Hitler-Stalin Pact 1939

Hitler-Stalin Pact 1939

Historical background

The Hitler-Stalin Pact, also known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, was a non-aggression pact signed between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union on 23 August 1939, shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War. The pact was named after the foreign ministers of the two countries, Joachim von Ribbentrop from Germany and Vyacheslav Molotov from the Soviet Union.

The agreement contained a secret protocol that divided Eastern Europe into spheres of influence and gave the USSR Stalin’s control over the Baltic states, parts of Poland and Finland. This pact shocked the world as it brought together two ideologically opposed regimes: Hitler’s National Socialist Germany and Stalin’s Communist Soviet Union. It enabled both parties to avoid a two-front war and gave Hitler a free hand to invade Poland in September 1939. Britain and France were strategically forced onto the defensive. But Hitler’s calculations did not quite work out. If the German dictatorship had hoped to conquer Poland without the Western powers honouring their commitment to stand by them, the German attack was followed by Britain and France entering the war. The Second World War was triggered by Germany’s attack on Poland. With the attack on the Soviet Union in June 1941, Hitler also broke the treaty with the Soviet Union.

V-19140302