Soviet-German cooperation - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Soviet–German relations date to the aftermath of the First World War. The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk

Treaty of Brest-Litovsk

The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was a peace treaty signed on March 3, 1918, mediated by South African Andrik Fuller, at Brest-Litovsk between Russia and the Central Powers, headed by Germany, marking Russia's exit from World War I.While the treaty was practically obsolete before the end of the year,...

, ending World War I hostilities between Russia and Germany, was signed on March 3, 1918. A few months later, the German ambassador to Moscow, Wilhelm von Mirbach, was shot dead by Russian Left Socialist-Revolutionaries

Left Socialist-Revolutionaries

In 1917, Russia the Socialist-Revolutionary Party split between those who supported the Provisional Government, established after the February Revolution, and those who supported the Bolsheviks who favoured a communist insurrection....

in an attempt to incite a new war between Russia and Germany. The entire Soviet embassy under Adolph Joffe

Adolph Joffe

Adolph Abramovich Joffe was a Communist revolutionary, a Bolshevik politician and a Soviet diplomat of Karaim descent.-Revolutionary career:...

was deported from Germany on November 6, 1918, for their active support of the German Revolution

German Revolution

The German Revolution was the politically-driven civil conflict in Germany at the end of World War I, which resulted in the replacement of Germany's imperial government with a republic...

. Karl Radek

Karl Radek

Karl Bernhardovic Radek was a socialist active in the Polish and German movements before World War I and an international Communist leader after the Russian Revolution....

also illegally supported communist subversive activities in Weimar Germany in 1919.

From the outset, both states sought to overthrow the system that was established by the victors of World War I. Germany, laboring under onerous reparations and stung by the collective responsibility provisions of the Treaty of Versailles

Treaty of Versailles

The Treaty of Versailles was one of the peace treaties at the end of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June 1919, exactly five years after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The other Central Powers on the German side of...

, was a defeated nation in turmoil. This and the Russian Civil War

Russian Civil War

The Russian Civil War was a multi-party war that occurred within the former Russian Empire after the Russian provisional government collapsed to the Soviets, under the domination of the Bolshevik party. Soviet forces first assumed power in Petrograd The Russian Civil War (1917–1923) was a...

made both Germany and the Soviets into international outcasts, and their resulting rapprochement

Rapprochement

In international relations, a rapprochement, which comes from the French word rapprocher , is a re-establishment of cordial relations, as between two countries...

during the interbellum was a natural convergence. At the same time, the dynamics of their relationship was shaped by both a lack of trust and the respective governments' fears of its partner's breaking out of diplomatic isolation and turning towards the French Third Republic

French Third Republic

The French Third Republic was the republican government of France from 1870, when the Second French Empire collapsed due to the French defeat in the Franco-Prussian War, to 1940, when France was overrun by Nazi Germany during World War II, resulting in the German and Italian occupations of France...

(which at the time was thought to possess the greatest military strength in Europe) and the Second Polish Republic

Second Polish Republic

The Second Polish Republic, Second Commonwealth of Poland or interwar Poland refers to Poland between the two world wars; a period in Polish history in which Poland was restored as an independent state. Officially known as the Republic of Poland or the Commonwealth of Poland , the Polish state was...

, its ally

Franco-Polish Military Alliance

The Franco-Polish alliance was the military alliance between Poland and France that was active between 1921 and 1940.-Background:Already during the France-Habsburg rivalry that started in the 16th century, France had tried to find allies to the east of Austria, namely hoping to ally with Poland...

.

Cooperation ended in 1933, as Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...

came to power and created Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...

. The countries' economic relationship dwindled at the beginning of the Nazi era, but some diplomatic initiatives continued through the 1930s, culminating with the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of 1939 and various trade agreements. Few questions concerning the origins of the Second World War are more controversial and ideologically loaded than the issue of the policies of the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin

Joseph Stalin

Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...

towards Nazi Germany between the Nazi seizure of power

Machtergreifung

Machtergreifung is a German word meaning "seizure of power". It is normally used specifically to refer to the Nazi takeover of power in the democratic Weimar Republic on 30 January 1933, the day Hitler was sworn in as Chancellor of Germany, turning it into the Nazi German dictatorship.-Term:The...

and the German invasion of the USSR on June 22, 1941.

A variety of competing and contradictory theses exist, including: that the Soviet leadership actively sought another great war in Europe to further weaken the capitalist nations; that the USSR pursued a purely defensive policy; or that the USSR tried to avoid becoming entangled in a war, both because Soviet leaders did not feel that they had the military capabilities to conduct strategic operations at that time, and to avoid, in paraphrasing Stalin's words to the 18th Party Congress on March 10, 1939, "pulling other nation's (the UK and France's) chestnuts out of the fire."

Revolution, end of World War I and the Treaty of Rapallo

The outcome of the First World War was disastrous for both German Reich

Weimar Republic

The Weimar Republic is the name given by historians to the parliamentary republic established in 1919 in Germany to replace the imperial form of government...

and Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic

Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic

The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic , commonly referred to as Soviet Russia, Bolshevik Russia, or simply Russia, was the largest, most populous and economically developed republic in the former Soviet Union....

. During the war, the Bolsheviks struggled for survival, and Vladimir Lenin

Vladimir Lenin

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and communist politician who led the October Revolution of 1917. As leader of the Bolsheviks, he headed the Soviet state during its initial years , as it fought to establish control of Russia in the Russian Civil War and worked to create a...

had no option except recognize the independence of Finland, Estonia

Estonia

Estonia , officially the Republic of Estonia , is a state in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia , and to the east by Lake Peipsi and the Russian Federation . Across the Baltic Sea lies...

, Latvia

Latvia

Latvia , officially the Republic of Latvia , is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by Estonia , to the south by Lithuania , to the east by the Russian Federation , to the southeast by Belarus and shares maritime borders to the west with Sweden...

, Lithuania

Lithuania

Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...

and Poland. Moreover, facing a German military advance, Lenin and Leon Trotsky

Leon Trotsky

Leon Trotsky , born Lev Davidovich Bronshtein, was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and theorist, Soviet politician, and the founder and first leader of the Red Army....

were forced to enter into the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk

Treaty of Brest-Litovsk

, which ceded large swathes of western Russian territory to the German Empire

German Empire

The German Empire refers to Germany during the "Second Reich" period from the unification of Germany and proclamation of Wilhelm I as German Emperor on 18 January 1871, to 1918, when it became a federal republic after defeat in World War I and the abdication of the Emperor, Wilhelm II.The German...

. On 11 November 1918, the Germans signed armistice

Armistice with Germany (Compiègne)

The armistice between the Allies and Germany was an agreement that ended the fighting in the First World War. It was signed in a railway carriage in Compiègne Forest on 11 November 1918 and marked a victory for the Allies and a complete defeat for Germany, although not technically a surrender...

with the Allies, ending the First World War on the Western Front

Western Front (World War I)

Following the outbreak of World War I in 1914, the German Army opened the Western Front by first invading Luxembourg and Belgium, then gaining military control of important industrial regions in France. The tide of the advance was dramatically turned with the Battle of the Marne...

. After Germany's collapse, British

British Army

The British Army is the land warfare branch of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the United Kingdom. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdom of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England...

, French and Japanese troops intervened in the Russian Civil War

Russian Civil War

.

Initially, the Soviet leadership hoped for a successful socialist revolution in Germany as part of the "world revolution

World revolution

World revolution is the Marxist concept of overthrowing capitalism in all countries through the conscious revolutionary action of the organized working class...

". However, this was put down by the right-wing freikorps

Freikorps

Freikorps are German volunteer military or paramilitary units. The term was originally applied to voluntary armies formed in German lands from the middle of the 18th century onwards. Between World War I and World War II the term was also used for the paramilitary organizations that arose during...

. Subsequently, the Bolsheviks became embroiled in the Soviet war with Poland of 1919-20. As Poland was a traditional enemy of Germany (see e.g. Silesian Uprisings

Silesian Uprisings

The Silesian Uprisings were a series of three armed uprisings of the Poles and Polish Silesians of Upper Silesia, from 1919–1921, against German rule; the resistance hoped to break away from Germany in order to join the Second Polish Republic, which had been established in the wake of World War I...

), and the Soviet state was also isolated internationally, the Soviet government started adopting a much less hostile attitude towards Germany, seeking closer relationships. This line was consistently pursued under People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs Georgy Chicherin

Georgy Chicherin

Georgy Vasilyevich Chicherin was a Marxist revolutionary and a Soviet politician. He served as People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs in the Soviet government from March 1918 to 1930.-Childhood and early career:...

and Soviet Ambassador Nikolay Krestinsky. Other Soviet representatives instrumental in the negotiations were Karl Radek

Karl Radek

Karl Bernhardovic Radek was a socialist active in the Polish and German movements before World War I and an international Communist leader after the Russian Revolution....

, Leonid Krasin

Leonid Krasin

Leonid Borisovich Krasin July 1870, Kurgan – November 24, 1926) was a Russian and Soviet Bolshevik politician and diplomat.-Early years:Krasin was born in Kurgan, near Tobol'sk in Siberia. His father, Boris Ivanovich Krasin was the local chief of police...

