How important was the Nazi-Soviet Pact? Flashcards
How important was the Nazi-Soviet Pact?
One of the most astonishing and surprising events resulting from Hitler’s foreign policy was the announcement in late August 1939 of the Nazi-Soviet Pact, otherwise known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Publicly, this amounted to a 10-year non-aggression pact. Privately, it contained clauses relating to the future partition of Poland
At first sight this agreement appeared an extremely unlikely event. Here were two states representing ideological opposites, fascism and communism, making a deal with one another. Hitler had never made any secret of his hatred for communism and in Mein Kampf had argued in favour of the destruction of Soviet Russia. Stalin was well aware of German intentions and expected an invasion of his country at some point
Yet on another level this pact made perfect sense. Hitler wanted to ensure that, having defeated Poland, he was not attacked by Soviet Russia while he dealt with Britain and France. Stalin hoped that an Anglo-French/German war would last many years and wanted to buy time to strengthen his defences and build up his military machine. Stalin also feared a war on two fronts given the current hostility of Japan
So it suited the short-term ambitions of both Germany and Soviet Russia to do a deal with one another. The immediate result, of course, was to seal the fate of Poland. If Hitler invaded, as he now made immediate plans to do, there was absolutely nothing that Britain or France could do to assist their ally other than wage a general war against Germany. Hitler had no reason to suppose that Anglo-French opposition would be any more serious than it had been over Czechoslovakia. Also Hitler’s diplomatic hand had strengthened since the Munich Agreement as Italy had become a formal ally in the Pact of Steel of May 1939
