Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact
The Non-Aggression Treaty between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), also officially known as the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact or German-Soviet Pact, was signed between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union by the foreign ministers of these countries, Joachim von Ribbentrop and Viacheslav Molotov respectively. The pact was signed in Moscow on August 23, 1939, nine days before the start of World War II. Thus, at the start of the war, they divided up the territory of Poland, establishing their border on the Vistula River. The effects of the treaty were diminishing with the increasing hostility between both states until 1941 when the Nazi regime decided to invade the Soviet Union.
The Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact, preceded by the German-Soviet Credit Agreement, was followed by the German-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Demarcation and the start of talks on the entry of the USSR into the Axis.
Terms
The defective treaty contained mutual aggression clauses, as well as a commitment to the peaceful solution of controversies between both nations through mutual consultations. To this was added the intention of strengthening economic and commercial links, granting preferential treatment, as well as reciprocal help: the main element was that none of the celebrating countries would enter into some political or military alliance contrary to the other, which implied in the practice that The Soviet Union would refuse to integrate any block formed against Nazi Germany.
However, the treaty contained an additional secret protocol (only for knowledge of the hierarchs of both governments, not revealed to the public) where Germany and the Soviet Union defined the distribution of eastern and central Europe by setting the limits of the influence German and Soviet by mutual agreement, determining that both set pacts so as not to interfere in their areas of influence while recognizing the interests of each one over certain territories of Eastern Europe.Thus, the pact established that Poland would remain as a zone of influence that would be distributed between both states through a common agreement that took into account mutual interests, while the Soviet Union achieved Germany to recognize Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Besarabia as areas of interest and, later, also to Lithuania, although in return the Soviet Union promised to respect the special interests of Germany over the city of Vilna.
Effects
The pact shocked Europe, despite attempts Stalin had made for months to broker an alliance with Britain and France. For many it was incomprehensible that two powers so opposed could agree on a non-aggression pact in such a short time. Special was the case of the fascists in Europe who rejected such an agreement with a State considered an "enemy" for his communist ideology, as well as numerous communist sympathizers who became disenchanted with the Soviet Union for having signed a "non-aggression pact" with the Nazi regime that had always been considered their main enemy.
Nevertheless, the communist parties under the influence of the Soviet Union, led by the Comintern, justified the Pact and followed Stalin's orders to cease propaganda against fascism and attack Western democracies that were enemies of Nazi Germany. Militants of the French Communist Party refused military service when France declared war on Germany in September 1939, accusing the French government of launching an "imperialist war," sabotaging their country's war effort; similar conduct was observed by communists in the United Kingdom and other countries.
The consequence was Germany's invasion of Poland in September 1939, whereupon the Soviet Union not only refused to condemn the German action but launched its own invasion of Poland 16 days later. Similarly, Germany remained silent before the attack launched against Finland by the Soviet Union, during the Winter War, in December of that year. In June 1940 the Soviet Union annexed Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia, just after the German triumph in the Battle of France, and annexed territories from the Kingdom of Romania.
After the Wehrmacht's victory in the Battle of France in June 1940 and already in World War II, German-Soviet relations became increasingly tense, even though both states maintained important trade for many years. months. Hitler considered the German-Soviet pact a temporary affair, since he had not given up the idea of expanding German territory to the East and annihilating communism. In a secret conference on July 31, 1940, the Germans made the decision to invade the Soviet Union in the spring of 1941, in a plan known as "Operation Barbarossa."
Nazi-Soviet relations
Relations between the two countries began to worsen due to the presence of German troops in Finland and Romania, as well as an unfortunate visit by Viacheslav Molotov to Berlin in November, when the Soviet chief made no secret of his concern about Germany's war triumphs and its enormous military might, while casting doubt on the UK's capitulation soon.
As long as Hitler had not renounced his project of expansionism against the Soviet Union (already outlined since he wrote Mein Kampf); preparations for "Operation Barbarossa" were made quickly, and the decision to attack the Soviet Union was confirmed by Hitler at a war meeting on December 18, 1940. Germany attacked the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, when invading the Polish territory annexed by the Soviet Union in September 1939. Thus began a military campaign that did not end until May 1945 with the German defeat.
Discovery and publication of secret clauses
The official documents of Nazi Germany alluding to the Pact, including the Secret Additional Protocol, were discovered after the end of the war by British troops in archives abandoned by the Third Reich, and were revealed to the public soon after. During the decades of the Cold War, the official policy of the Soviet Union was to deny the existence of such "secret clauses" of the Pact and admit as authentic only the terms referring to mutual non-aggression. The Soviet Union early labeled as "counterfeits" documents found in German archives.
It was not until after the great demonstration called the Baltic Chain, in August 1989 (its fiftieth anniversary), that a special commission was created in the Soviet Union to investigate the existence of the "secret clauses", whose conclusion was affirmative. As a result of popular protests in the Baltic countries and international pressure, the Soviet government headed by Gorbachev, within the framework of its policy of glasnost (openness) issued a declaration official admitting as true the content of the Secret Additional Protocol of the Pact, recognized that a "partition" Nazi-Soviet Eastern Europe in "zones of influence," and condemned the Pact.
On December 24, 1989, the Congress of People's Deputies of the Soviet Union condemned the signing of the secret Additional Protocol to the Treaty, as well as other secret documents signed between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, although without reaching to declare as "occupation" to the Soviet military intervention of 1940 as they have described it in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.
In June 2019, on the eve of the 80th anniversary of the signing of the Pact, the Historical-Documentary Department of the Russian Foreign Ministry published the original images of the document for the first time. While the Ministry of Defense published some documents from its archives referring to the Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939.
Historians such as Ludo Martens and Grover Furr have exposed an alternative narrative in the 21st century in which the Pact was key so that the USSR had time to reorganise, mobilize and increase the military industry that it would have allowed them to beat Germany in World War II.
International condemnation
On September 1, 2019, on the 80th anniversary of the outbreak of the conflict, Germany apologized to Poland for the casualties caused in World War II.
On September 19, 2019, the European Parliament approved the resolution called Importance of European historical memory for the future of Europe in which, among other considerations, it says that the institution:
2. It emphasizes that the Second World War, the most devastating war in Europe's history, was the direct result of the infamous Nazi-Soviet non-aggression treaty of 23 August 1939, also known as the Mólotov-Ribbentrop Pact, and its secret protocols, which allowed two totalitarian regimes, which shared the goal of conquering the world, to divide Europe into two areas of influence;
3. Remember that the Nazi and communist regimes committed mass murders, genocides and deportations and were the cause of a loss of human life and freedom in the centuryXX. on a scale until then never seen in the history of humanity; it also recalls the atrocious crimes of the Holocaust perpetrated by the Nazi regime; it condemns in the strongest terms acts of aggression, crimes against humanity and massive violations of human rights perpetrated by communist, Nazi and other totalitarian regimes."
The resolution was approved with 535 votes in favor, 66 votes against, and 52 abstentions.