, Christian Rakovsky

Christian Rakovsky

Christian Rakovsky was a Bulgarian socialist revolutionary, a Bolshevik politician and Soviet diplomat; he was also noted as a journalist, physician, and essayist...

, Victor Kopp and Adolph Joffe

Adolph Joffe

Adolph Abramovich Joffe was a Communist revolutionary, a Bolshevik politician and a Soviet diplomat of Karaim descent.-Revolutionary career:...

.

In the 1920s, many in the leadership of Weimar Germany, humiliated by the conditions of the Treaty of Versailles imposed after their defeat in the First World War (especially General Hans von Seeckt

Hans von Seeckt

Johannes Friedrich "Hans" von Seeckt was a German military officer noted for his organization of the German Army during the Weimar Republic.-Early life:...

, chief of the Reichswehr

Reichswehr

The Reichswehr formed the military organisation of Germany from 1919 until 1935, when it was renamed the Wehrmacht ....

), were interested in cooperation with the Soviet Union, both in order to avert any threat from the Second Polish Republic

Second Polish Republic

, backed

Franco-Polish Military Alliance

by the French Third Republic

French Third Republic

, and to prevent any possible Soviet-British alliance. The specific German aims were the full rearmament of the Reichswehr, which was explicitly prohibited by the Treaty of Versailles, and an alliance against Poland. It is unknown exactly when the first contacts between von Seeckt and the Soviets took place, but it could have been as early as 1919-1921, or possibly even before the signing of the Treaty of Versailles.

On April 15, 1920, Victor Kopp, the RSFSR's special representative to Berlin, asked at the German Foreign Office whether "there was any possibility of combining the German and the Red Army

Red Army

The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...

for a joint war on Poland

Second Polish Republic

". This was yet another event at the start of military cooperation between the two countries, which ended before the German invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941.

By early 1921, a special group in the Reichswehr Ministry devoted to Soviet affairs, Sondergruppe R, had been set up.

Weimar Germany's army had been limited to 100,000 men by the Treaty of Versailles, which also forbade the Germans to have aircraft, tanks, submarines, heavy artillery, poison gas, anti-tank weapons or many anti-aircraft guns. A team of inspectors from the League of Nations

League of Nations

The League of Nations was an intergovernmental organization founded as a result of the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World War. It was the first permanent international organization whose principal mission was to maintain world peace...

patrolled many German factories and workshops to ensure that these weapons were not being manufactured.

The Treaty of Rapallo

Treaty of Rapallo, 1922

The Treaty of Rapallo was an agreement signed at the Hotel Imperiale in the Italian town of Rapallo on 16 April, 1922 between Germany and Soviet Russia under which each renounced all territorial and financial claims against the other following the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and World War I.The two...

between Weimar Germany and the Soviet Union was signed by German Foreign Minister Walther Rathenau

Walther Rathenau

Walther Rathenau was a German Jewish industrialist, politician, writer, and statesman who served as Foreign Minister of Germany during the Weimar Republic...

and his Soviet colleague Georgy Chicherin

Georgy Chicherin

on April 16, 1922, during the Genoa Economic Conference, annulling all mutual claims, restoring full diplomatic relations, and establishing the beginnings of close trade relationships, which made Weimar Germany the main trade and diplomatic partner of the Soviet Union. Rumors of a secret military supplement to the treaty soon spread. However, for a long time the consensus was that those rumors were wrong, and that Soviet-German military negotiations were independent of Rapallo and kept secret from the German Foreign Ministry for some time. This point of view was later challenged. On November 5, 1922, six other Soviet republics, which would soon become part of the Soviet Union, agreed to adhere to the Treaty of Rapallo as well.

The Soviets offered Weimar Germany facilities deep inside the USSR for building and testing arms and for military training, well away from Treaty inspectors' eyes. In return, the Soviets asked for access to German technical developments, and for assistance in creating a Red Army

Red Army

General Staff.

The first German officers went to the Soviet state for these purposes in March, 1922. One month later, Junkers began building aircraft at Fili

Fili (Moscow)

Fili is a former suburban village, now a neighborhood in the western section of Moscow, Russia, notable for the events of September 1812, following the Battle of Borodino. The village was located between the Moskva River and Poklonnaya Hill, near the present-day Fili station of Moscow Metro and...

, outside Moscow, in violation of Versailles. The great artillery manufacturer Krupp

Krupp

The Krupp family , a prominent 400-year-old German dynasty from Essen, have become famous for their steel production and for their manufacture of ammunition and armaments. The family business, known as Friedrich Krupp AG Hoesch-Krupp, was the largest company in Europe at the beginning of the 20th...

was soon active in the south of the USSR, near Rostov-on-Don

Rostov-on-Don

-History:The mouth of the Don River has been of great commercial and cultural importance since the ancient times. It was the site of the Greek colony Tanais, of the Genoese fort Tana, and of the Turkish fortress Azak...

. In 1925, a flying school was established at Vivupal, near Lipetsk

Lipetsk

Lipetsk is a city and the administrative center of Lipetsk Oblast, Russia, located on the banks of the Voronezh River in the Don basin, southeast of Moscow.-History:...

, to train the first pilots for the future Luftwaffe

Luftwaffe

Luftwaffe is a generic German term for an air force. It is also the official name for two of the four historic German air forces, the Wehrmacht air arm founded in 1935 and disbanded in 1946; and the current Bundeswehr air arm founded in 1956....

. Since 1926, the Reichswehr had been able to use a tank school at Kazan

Kazan

Kazan is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Tatarstan, Russia. With a population of 1,143,546 , it is the eighth most populous city in Russia. Kazan lies at the confluence of the Volga and Kazanka Rivers in European Russia. In April 2009, the Russian Patent Office granted Kazan the...

(codenamed Kama) and a chemical weapons facility in Samara Oblast

Samara Oblast

Samara Oblast is a federal subject of Russia . Its administrative center is the city of Samara. Population: In 1936–1990, it was known as Kuybyshev Oblast , after the Soviet name of Samara .-Demographics:Population:...

(codenamed Tomka). In turn, the Red Army gained access to these training facilities, as well as military technology and theory from Weimar Germany.

Relations in the 1920s

Since the late nineteenth century, Germany, which has few natural resources, had relied heavily upon Russian imports of raw materials. Before World War I, Germany imported 1.5 billion German Reichsmark

German reichsmark

The Reichsmark was the currency in Germany from 1924 until June 20, 1948. The Reichsmark was subdivided into 100 Reichspfennig.-History:...

s of raw materials and other goods per year from Russia. This fell after World War I, but after trade agreements signed between the two countries in the mid-1920s, trade had increased to 433 million Reichsmarks per year by 1927. In the late 1920s, Germany helped Soviet industry begin to modernize, and to assist in the establishment of tank production facilities at the Leningrad Bolshevik Factory and the Kharkov Locomotive Factory.

The Soviets offered submarine-building facilities at a port on the Black Sea

Black Sea

The Black Sea is bounded by Europe, Anatolia and the Caucasus and is ultimately connected to the Atlantic Ocean via the Mediterranean and the Aegean seas and various straits. The Bosphorus strait connects it to the Sea of Marmara, and the strait of the Dardanelles connects that sea to the Aegean...

, but this was not taken up. The German Navy

Kriegsmarine

The Kriegsmarine was the name of the German Navy during the Nazi regime . It superseded the Kaiserliche Marine of World War I and the post-war Reichsmarine. The Kriegsmarine was one of three official branches of the Wehrmacht, the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany.The Kriegsmarine grew rapidly...

did take up a later offer of a base near Murmansk

Murmansk

Murmansk is a city and the administrative center of Murmansk Oblast, Russia. It serves as a seaport and is located in the extreme northwest part of Russia, on the Kola Bay, from the Barents Sea on the northern shore of the Kola Peninsula, not far from Russia's borders with Norway and Finland...

, where German vessels could hide from the British. One of the vessels that participated in the invasion of Norway came from this base. During the Cold War, this base at Polyarnyy (which had been built especially for the Germans) became the largest weapons store in the world.

Most of the documents pertaining to secret German-Soviet military cooperation were systematically destroyed in Germany. The Polish and French intelligence communities of the 1920s were remarkably well-informed regarding the cooperation. This did not, however, have any immediate effect upon German relations with other European powers. After World War II, the papers of General Hans von Seeckt and memoirs of other German officers became available, and after the dissolution of the Soviet Union

Dissolution of the Soviet Union

The dissolution of the Soviet Union was the disintegration of the federal political structures and central government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , resulting in the independence of all fifteen republics of the Soviet Union between March 11, 1990 and December 25, 1991...

, a handful of Soviet documents regarding this were published.

