Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact Allowed Hitler to Invade P

The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact (signed on August 23, 1939) should not have been a surprise to anyone because it was signed by two European totalitarian powers led by dictators who had very similar geopolitical objectives.

Hitler wanted to conquer and annex Lebensraum in the East (so that there would be no repeat of the horrors of Blockade of Germany during the First Great War) and Stalin wanted to occupy and annex the whole continental Europe.

As part of this broad geopolitical objective, Hitler wanted to attack and destroy the Red Army (and subsequently occupy the European part of the Soviet Union) … and Stalin wanted to attack and destroy Wehrmacht and Waffen SS (and subsequently occupy Germany and the rest of continental Europe).

To make it happen, both needed a common border between Germany and the USSR – and the only way to make it happen was to eliminate the only country that separated these two monsters: Poland.

Hence, the (in)famous Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was fundamentally about one and only one issue (objective): invasion, occupation and the Fourth Partition of Poland – this time between Nazi Germany and Bolshevist Soviet Union (the latter being the “Red” reincarnation of Russian Empire). Everything else was but an appendix.

Under the Secret Protocol, Poland was to be partitioned between Germany and the USSR, while Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Finland and Bessarabia went to Stalin. Soviet invasion of Bukovina in 1940 violated the pact, since it went beyond the Soviet sphere of influence that had been agreed with the Axis… but Hitler did not care.

After this partition happens (it was made official by the German-Soviet Frontier Treaty of September 28), Hitler intended to pre-empt Stalin… and Stalin intended to pre-empt Hitler. In the end, Hitler hit first, preempting Stalin by 24 hours or so (Soviet invasion was set to happen on June 23, 1941).

The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact became a major step on the Road to Holocaust because it gave Hitler a green light to invade and occupy Poland. And German occupation of Poland made Holocaust inevitable (see next section).

It gave a green light because in September of 1939, Hitler simply had no resources to fight both Poland and the Soviet Union at the same time – even if Britain and France remained neutral (they didn’t). Soviet neutrality all but guaranteed Wehrmacht victory in a war with Poland (it happened).

The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was terminated on 22 June 1941, when Germany launched Operation Barbarossa and invaded the Soviet Union.