GERMAN - SOVIET PACT

 


Nazi Prime Minister Ribbentrop and Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov (Stalin at the back in uniform) signing the German - Soviet Pact on 23rd August 1939.

Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the Soviet Union, was signed on 23.8.1939 in Moscow by Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov and German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop. The pact was bound for 10 years both nations to the neutrality. Neither would attack the other or support a third party. Poland was split between Germany and the Soviet Union. Baltic States (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania), Finland, and parts of Romania were given to the Soviet Union. Germany invaded Poland on 1.9.1939, without fear of the Soviet triggering World War II. The Soviet Union invaded eastern Poland on 17.9.1939. The pact collapsed on 22.6.1941, when Nazi Germany launched Operation Barbarossa, invading the Soviet Union. Both powers got time and strategic advantages. The world, especially the left, was shocked with the alignment of ideologically opposed regimes. Strategic interests overrode ideological divides.

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