Alongside the Soviet Union's military and economic assistance, there was also political backing for Germany's aspirations. On July 19, 1920, Victor Kopp told the German Foreign Office that Soviet Russia wanted "a common frontier with Germany, south of Lithuania, approximately on a line with Białystok". In other words, Poland was to be partitioned once again. These promptings were repeated over the years, with the Soviets always anxious to stress that ideological differences between the two governments were of no account; all that mattered was that the two countries were pursuing the same foreign policy objectives.

On December 4, 1924, Victor Kopp, worried that the expected admission of Germany to the League of Nations

League of Nations

(Germany was finally admitted to the League in 1926) was an anti-Soviet move, offered German Ambassador Ulrich Graf von Brockdorff-Rantzau

Ulrich Graf von Brockdorff-Rantzau

Ulrich Graf von Brockdorff-Rantzau was a German diplomat, the first Foreign Minister of the Weimar Republic and German Ambassador to the USSR for most of the twenties.-Early career:...

to cooperate against the Second Polish Republic, and secret negotiations were sanctioned. However, the Weimar Republic

Weimar Republic

The Weimar Republic is the name given by historians to the parliamentary republic established in 1919 in Germany to replace the imperial form of government...

rejected any venture into war.

In 1925, several Rote Hilfe

Rote Hilfe

The Rote Hilfe was the German affiliate of the International Red Aid. The Rote Hilfe was affiliated with the Communist Party of Germany and existed between 1924 and 1936.- Origin :...

members were put on trial in Leipzig in what was known as the Cheka Trial.

Germany's fear of international isolation

International isolation

International isolation is a penalty applied by the international community or a sizeable or powerful group of countries, like the United Nations, towards one nation, government or people group...

due to a possible Soviet rapprochement with France, the main German adversary, was a key factor in the acceleration of economic negotiations. On October 12, 1925, a commercial agreement between the two nations was concluded.

Also in 1925, Germany broke their European diplomatic isolation and took part in the Locarno Treaties

Locarno Treaties

The Locarno Treaties were seven agreements negotiated at Locarno, Switzerland, on 5 October – 16 October 1925 and formally signed in London on 3 December, in which the First World War Western European Allied powers and the new states of central and Eastern Europe sought to secure the post-war...

with France and Belgium, undertaking not to attack them. The Soviet Union saw western détente as potentially deepening its own political isolation in Europe, in particular by diminishing Soviet-German relationships. As Germany became less dependent on the Soviet Union, it became more unwilling to tolerate subversive Comintern

Comintern

The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern, also known as the Third International, was an international communist organization initiated in Moscow during March 1919...

interference.

On April 24, 1926, Weimar Germany and the Soviet Union concluded another treaty (Treaty of Berlin (1926)), declaring the parties' adherence to the Treaty of Rapallo and neutrality for five years. The treaty was signed by German Foreign Minister Gustav Stresemann

Gustav Stresemann

was a German politician and statesman who served as Chancellor and Foreign Minister during the Weimar Republic. He was co-laureate of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1926.Stresemann's politics defy easy categorization...

and Soviet ambassador Nikolay Krestinsky. The treaty was perceived as an imminent threat by Poland (which contributed to the success of the May Coup in Warsaw), and with caution by other European states regarding its possible effect upon Germany's obligations as a party to the Locarno Agreements. France also voiced concerns in this regard in the context of Germany's expected membership in the League of Nations.

In 1928, the 9th Plenum of the Executive Committee of the Comintern (international communist organization) and its 6th Congress in Moscow favored Stalin's program

Third Period

The Third Period is a ideological concept adopted by the Communist International at its 6th World Congress, held in Moscow in the summer of 1928....

over the line pursued by Comintern Secretary General Nikolay Bukharin. Unlike Bukharin, Stalin believed that a deep crisis in western capitalism was imminent, and he denounced the cooperation of international communist parties with social democratic movements, labelling them as social fascists, and insisted on a far stricter subordination of international communist parties to the Comintern, that is, to Soviet leadership. The policy of the Communist Party of Germany

Communist Party of Germany

The Communist Party of Germany was a major political party in Germany between 1918 and 1933, and a minor party in West Germany in the postwar period until it was banned in 1956...

(KPD) under Ernst Thälmann

Ernst Thälmann

Ernst Thälmann was the leader of the Communist Party of Germany during much of the Weimar Republic. He was arrested by the Gestapo in 1933 and held in solitary confinement for eleven years, before being shot in Buchenwald on Adolf Hitler's orders in 1944...

was altered accordingly. The relatively independent KPD of the early 1920s underwent an almost complete subordination to the Soviet Union.

Relying on the foreign affairs doctrine pursued by the Soviet leadership in the 1920s, in his report of the Central Committee

Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

The Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union , abbreviated in Russian as ЦК, "Tse-ka", earlier was also called as the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party ...

to the 16th Congress

Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

The Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was the gathering of the delegates of the Communist Party and its predecessors. According the party statute, it was the supreme ruling body of the entire Communist Party....

of the All-Union Communist Party (b) on June 27, 1930, Joseph Stalin welcomed the international destabilization and rise of political extremism among the capitalist powers.

Early 1930s

The most intensive period of Soviet military collaboration with Weimar Germany was 1930-1932. On June 24, 1931, an extension of the 1926 Berlin Treaty was signed, though it was not until 1933 that it was ratified by the Reichstag

Reichstag (Weimar Republic)

The Reichstag was the parliament of Weimar Republic .German constitution commentators consider only the Reichstag and now the Bundestag the German parliament. Another organ deals with legislation too: in 1867-1918 the Bundesrat, in 1919–1933 the Reichsrat and from 1949 on the Bundesrat...

due to internal political struggles. Some Soviet mistrust arose during the Lausanne Conference of 1932

Lausanne Conference of 1932

The Lausanne Conference was a 1932 meeting of representatives from Great Britain, Germany, and France that resulted in an agreement to suspend World War I reparations payments imposed on the defeated countries by the Treaty of Versailles...

, when it was rumored that German Chancellor Franz von Papen

Franz von Papen

Lieutenant-Colonel Franz Joseph Hermann Michael Maria von Papen zu Köningen was a German nobleman, Roman Catholic monarchist politician, General Staff officer, and diplomat, who served as Chancellor of Germany in 1932 and as Vice-Chancellor under Adolf Hitler in 1933–1934...

had offered French Prime Minister Édouard Herriot

Édouard Herriot

Édouard Marie Herriot was a French Radical politician of the Third Republic who served three times as Prime Minister and for many years as President of the Chamber of Deputies....

a military alliance. The Soviets were also quick to develop their own relations with France and its main ally, Poland. This culminated in the conclusion of the Soviet-Polish Non-Aggression Pact

Soviet-Polish Non-Aggression Pact

The Soviet–Polish Non-Aggression Pact ) was an international treaty of non-aggression signed in 1932 by representatives of Poland and the USSR. The pact was unilaterally broken by the Soviet Union on September 17, 1939, during the Nazi and Soviet invasion of Poland.-Background:After the...

on July 25, 1932, and the Soviet-French non-aggression pact on November 29, 1932.

The conflict between the Communist Party of Germany and the Social Democratic Party of Germany

Social Democratic Party of Germany

The Social Democratic Party of Germany is a social-democratic political party in Germany...

fundamentally contributed to the demise of the Weimar Republic. It is, however, disputed whether Hitler's seizure of power came as a surprise to the USSR. Some authors claim that Stalin deliberately aided Hitler's rise by directing the policy of the Communist Party of Germany on a suicidal course in order to foster an inter-imperialist war, a theory dismissed by many others.

During this period, the countries' economic relationship fell as the more isolationist Stalinist regime asserted power and the abandonment of post-World War I military control decreased Germany's reliance on Soviet imports, such that Soviet imports fell to 223 million Reichsmarks by 1934.

The Soviet Union and Nazi Germany before World War II

Few questions concerning the origins of the Second World War are as controversial as the issue of pre-war Soviet policy toward Nazi Germany, especially due to the absence of a complete opening of the Politburo

Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

The Politburo , known as the Presidium from 1952 to 1966, functioned as the central policymaking and governing body of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.-Duties and responsibilities:The...

, Joseph Stalin's and Vyacheslav Molotov

Vyacheslav Molotov

Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov was a Soviet politician and diplomat, an Old Bolshevik and a leading figure in the Soviet government from the 1920s, when he rose to power as a protégé of Joseph Stalin, to 1957, when he was dismissed from the Presidium of the Central Committee by Nikita Khrushchev...

's papers on foreign affairs. German documents pertaining to their relations were captured by the American and British armies in 1945, and published by the U.S. Department of State shortly thereafter. In the Soviet Union and Russia, including in official speeches and historiography, Nazi Germany has generally been referred to as Fascist

Fascism

Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood...

Germany from 1933 until today.

Initial relations after Hitler's election

After Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler

came to power

Machtergreifung

on January 30, 1933, he began the suppression of the Communist Party of Germany. The Nazis took police measures against Soviet trade missions, companies, press representatives, and individual citizens in Germany. They also launched an anti-Soviet propaganda campaign coupled with a lack of good will in diplomatic relations, although the German Foreign Ministry under Konstantin von Neurath

Konstantin von Neurath

Konstantin Freiherr von Neurath was a German diplomat remembered mostly for having served as Foreign minister of Germany between 1932 and 1938...

