitler shifted his focus eastward and launched Operation Barbarossa against the USSR on June 22, 1941. Once again, the Nazis came up with weak excuses, saying the USSR had violated the Nazi-Soviet Pact by sabotaging German territory and building up troops in Eastern Europe, which they claimed threatened the Third Reich. Meanwhile, Stalin accused Hitler of breaking the pact by moving German troops into Romania and Bulgaria. As historian W. L. Shirer put it, “The thieves…had begun to quarrel over the spoils.”
In the end, Stalin didn’t use the time before the USSR joined the war to beef up defenses in Eastern Europe or along its western borders. We can’t say for sure what Stalin was thinking, but he might have believed Germany’s campaign in Western Europe would drag on like it did in WWI, so he was caught off guard by how quickly Germany took over the Low Countries and France by 1940. The conflict between Germany and the USSR resulted in millions of deaths. Ultimately, when Germany lost WWII, Stalin emerged as the winner in his diplomatic dealings with Hitler, since by 1945, the USSR had taken control of not just Eastern and Central Europe but also the eastern half of Germany.
