Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact

The Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, also known as the Hitler-Stalin pact or Ribbentrop-Molotov pact or Nazi-Soviet pact and formally known as the Treaty of Nonaggression between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, was in theory a non-aggression treaty between the German Third Reich and the Soviet Union. It was signed in Moscow on August 23, 1939, by the Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov and the German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop. The mutual non-aggression treaty lasted until Operation Barbarossa of June 22, 1941, when Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union.

Nazi–Soviet rapprochement

On 3 May 1939, the Soviet Secretary General Joseph Stalin replaced Maxim Litvinov with Molotov as Foreign Minister, thereby opening for negotiations with Nazi Germany. Litvinov had been associated with the previous policy of creating an anti-fascist coalition, and was considered pro-Western by the standards of the Kremlin. Molotov let it be known that he would welcome a peaceful settlement of issues with Germany.

Related Topics:
3 May - 1939 - Secretary General - Joseph Stalin - Maxim Litvinov - Molotov - Nazi Germany

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During the last two weeks of August 1939, the Soviet-Japanese Border War reached its peak.

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At Hitler's suggestion, the German Foreign Minister Ribbentrop visited Moscow on 19 August 1939. A 7-year German-Soviet trade agreement establishing economic ties between the two states was signed for a German credit to the Soviet Union of 200 million marks in exchange for raw materials - petrol, grain, cotton, phosphates, and timber.

Related Topics:
Ribbentrop - 19 August - 1939 - German-Soviet trade agreement

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Molotov then proposed an additional protocol "covering the points in which the High Contracting Parties are interested in the field of foreign policy." This was thought by some to have been precipitated by the alleged Stalin's speech on August 19, 1939, where he supposedly asserted that a great war between the western powers was necessary for the spread of World Revolution.

Related Topics:
Stalin's speech on August 19, 1939 - Powers - World Revolution

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On August 24, a 10-year non-aggression pact was signed with provisions that included: consultation; arbitration if either party disagreed; neutrality if either went to war against a third power; no membership of a group "which is directly or indirectly aimed at the other."

Related Topics:
August 24 - Non-aggression pact

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There was also a secret protocol to the pact, revealed only on Germany's defeat in 1945, according to which the states of Northern and Eastern Europe were divided into German and Soviet spheres of influence. In the North, Finland, Estonia and Latvia were apportioned to the Soviet sphere. Poland was to be partitioned in the event of its "political rearrangement"—the areas east of the rivers Narev, Vistula and San going to the Soviet Union while the Germans would occupy the west. Lithuania, adjacent to East-Prussia, would be in the German sphere of influence. In the South, the Soviet Union's interest and German lack of interest in Bessarabia, a part of Romania, were acknowledged. The German diplomat Hans von Herwarth informed his U.S. colleague Charles Bohlen on the secret protocol on August 24, but the information stopped at the desk of President Roosevelt.

Related Topics:
Northern - Eastern Europe - Spheres of influence - Finland - Estonia - Latvia - Narev - Vistula - San - Lithuania - East-Prussia - Bessarabia - Romania - Hans von Herwarth - U.S. - Charles Bohlen - August 24 - Roosevelt

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Concerns over the possible existence of a secret appendix were first expressed in the intelligence organizations of the Baltic states scant days after the pact was signed, and the speculations grew stronger when Soviet negotiators referred to its content during negotiations for military bases in those countries. The German original was presumably destroyed in the bombings, but its microfilmed copy was included in the documents archive of the German Foreign Office. Karl von Loesch, a civil servant in Foreign Office, gave this copy to British Lt. Col. R.C. Thomson in May 1945. The Soviet Union denied the existence of the secret protocols until 1988, when politburo member Alexander Nikolaevich Yakovlev admitted the existence of the protocols, although the document itself was declassified only after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1992.

Related Topics:
Politburo - Alexander Nikolaevich Yakovlev - Dissolution of the Soviet Union

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Stalin, who had feared that the West was encouraging Hitler to fight the East, must have been aware that the secret clause was likely to unleash war, because it freed Hitler from the prospect of a war against the USSR while fighting France and Britain.

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The Pact started to deteriorate in April 1940, when Germany invaded Denmark and Norway; and in June 1940, when the Soviet Union annexed not only Bessarabia but also Bukovina from Romania. Both nations were clearly overstepping their defined spheres of influence as agreed to in the Pact. However, in 1947, Stalin said that he would have continued to work with Germany had Hitler been willing; certainly Stalin had more to gain from cooperation with Germany (e.g. Poland) than from cooperation with Britain. According to historian E. H. Carr, Stalin was convinced that no German would be so foolish as to engage in hostilities on two fronts. Stalin, therefore, considered it axiomatic that if Germany was at war with the West, then it would have to be friendly with the Soviet Union.

Related Topics:
Bessarabia - Bukovina - E. H. Carr

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Soviet propanganda, as well as its representatives, went to great lengths to minimize the importance of the fact that they had opposed and fought against the Nazis in various ways for a decade prior to signing the Pact. However, they never went as far as to take a pro-German stance; officially, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was worded as a non-aggression treaty, not a pact of alliance. Still, it is said that upon signing the pact, Molotov tried to reassure the Germans of his good intentions by commenting to journalists that "fascism is a matter of taste".

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The extent to which the Soviet Union's earlier territorial acquisitions may have contributed to preventing its fall (and thus a Nazi victory in the war) remains a factor in evaluating the Pact. Soviet sources pointed out that the German advance eventually stopped just a few kilometers away from Moscow, so the role of the extra territory might have been crucial in such a close call. Others say that Poland and the Baltic countries played the important role of buffer states between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, and that the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was a precondition not only for Germany's invasion of Western Europe, but also for the Third Reich's invasion of the Soviet Union.

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