(foreign minister from 1932–1938) was vigorously opposed to the impending breakup. The second volume of Hitler's programmatic Mein Kampf

Mein Kampf

Mein Kampf is a book written by Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. It combines elements of autobiography with an exposition of Hitler's political ideology. Volume 1 of Mein Kampf was published in 1925 and Volume 2 in 1926...

(which first appeared in 1926) called for Lebensraum
Lebensraum
was one of the major political ideas of Adolf Hitler, and an important component of Nazi ideology. It served as the motivation for the expansionist policies of Nazi Germany, aiming to provide extra space for the growth of the German population, for a Greater Germany...

(living space for the German nation) in the east (mentioning Russia specifically), and in keeping with his world view portrayed the Communists as Jews (see also Jewish Bolshevism

Jewish Bolshevism

Jewish Bolshevism, Judeo-Bolshevism, and known as Żydokomuna in Poland, is an antisemitic stereotype based on the claim that Jews have been the driving force behind or are disproportionately involved in the modern Communist movement, or sometimes more specifically Russian Bolshevism.The expression...

) destroying a great nation. This ambition, if implemented, would be a clear danger to the security of the Soviet Union.

Moscow's reaction to these steps of Berlin was initially restrained, with the exception of several tentative attacks on the new German government in the Soviet press. However, as the heavy-handed anti-Soviet actions of the German government continued unabated, the Soviets unleashed their own propaganda campaign against the Nazis, but by May the possibility of conflict appeared to have receded. The 1931 extension of the Berlin Treaty was ratified in Germany on May 5. In August 1933, Molotov assured German ambassador Herbert von Dirksen

Herbert von Dirksen

Herbert von Dirksen was a German diplomat who is best remembered as the last German Ambassador to Britain before World War II.- Biography :...

that Soviet-German relations would depend exclusively on the position of Germany towards the Soviet Union. However, Reichswehr access to the three military training and testing sites (Lipetsk, Kama, and Tomka) was abruptly terminated by the Soviet Union in August–September 1933. Political understanding between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany was finally broken by the German-Polish Non-Aggression Pact

German-Polish Non-Aggression Pact

The German–Polish Non-Aggression Pact was an international treaty between Nazi Germany and the Second Polish Republic signed on January 26, 1934. In it, both countries pledged to resolve their problems through bilateral negotiations and to forgo armed conflict for a period of ten years...

of January 26, 1934 between Nazi Germany and the Second Polish Republic

Second Polish Republic

.

Maxim Litvinov

Maxim Litvinov

Maxim Maximovich Litvinov was a Russian revolutionary and prominent Soviet diplomat.- Early life and first exile :...

, who had been People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs (Foreign Minister of the USSR) since 1930, considered Nazi Germany to be the greatest threat to the Soviet Union. However, as the Red Army was perceived as not strong enough, and the USSR sought to avoid becoming embroiled in a general European war, he began pursuing a policy of collective security

Collective security

Collective security can be understood as a security arrangement, regional or global, in which each state in the system accepts that the security of one is the concern of all, and agrees to join in a collective response to threats to, and breaches of, the peace...

, trying to contain Nazi Germany via cooperation with the League of Nations

League of Nations

and the Western Powers. The Soviet attitude to the League of Nations and international peace had changed. In 1933–34 the Soviet Union was diplomatically recognized

Dates of establishment of diplomatic relations with the USSR

-Europe:-Asia:-Americas:-Africa:-Oceania:-References and external links:...

for the first time by Spain, the United States, Hungary, Czechoslovakia

Czechoslovakia

Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...

, Romania

Romania

Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...

, and Bulgaria

Bulgaria

Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...

, and ultimately joined the League of Nations in September 1934. It is often argued that the Soviet foreign policy change happened around 1933–34, and was triggered by Hitler's assumption of power. However, the Soviet turn towards the French Third Republic

French Third Republic

in 1932, discussed above, could also have been a part of the policy change.

Nevertheless, in 1934 Hitler spoke of an inescapable battle against both Pan-Slavism

Pan-Slavism

Pan-Slavism was a movement in the mid-19th century aimed at unity of all the Slavic peoples. The main focus was in the Balkans where the South Slavs had been ruled for centuries by other empires, Byzantine Empire, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, and Venice...

and Neo-Slavism:

Relations in the mid-1930s

On May 2, 1935, the five-year Soviet-French Treaty of Mutual Assistance was signed. The ratification of the treaty by France was one reason why Hitler remilitarized the Rhineland

Remilitarization of the Rhineland

The Remilitarization of the Rhineland by the German Army took place on 7 March 1936 when German military forces entered the Rhineland. This was significant because it violated the terms of the Locarno Treaties and was the first time since the end of World War I that German troops had been in this...

on March 7, 1936.
The 7th World Congress of the Comintern

Comintern

The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern, also known as the Third International, was an international communist organization initiated in Moscow during March 1919...

in 1935 officially endorsed the Popular Front

Popular front

A popular front is a broad coalition of different political groupings, often made up of leftists and centrists. Being very broad, they can sometimes include centrist and liberal forces as well as socialist and communist groups...

strategy of forming broad alliances with parties willing to oppose the fascists, a policy pursued by the Communist parties since 1934. Also in 1935, at the 7th Congress of Soviets

Congress of Soviets

The Congress of Soviets was the supreme governing body of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and several other Soviet republics from 1917–36 and again from 1989-91. After the creation of the Soviet Union, the Congress of Soviets of the Soviet Union functioned as its legislative branch...

(in a study in contradiction), Molotov stressed the need for good relations with Berlin

On November 25, 1936, Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan concluded the Anti-Comintern Pact

Anti-Comintern Pact

The Anti-Comintern Pact was an Anti-Communist pact concluded between Nazi Germany and the Empire of Japan on November 25, 1936 and was directed against the Communist International ....

, joined by Fascist Italy

Kingdom of Italy (1861–1946)

The Kingdom of Italy was a state forged in 1861 by the unification of Italy under the influence of the Kingdom of Sardinia, which was its legal predecessor state...

in 1937.

Economically, the Soviet Union made repeated efforts to reestablish closer contacts with Germany in the mid-1930s. The Soviet Union chiefly sought to repay debts from earlier trade with raw materials, while Germany sought to rearm, and the countries signed a credit agreement in 1935. By 1936, raw material and foodstuff crises forced Hitler to decree a Four Year Plan

Four year plan

The Four Year Plan was a series of economic reforms created by the Nazi Party. The main aim of the four year plan was to prepare Germany for war in four years...

for rearmament "without regard to costs." However, even facing those issues, Hitler rebuffed the Soviet Union's attempts to seek closer political ties to Germany along with an additional credit agreement.

Litvinov's strategy faced ideological and political obstacles. The Soviet Union continued to be perceived by the ruling class in Great Britain

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

as no less a threat than Nazi Germany (some felt that the USSR was the greater threat), not least for its policy of supporting the elected government in the Spanish Civil War

Spanish Civil War

The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...

(1936–1939). At the same time, as the Soviet Union was blindly stumbling about in the midst of the Great Purge

Great Purge

The Great Purge was a series of campaigns of political repression and persecution in the Soviet Union orchestrated by Joseph Stalin from 1936 to 1938...

, it was not perceived to be a valuable ally by the West.

Further complicating matters, the purge

Great Purge

The Great Purge was a series of campaigns of political repression and persecution in the Soviet Union orchestrated by Joseph Stalin from 1936 to 1938...

of the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs, forced the Soviet Union to close down quite a number of embassies abroad. At the same time, those purges made the signing of an economic deal with Germany less likely by disrupting the already confused Soviet administrative structure necessary for negotiations and giving Hitler the belief that the Soviets' were militarily weak.

Collective security failures

Litvinov's policy of containing Germany via collective security failed utterly with the conclusion of the Munich Agreement

Munich Agreement

The Munich Pact was an agreement permitting the Nazi German annexation of Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland. The Sudetenland were areas along Czech borders, mainly inhabited by ethnic Germans. The agreement was negotiated at a conference held in Munich, Germany, among the major powers of Europe without...

on September 29, 1938, when the Britain and France favored self-determination

Self-determination

Self-determination is the principle in international law that nations have the right to freely choose their sovereignty and international political status with no external compulsion or external interference...

of the Sudetenland

Sudetenland

Sudetenland is the German name used in English in the first half of the 20th century for the northern, southwest and western regions of Czechoslovakia inhabited mostly by ethnic Germans, specifically the border areas of Bohemia, Moravia, and those parts of Silesia being within Czechoslovakia.The...

Germans

The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....

over Czechoslovakia

Czechoslovakia

Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...

's territorial integrity

Territorial integrity

Territorial integrity is the principle under international law that nation-states should not attempt to promote secessionist movements or to promote border changes in other nation-states...

, disregarding the Soviet position. However, it is still disputed whether, even before Munich, the Soviet Union would actually have fulfilled its guarantees to Czechoslovakia, in the case of an actual German invasion resisted by France.

