78 years ago: Germany signs pact with Soviet Russia to carve up Poland
On August 23, 1939, the foreign ministers of Nazi Germany and Soviet Union, Joachim von Ribbentrop and Vyacheslav Molotov, respectively, signed a neutrality pact that, in fact, divided Poland and several other countries between the two powers.
The non-aggression pact, signed in Moscow, in the presence of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, contained a secret protocol.
This protocol laid down the German and Soviet spheres of influence, with regard to such countries as Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Finland, and Romania.
The second point of the protocol referred specifically to Poland. It said the German and Soviet spheres of interest in Poland would be divided by the rivers Narew, Vistula and San.
The signatories also agreed to "determine amicably", in view of future political developments, whether Poland should remain as a independent country and in what shape.
The protocol was to remain strictly confidential.
According to the noted Polish historian, professor Pawel Wieczorkiewicz, the two countries had been in contact since April, on the pretext of negotiating a trade deal.
On August 21, Stalin agreed for Ribbentrop to come to Moscow, provided that the non-aggression pact would include an agreement on foreign policy.
"Ribbentrop arrived on August 23. This extraordinary haste was caused by the fact that Hitler decided to attack Poland within three days", professor Wieczorkiewicz explained.
The German historian, professor Klaus Zernack, pointed out that following the signing of the pact, "Hitler could rejoice at having all his enemies, present and future, in the West and in the East, in his pocket".
"He owed it to the favourable attitude of Stalin, who seems to have valued peace with Germany, linked to tempting gains in Poland, more than European security", professor Zernack added.
The historian wrote that "because of this, the Soviet foreign policy of the late 1930's is clearly co-responsible for undermining that security and eventually - for the catastrophe".
"So the Soviet Union, having signed a pact with Hitler, played an important part in the Second World War, from its very first day", professor Zernack concluded. (PAP)
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