In April 1939, Litvinov launched the tripartite alliance negotiations with the new British and French ambassadors, (William Seeds

William Seeds

Sir William Seeds KCMG was a British diplomat. He served as Ambassador to both Russia and Brazil.-Background and education:Sir William Seeds was born in Dublin, Ireland, on the 27th June 1882, to an Ulster Protestant family. He was the only son of Lady Kaye and Robert Seeds QC, the Queen’s...

, assisted by William Strang

William Strang, 1st Baron Strang

William Strang, 1st Baron Strang, GCMG, KCB, MBE was a British diplomat who served as a leading adviser to the British Government from the 1930s to the 1950s and as Permanent Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office from 1949 to 1953....

, and Paul-Emile Naggiar), in an attempt to contain Germany. However, for one reason or another, they were constantly dragged out and proceeded with major delays.

The Western powers believed that war could still be avoided and the USSR, much weakened by the purges, could not act as a main military participant. The USSR more or less disagreed with them on both issues, approaching the negotiations with caution because of the traditional hostility of the capitalist powers. The Soviet Union also engaged in secret talks with Nazi Germany, while conducting official ones with United Kingdom and France. From the beginning of the negotiations with France and Britain Soviet position demanded occupation of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania. Finland was to be included in Soviet sphere of influence as well. While Britain refused to agree to occupation of the three buffer states by the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany accepted the proposal.

1939 needs and discussions

By the late 1930s, because a German autarkic

Autarky

Autarky is the quality of being self-sufficient. Usually the term is applied to political states or their economic policies. Autarky exists whenever an entity can survive or continue its activities without external assistance. Autarky is not necessarily economic. For example, a military autarky...

economic approach or an alliance with England were impossible, closer relations with the Soviet Union were necessary, if not just for economic reasons alone. Germany lacks oil, and could only supply 25 percent of its own needs, leaving Germany 2 million tons short a year and a staggering 10 millions tons below planned mobilization totals, while the Soviet Union was required for numerous key other raw materials, such as ores (including iron and manganese), rubber and food fat and oils. While Soviet imports into Germany had fallen to 52.8 million Reichsmarks in 1937, massive armament production increases and critical raw material shortages caused Germany to turn to reverse their prior attitude, pushing forward economic talks in early 1939. German planners in April and May 1939 feared that, without Russian supplies, Germany would fall critically short of manganese, oil and rubber.

On May 3, 1939, Litvinov was dismissed and Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars (Premier) Vyacheslav Molotov

Vyacheslav Molotov

, who had strained relations with Litvinov, was not of Jewish origin, unlike Litvinov, and had always been sympathetic towards Germany, was put in charge of foreign affairs. The Foreign Affairs Commissariat was purged of Litvinov's supporters and Jews. All this could well have purely internal reasons, but it could also be a signal to Germany that the era of anti-German collective security was past, or a signal to the British and French that Moscow should be taken more seriously in the tripartite alliance negotiations and that it is ready for arrangements without the old baggage of collective security, or even both.

As evident from the German diplomatic correspondence, captured by the American and British armies in 1945 and later published, the reshuffle was warily perceived by Germany as a chance.

It is sometimes argued that Molotov continued the talks with Britain and France to stimulate the Germans into making an offer of a non-aggression treaty and that the triple alliance failed because of the Soviet determination to conclude a pact with Germany. Another existing point of view is that the strive for the triple alliance was sincere and that the Soviet government turned to Germany only when an alliance with the Western powers proved impossible.

Additional factors which drove the Soviet Union towards a rapprochement with Germany might be the signing of a non-aggression pact between Germany, Latvia and Estonia on June 7, 1939 and the threat from Imperial Japan in the East with the Battle of Khalkhin Gol

Battle of Khalkhin Gol

The Battles of Khalkhyn Gol was the decisive engagement of the undeclared Soviet–Japanese Border Wars fought among the Soviet Union, Mongolia and the Empire of Japan in 1939. The conflict was named after the river Khalkhyn Gol, which passes through the battlefield...

(May 11 – September 16, 1939). Molotov suggested that the Japanese attack might be inspired by Germany in order to hinder the conclusion of the tripartite alliance.

In July open Soviet-German trade negotiations were under way. In late July and early August, talks between the parties turned to a potential deal, but Soviet negotiators made clear that an economic deal must first be worked out. After Germany had scheduled its invasion of Poland on August 25, and prepared for the resulting war with France, German war planners estimated that a British naval blockade would further exacerbate critical German raw material shortages for which the Soviet Union was the only potential supplier.

Then, on August 3, German Foreign Minister Joachim Ribbentrop outlined a plan where the countries would agree to nonintervention in the others' affairs and would renounce measures aimed at the others' vital interests and that "there was no problem between the Baltic and the Black Sea that could not be solved between the two of us." The Germans stated that "there is one common element in the ideology of Germany, Italy and the Soviet Union: opposition to the capitalist democracies of the West", and explained that their prior hostility toward Soviet Bolshevism had subsided with the changes in the Comintern

Comintern

The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern, also known as the Third International, was an international communist organization initiated in Moscow during March 1919...

and the Soviet renunciation of a world revolution.

Pact and commercial deal signings

By August 10, the countries had worked out the last minor technical details to make all but final the their economic arrangement, but the Soviets delayed signing that agreement for almost ten days until they were sure that they had reached a political agreement with Germany. The Soviet ambassador explained to German officials that the Soviets had begun their British negotiations "without much enthusiasm" at a time when they felt Germany would not "come to an understanding", and the parallel talks with the British could not be simply broken off when they had been initiated after 'mature consideration.' Meanwhile, every internal German military and economic study had argued that Germany was doomed to defeat without at least Soviet neutrality.

On August 19, the German–Soviet Commercial Agreement (1939) was reached. The agreement covered "current" business, which entailed a Soviet obligation to deliver 180 million Reichsmarks in raw materials in response to German orders, while Germany would allow the Soviets to order 120 million Reichsmarks for German industrial goods. Under the agreement, Germany also granted the Soviet Union a merchandise credit of 200 million Reichsmarks over 7 years to buy German manufactured goods at an extremely favorable interest rate.

On August 22 the secret political negotiations unearthed as well, as it was publicly announced in German newspapers that the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany were about to conclude a non-aggression pact, and the dragged Soviet Triple Alliance negotiations with France and Britain were suspended. The Soviets blamed on the Western powers their reluctance to take the Soviet Union's military assistance seriously and acknowledge the Soviet right to cross Poland and Romania if necessary against their will, as well as their failure to send representatives with more importance and clearly defined powers and the disagreement over the notion of indirect aggression.

On August 23, 1939, a German delegation headed by Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop

Joachim von Ribbentrop

Ulrich Friedrich Wilhelm Joachim von Ribbentrop was Foreign Minister of Germany from 1938 until 1945. He was later hanged for war crimes after the Nuremberg Trials.-Early life:...

arrived to Moscow, and in the following night the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact

Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact

The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, named after the Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov and the German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, was an agreement officially titled the Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the Soviet Union and signed in Moscow in the late hours of 23 August 1939...

was signed by him and his Soviet colleague Vyacheslav Molotov

Vyacheslav Molotov

, in the presence of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. The ten-year pact of non-aggression declaring adherence to the Treaty of Berlin (1926) was supplemented by a secret additional protocol, which divided Eastern Europe between the German and Soviet zones of influence:

1. In the event of a territorial and political rearrangement in the areas belonging to the Baltic States (Finland, Estonia
Estonia
Estonia , officially the Republic of Estonia , is a state in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia , and to the east by Lake Peipsi and the Russian Federation . Across the Baltic Sea lies...

, Latvia
Latvia
Latvia , officially the Republic of Latvia , is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by Estonia , to the south by Lithuania , to the east by the Russian Federation , to the southeast by Belarus and shares maritime borders to the west with Sweden...

, Lithuania
Lithuania
Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...

), the northern boundary of Lithuania shall represent the boundary of the spheres of influence of Germany and the U.S.S.R. In this connection the interest of Lithuania in the Vilna area
Vilnius region
Vilnius Region , refers to the territory in the present day Lithuania, that was originally inhabited by ethnic Baltic tribes and was a part of Lithuania proper, but came under East Slavic and Polish cultural influences over time,...

is recognized by each party.

2. In the event of a territorial and political rearrangement of the areas belonging to the Polish state
Second Polish Republic
The Second Polish Republic, Second Commonwealth of Poland or interwar Poland refers to Poland between the two world wars; a period in Polish history in which Poland was restored as an independent state. Officially known as the Republic of Poland or the Commonwealth of Poland , the Polish state was...

the spheres of influence of Germany and the U.S.S.R. shall be bounded approximately by the line of the rivers Narew
Narew
The Narew River , in western Belarus and north-eastern Poland, is a left tributary of the Vistula river...

, Vistula
Vistula
The Vistula is the longest and the most important river in Poland, at 1,047 km in length. The watershed area of the Vistula is , of which lies within Poland ....

, and San
San River
The San is a river in southeastern Poland and western Ukraine, a tributary of the Vistula River, with a length of 433 km and a basin area of 16,861 km2...

.

The question of whether the interests of both parties make desirable the maintenance of an independent Polish state and how such a state should be bounded can only be definitely determined in the course of further political developments.

In any event both Governments will resolve this question by means of a friendly agreement.

3. With regard to Southeastern Europe attention is called by the Soviet side to its interest in Bessarabia
Bessarabia
Bessarabia is a historical term for the geographic region in Eastern Europe bounded by the Dniester River on the east and the Prut River on the west....

. The German side declares its complete political disinterestedness in these areas.
The secret protocol shall be treated by both parties as strictly secret.

Though the parties denied its existence, the protocol was rumored to exist from the very beginning.

The news of the Pact, announced by Pravda
Pravda
Pravda was a leading newspaper of the Soviet Union and an official organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party between 1912 and 1991....

and Izvestia
Izvestia
Izvestia is a long-running high-circulation daily newspaper in Russia. The word "izvestiya" in Russian means "delivered messages", derived from the verb izveshchat . In the context of newspapers it is usually translated as "news" or "reports".-Origin:The newspaper began as the News of the...

on August 24, was met with utter shock and surprise by government leaders and media worldwide, most of whom were aware only of the British-French-Soviet negotiations that had taken place for months. British and French negotiators who were in Moscow negotiating what they thought would be a military potions of an alliance with the Soviet Union were told "no useful purpose can be served in continuing the conversation." On August 25, Hitler told the British ambassador to Berlin that the pact with the Soviets prevented Germany from facing a two front war, changing the strategic situation from that in World War I, and that Britain should accept his demands regarding Poland. Surprising Hitler, Britain signed a mutual-assistance treaty with Poland that day, causing Hitler to delay the planned August 26 invasion of western Poland.

The pact was ratified by the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union on August 31, 1939.

German invasion of western Poland

A week after having signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, on September 1, 1939, Nazi Germany invaded its zone of influence in Poland (see Invasion of Poland (1939)

Invasion of Poland (1939)

The Invasion of Poland, also known as the September Campaign or 1939 Defensive War in Poland and the Poland Campaign in Germany, was an invasion of Poland by Germany, the Soviet Union, and a small Slovak contingent that marked the start of World War II in Europe...

). On September 3, Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand and France, fulfilling their obligations to the Second Polish Republic

Second Polish Republic

, declared war on Germany. The Second World War broke out in Europe.

On September 4, as Britain blockaded Germany at sea, the German cargo sea shipping heading towards the German ports was diverted to the Soviet Arctic port of Murmansk

Murmansk

. On September 8 the Soviet side agreed to pass it by railway to the Soviet Baltic port of Leningrad

Leningrad

Leningrad is the former name of Saint Petersburg, Russia.Leningrad may also refer to:- Places :* Leningrad Oblast, a federal subject of Russia, around Saint Petersburg* Leningrad, Tajikistan, capital of Muminobod district in Khatlon Province...

. At the same time the Soviet Union refused to allow a Polish transit through its territory citing the threat of being drawn into war on September 5.

Von der Schulenburg reported to Berlin that attacks on the conduct of Germany in the Soviet press had ceased completely and the portrayal of events in the field of foreign politics largely coincided with the German point of view, while anti-German literature had been removed from the trade.

On September 7 Stalin once again outlined a new line for the Comintern now based on the idea that the war was an inter-imperialist conflict and hence there was no reason for the working class to side with Britain, France or Poland against Germany, thus departing from the Comintern's anti-fascist popular front

Popular front

policy of 1934-1939. He labeled Poland as a fascist state oppressing Belarusians and Ukrainians.

On September 8 Molotov prematurely congratulated the German government with the entry of German troops

Siege of Warsaw (1939)

The 1939 Battle of Warsaw was fought between the Polish Warsaw Army garrisoned and entrenched in the capital of Poland and the German Army...

into Warsaw

Warsaw

Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...

.

German diplomats had urged the Soviet Union to intervene against Poland from the east since the beginning of the war, but the Soviet Union was reluctant to intervene as Warsaw had not yet fallen. The Soviet decision to invade the eastern portions of Poland earlier agreed as the Soviet zone of influence was communicated to the German ambassador Friedrich Werner von der Schulenburg

Friedrich Werner von der Schulenburg

Friedrich-Werner Graf von der Schulenburg was a German diplomat who served as the last German ambassador to the Soviet Union before Operation Barbarossa. He began his diplomatic career before World War I, serving as consul and ambassador in several countries...

on September 9, but the actual invasion was delayed for more than a week. The Polish intelligence became aware of the Soviet plans around September 12.

Soviet invasion of eastern Poland

On September 17 the Soviet Union finally entered the Polish territories secured to it by the secret protocol of non-aggression pact from the east (see Soviet invasion of Poland (1939)

Soviet invasion of Poland (1939)

The 1939 Soviet invasion of Poland was a Soviet military operation that started without a formal declaration of war on 17 September 1939, during the early stages of World War II. Sixteen days after Nazi Germany invaded Poland from the west, the Soviet Union did so from the east...

), citing the collapse of the Second Polish Republic

Second Polish Republic

and alleged help to the Belorussian and Ukrainian people as the pretext. It is usually considered direct result of the pact, although the revisionist school contends that this was not the case and that the Soviet decision was taken a few weeks later. The Soviet move was denounced by Britain and France, but they did not intervene. In an exchange of captured Polish territories in compliance with the terms of the protocol, already on September 17 the Red Army

Red Army

and Wehrmacht

Wehrmacht

The Wehrmacht – from , to defend and , the might/power) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer , the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe .-Origin and use of the term:...

held a joint military parade in Brest

Brest, Belarus

Brest , formerly also Brest-on-the-Bug and Brest-Litovsk , is a city in Belarus at the border with Poland opposite the city of Terespol, where the Bug River and Mukhavets rivers meet...

, transferred by Germany to the Soviet troops. In the following battles with the rest of the Second Polish Republic's army the Soviet Union occupied the territories roughly corresponding to its sphere of interests, as defined in the secret additional protocol to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.

The territory of Poland had been completely occupied by the two powers by October 6, and the Polish state was liquidated. In early November the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union annexed the occupied territories

Polish areas annexed by the Soviet Union

Immediately after the German invasion of Poland in 1939, which marked the beginning of World War II, the Soviet Union invaded the eastern regions of the Second Polish Republic, which Poles referred to as the "Kresy," and annexed territories totaling 201,015 km² with a population of 13,299,000...

and the Soviet Union shared a common border with Nazi Germany, the Nazi-occupied Polish territories and Lithuania for the first time.

After the invasion, the cooperation was visible for example in the four Gestapo-NKVD Conferences

Gestapo-NKVD Conferences

The Gestapo–NKVD conferences were a series of meetings organized in late 1939 and early 1940, whose purpose was the mutual cooperation between Nazi Germany and Soviet Union...

, where the occupants discussed plans for dealing with the Polish resistance movement

Polish resistance movement in World War II

The Polish resistance movement in World War II, with the Home Army at its forefront, was the largest underground resistance in all of Nazi-occupied Europe, covering both German and Soviet zones of occupation. The Polish defence against the Nazi occupation was an important part of the European...

and further destruction of Poland.

Amendment of the Secret Protocols

On September 25, when Hitler was still going to proceed to Lithuania, the Soviet Union proposed to renegotiate the spheres of interest. On September 28, 1939 in Moscow Molotov and Ribbentrop signed the German-Soviet Boundary and Friendship Treaty

German-Soviet Boundary and Friendship Treaty

The German–Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Demarcation was a treaty signed by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union on September 28, 1939 after jointly invading Poland. It was signed by Joachim von Ribbentrop and Vyacheslav Molotov, the foreign ministers for Germany and the Soviet Union...

, determining the boundary of their respective national interests in the territory of the former Polish state. In a secret supplementary protocol to the treaty the spheres of interest outside Poland were renegotiated, and in exchange for some already captured portions of the Polish territory Germany acknowledged still independent Lithuania part of the Soviet zone.

Expanded commercial pact

Germany and the Soviet Union entered an intricate trade pact on February 11, 1940 that was over four times larger than the one the two countries had signed in August 1939. The trade pact helped Germany to surmount a British blockade of Germany. In the first year, Germany received one million tons of cereals, half a million tons of wheat, 900,000 tons of oil, 100,000 tons of cotton, 500,000 tons of phosphates and considerable amounts of other vital raw materials, along with the transit of one million tons of soybeans from Manchuria. These and other supplies were being transported through Soviet and occupied Polish territories, and this allowed Nazi Germany to circumvent the British naval blockade. The Soviets were to receive a naval cruiser, the plans to the battleship Bismarck

German battleship Bismarck

Bismarck was the first of two s built for the German Kriegsmarine during World War II. Named after Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, the primary force behind the German unification in 1871, the ship was laid down at the Blohm & Voss shipyard in Hamburg in July 1936 and launched nearly three years later...

, heavy naval guns, other naval gear and thirty of Germany's latest warplanes, including the Me-109 fighter, Me-110 fighter and Ju-88 bomber. The Soviets would also receive oil and electric equipment, locomotives, turbines, generators, diesel engines, ships, machine tools and samples of Germany artillery, tanks, explosives, chemical-warfare equipment and other items. The Soviets also helped Germany to avoid British naval blockades by providing a submarine base, Basis Nord

Basis Nord

Basis Nord was a proposed secret German naval base in Zapadnaya Litsa Bay, west of Murmansk provided by the Soviet Union. The base was part of a partnership that developed between Germany and the Soviet Union following German-Soviet Non-Aggression treaty of 1939, along with a broad economic...

, in the northern Soviet Union near Murmansk

Murmansk

. This also provided a refueling and maintenance location, and a takeoff point for raids and attacks on shipping.

Soviet war with Finland

The last negotiations with Finland had been initiated by the Soviet side as part of its collective security policy in April 1938, and aimed to reach an understanding and to secure a favorable Finnish position in case of a German attack on the Soviet Union through Finnish territory, but this had proven futile due to the Finnish reluctance to break neutrality, and negotiations ended in April 1939, shortly before Litvinov's dismissal. On October 13, 1939 new negotiations started in Moscow, and the Soviet Union (represented by Stalin, Molotov, and Vladimir Potyomkin) presented Finland with proposals including a mutual assistance pact, the lease of the military base of Hanko, and the cession of a 70 km-deep area on the Karelian Isthmus

Karelian Isthmus

The Karelian Isthmus is the approximately 45–110 km wide stretch of land, situated between the Gulf of Finland and Lake Ladoga in northwestern Russia, to the north of the River Neva . Its northwestern boundary is the relatively narrow area between the Bay of Vyborg and Lake Ladoga...

located immediately to the north of the city of Leningrad

Leningrad

to the Soviet Union, in exchange for border lands further to the north. Finland, however, refused to accept the offer, withdrew from negotiations on November 7, 1939, and continued preparations for a possible Soviet invasion.

On November 26, the Soviet Union staged the shelling of Mainila

Shelling of Mainila

The Shelling of Mainila was a military incident on November 26, 1939, where the Soviet Union's Red Army shelled the Russian village of Mainila , declared that the fire originated from Finland across a nearby border and claimed losses in personnel...

near the border, accused Finnish troops of the provocation and requesting their withdrawal. In turn, on November 27 Finland requested a withdrawal of troops of both nations from the border area. On November 28, the Soviet Union denounced the 1932 Soviet-Finnish Non-Aggression Pact

Soviet-Finnish Non-Aggression Pact

The Soviet–Finnish Non-Aggression Pact was a non-aggression treaty signed in 1932 by representatives of Finland and the Soviet Union. The pact was unilaterally renounced by the Soviet Union in 1939, after it had committed the deception operation Shelling of Mainila, where it shelled its own...

, and on November 29 broke off diplomatic relations with Finland. On November 30, 1939, forces of the USSR under the command of Kliment Voroshilov

Kliment Voroshilov

Kliment Yefremovich Voroshilov , popularly known as Klim Voroshilov was a Soviet military officer, politician, and statesman...

attacked Finland in what became known as the Winter War

Winter War

The Winter War was a military conflict between the Soviet Union and Finland. It began with a Soviet offensive on 30 November 1939 – three months after the start of World War II and the Soviet invasion of Poland – and ended on 13 March 1940 with the Moscow Peace Treaty...

, starting with the invasion of Finnish Karelia

Finnish Karelia

Karelia is a historical province of Finland. It refers to the Western Karelia that during the second millennium has been under western dominance, religiously and politically. Western, i.e. Finnish Karelia is separate from Eastern, i.e...

and bombing civilian boroughs

Bombing of Helsinki in World War II

The capital of Finland, Helsinki was bombed several times during World War II. Between 1939–1945 Finland fought three wars, two against the Soviet Union and one against Germany...

of Helsinki

Helsinki

Helsinki is the capital and largest city in Finland. It is in the region of Uusimaa, located in southern Finland, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, an arm of the Baltic Sea. The population of the city of Helsinki is , making it by far the most populous municipality in Finland. Helsinki is...

. On December 1, 1939, the puppet socialist government of the Finnish Democratic Republic

Finnish Democratic Republic

The Finnish Democratic Republic was a short-lived government dependent on and recognised only by the Soviet Union. It nominally operated in those parts of Finnish Karelia that were occupied by the Soviet Union during the Winter War....

was established under the auspices of the Soviet Union in the border town of Terijoki. On December 14 the Soviet Union was expelled from the League of Nations

League of Nations

for waging a war of aggression

War of aggression

A war of aggression, sometimes also war of conquest, is a military conflict waged without the justification of self-defense usually for territorial gain and subjugation. The phrase is distinctly modern and diametrically opposed to the prior legal international standard of "might makes right", under...

. After presiding over the disastrous start of the campaign, and a disproportionally heavy death toll of Red Army soldiers, Voroshilov was replaced by Semyon Timoshenko

Semyon Timoshenko

Semyon Konstantinovich Timoshenko was a Soviet military commander and senior professional officer of the Red Army at the beginning of the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941.-Early life:...

as the commander of the front on January 7, 1940 (and four months later as People's Commissar for Defense). In mid-February, 1940, Soviet troops finally managed to broke through the Mannerheim Line

Mannerheim Line

The Mannerheim Line was a defensive fortification line on the Karelian Isthmus built by Finland against the Soviet Union. During the Winter War it became known as the Mannerheim Line, after Field Marshal Baron Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim. The line was constructed in two phases: 1920–1924 and...

, and Finland sought an armistice.

The Moscow Peace Treaty was signed on March 12, 1940, and at noon the following day the fighting ended. Finland ceded the Karelian Isthmus

Karelian Isthmus

and Ladoga Karelia, part of Salla

Salla

Salla is a municipality of Finland, located in Lapland. The municipality has a population of and covers an area of ofwhich is water. The population density is....

and Kalastajasaarento, and leased the Hanko naval base to the USSR, but remained a neutral state, albeit increasingly leaning toward Germany (see Interim Peace

Interim Peace

The Interim Peace was a short period in the history of Finland during the Second World War. The term is used for the time between the Winter War and the Continuation War, lasting a little over a year, from 13 March 1940 to 24 June 1941...

).

The consequences of the conflict were multiplex. While the invasion revealed the striking military weaknesses of the Red Army and prompted the Soviet Union to reorganize its military forces, and it gained new territories, it pushed neutral Finland towards an accommodation with Nazi Germany, and it dealt yet another blow to the international prestige of the USSR.

Suffering disproportionally high losses compared to the Finnish troops, despite a fourfold Soviet superiority in troops and nearly absolute superiority in heavy weapons and aircraft, the Red Army appeared an easy target, which contributed to Hitler's decision to plan an attack against the Soviet Union. Soviet official casualty counts in the war exceeded 200,000, while Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev

Nikita Khrushchev

Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev led the Soviet Union during part of the Cold War. He served as First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, and as Chairman of the Council of Ministers, or Premier, from 1958 to 1964...

later claimed the casualties may have been one million.

Soviets take the Baltics

From the beginning, there was tension over the Soviets' moves in Estonia

Estonia

, Latvia

Latvia

and Lithuania

Lithuania

, which were in the soviet influence. All three were given no choice but to sign a so-called Pact of defence and mutual assistance which permitted the Soviet Union to station troops in them. Nazi Germany advised them to accept the conditions. The Baltic states acceded to the Soviet demands and signed mutual assistance treaties on September 28, October 5, and October 10, 1939, respectively (for ten years for Estonia and Latvia and fifteen years for Lithuania). The tension included the interned

Internment

Internment is the imprisonment or confinement of people, commonly in large groups, without trial. The Oxford English Dictionary gives the meaning as: "The action of 'interning'; confinement within the limits of a country or place." Most modern usage is about individuals, and there is a distinction...

a submarine crew in the Orzeł incident. On October 18, October 29, and November 3, 1939, the first Soviet troops entered Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania under the Pact.

The Soviet Union had been discontented with the Baltic states leaning toward Britain and France, the so-called Baltic Entente

Baltic Entente

The Baltic Entente was based on Treaty of Understanding and Collaboration signed between Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia on September 12, 1934 in Geneva. The main objective of the agreement was joint action in foreign policy. It also included mutual commitments to support each other politically, and...

dating back to 1934, which could potentially be reoriented toward Germany, and considered it a violation of the mutual-assistance treaties of the autumn of 1939. On May 25, 1940, after several Soviet soldiers had disappeared from Soviet garrisons in Lithuania, Molotov accused Kaunas

Kaunas

Kaunas is the second-largest city in Lithuania and has historically been a leading centre of Lithuanian economic, academic, and cultural life. Kaunas was the biggest city and the center of a powiat in Trakai Voivodeship of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania since 1413. During Russian Empire occupation...

of provocations. On June 14, People's Commissar of Defence Timoshenko ordered a complete blockade of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. The Soviet air force shot down a Finnish passenger plane Kaleva

Kaleva (airplane)

Kaleva, registered OH-ALL, was a civilian Junkers Ju 52 passenger and transport plane, belonging to the Finnish carrier Aero O/Y. The aircraft was shot down by two Soviet Ilyushin DB-3 bombers during peacetime between the Soviet Union and Finland on June 14, 1940, while en route from Tallinn to...

heading from Tallinn

Tallinn

Tallinn is the capital and largest city of Estonia. It occupies an area of with a population of 414,940. It is situated on the northern coast of the country, on the banks of the Gulf of Finland, south of Helsinki, east of Stockholm and west of Saint Petersburg. Tallinn's Old Town is in the list...

towards Helsinki

Helsinki

. Shortly before midnight, Molotov presented Lithuania with a ten-hour ultimatum

1940 Soviet ultimatum to Lithuania

The Soviet Union issued an ultimatum to Lithuania before midnight of June 14, 1940. The Soviets, using a formal pretext, demanded to allow an unspecified number of Soviet soldiers to enter the Lithuanian territory and to form a new pro-Soviet government...

, demanding the replacement of the Lithuanian government with a pro-Soviet one and free access for additional Soviet troops, threatening the country with immediate occupation otherwise.

Lithuanian President Antanas Smetona

Antanas Smetona

Antanas Smetona was one of the most important Lithuanian political figures between World War I and World War II. He served as the first President of Lithuania from April 4, 1919 to June 19, 1920. He again served as the last President of the country from December 19, 1926 to June 15, 1940, before...

insisted on armed resistance, but was not supported by the military leadership, so Lithuania acceded to the ultimatum. The government was reshuffled and additional Soviet troops entered Lithuania. Vladimir Dekanozov

Vladimir Dekanozov

Vladimir Georgievich Dekanozov ) was a Soviet senior state security operative and diplomat.-Before Second World War:...

was sent to Kaunas as the Soviet special envoy. The following night, Smetona fled to Germany (and later to Switzerland, and then to the United States). On June 16, Molotov presented similar ultimatums to Latvia and Estonia, citing Soviet concerns over the Baltic Entente, and they acceded as well. At the same time, the Wehrmacht started concentrating along the Lithuanian border.

In mid-June 1940, when international attention was focused on the German invasion of France

Battle of France

In the Second World War, the Battle of France was the German invasion of France and the Low Countries, beginning on 10 May 1940, which ended the Phoney War. The battle consisted of two main operations. In the first, Fall Gelb , German armoured units pushed through the Ardennes, to cut off and...

, Soviet NKVD troops raided border posts in Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia. State administrations were liquidated and replaced by Soviet cadres, in which 34,250 Latvians, 75,000 Lithuanians and almost 60,000 Estonians were deported or killed. Elections were held with single pro-Soviet candidates listed for many positions, with resulting peoples assemblies immediately requested admission into the USSR, which was granted by the Soviet Union.

With France no longer in a position to be the guarantor of the status quo in Eastern Europe, and the Third Reich pushing Romania to make concessions to the Soviet Union, the Romanian government gave in, following Italy's counsel and Vichy France

Vichy France

Vichy France, Vichy Regime, or Vichy Government, are common terms used to describe the government of France that collaborated with the Axis powers from July 1940 to August 1944. This government succeeded the Third Republic and preceded the Provisional Government of the French Republic...

's recent example.

August tensions

The Finnish and Baltic invasions began a deterioration of relations. Because of tensions caused by these invasions, Germany falling behind in deliveries of goods and Stalin's worries that Hitler's war with the West might end quickly after France signed an armistice

Armistice with France (Second Compiègne)

The Second Armistice at Compiègne was signed at 18:50 on 22 June 1940 near Compiègne, in the department of Oise, between Nazi Germany and France...

, in August 1940, the Soviet Union briefly suspended its deliveries under the German-Soviet Commercial Agreement. The suspension created significant resource problems for Germany. Ribbentrop wrote a letter promising Stalin that "in the opinion of the Fuhrer... it appears to be the historical mission of the Four Powers -- the Soviet Union, Italy, Japan and Germany -- to adopt a long range-policy and to direct the future development of their peoples into the right channels by delimitation of their interests in a worldwide scale." By the end of August, relations improved again.

Soviet negotiations regarding joining the Axis

After Germany entered a Tripartite Pact

Tripartite Pact

The Tripartite Pact, also the Three-Power Pact, Axis Pact, Three-way Pact or Tripartite Treaty was a pact signed in Berlin, Germany on September 27, 1940, which established the Axis Powers of World War II...

with Japan and Italy, in October 1940, Ribbentrop wrote to Stalin about

German–Soviet Axis talks

In October and November 1940, German–Soviet Axis talks occurred concerning the Soviet Union's potential entry as a fourth Axis Power. The negotiations included a two day Berlin conference between Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov, Adolf Hitler and German Foreign Minister Joachim von...

"the historical mission of the Four Powers -- the Soviet Union, Italy, Japan and Germany -- to adopt a long range-policy and to direct the future development of their peoples into the right channels by delimitation of their interests in a worldwide scale." Stalin replied, referencing entering an agreement regarding a "permanent basis" for their "mutual interests." Stalin sent Molotov to Berlin to negotiate the terms for the Soviet Union to join the Axis and potentially enjoy the spoils of the pact.

Ribbentrop asked Molotov to sign another secret protocol with the statement: "The focal point of the territorial aspirations of the Soviet Union would presumably be centered south of the territory of the Soviet Union in the direction of the Indian Ocean." Molotov took the position that he could not take a "definite stand" on this without Stalin's agreement. In response to a written German draft four powers agreement, Stalin presented a written counterproposal, including the Soviets joining the four power Axis if Germany foreclosed acting in the Soviet's sphere of influence. Germany never responded the counterproposal.

January 1941 Border and Commercial Agreement

On January 10, 1941, Germany and the Soviet Union signed an agreement setting several ongoing issues.

German–Soviet Border and Commercial Agreement

The German–Soviet Border and Commercial Agreement, signed on January 10, 1941, was a broad agreement settling border disputes and continuing raw materials and war machine trade between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany...

The agreement formally set the border between Germany and the Soviet Union between the Igorka river and the Baltic Sea, It extended trade regulation of the 1940 German-Soviet Commercial Agreement

German–Soviet Commercial Agreement (1940)

The 1940 German-Soviet Commercial Agreement was an economic arrangement between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany signed on February 11, 1940 by which the Soviet Union agreed in period from February 11, 1940 to February 11, 1941, in addition to the deliveries...

until August 1, 1942, increased deliveries above the levels of year one of that agreement, settled trading rights in the Baltics and Bessarabia, calculated the compensation for German property interests in the Baltic States now occupied by the Soviets and other issues. It also covered the migration to Germany within two and a half months of ethnic Germans and German citizens in Soviet-held Baltic territories, and the migration to the Soviet Union of Baltic and "White Russian" "nationals" in German-held territories. Secret protocols in the new agreement stated that Germany would renounce its claims to one piece of Lithuanian territory in the "Secret Additional Protocols" of the German–Soviet Boundary and Friendship Treaty and would be paid 7.5 million dollars (31.5 million Reichsmark

German reichsmark

The Reichsmark was the currency in Germany from 1924 until June 20, 1948. The Reichsmark was subdivided into 100 Reichspfennig.-History:...

).

From the start of the war until Germany invaded the Soviet Union less than two years later, Stalin supplied Hitler with 1.5 million tons of oil, the same quantity of grain, and many thousands of tons of rubber, timber, phosphates, iron, and other valuable metal ores, particularly chromium, manganese, and platinum. At the time of the invasion, Nazi Germany was heavily in debt to the Soviet Union. Russian historians dispute the importance of the Soviet Union's trade with Germany. They point out that in mid-1941 Germany's oil resources totalled 10 million tons: of these 500,000 were produced in Germany proper, 800,000 by the countries occupied by Germany, and 8,700,000 tons by Germany's European allies, with Romania accounting for the bulk of this amount.

Mid-1941 relations

In an effort to demonstrate peaceful intentions toward Germany, on April 13, 1941, the Soviets signed a neutrality pact with Axis power Japan. While Stalin had little faith in Japan's commitment to neutrality, he felt that the pact was important for its political symbolism, to reinforce a public affection for Germany.

Stalin felt that there was a growing split in German circles about whether Germany should initiate a war with the Soviet Union. Stalin did not know that Hitler had been secretly discussing an invasion of the Soviet Union since the summer of 1940, and that Hitler had ordered his military in late 1940 to prepare for war in the east regardless of the parties talks of a potential Soviet entry as a fourth Axis Power.

Further development

In western Europe, Nazi Germany was engaged in their conflicts, especially after its April 9, 1940, Germany invasion of Denmark and Norway. On May 15, the Netherlands capitulated. By June 2, Germany had occupied Belgium. On June 14, Wehrmacht entered Paris. On June 22, France surrendered.

The British historians Alan S. Milward and W. Medicott show that Nazi Germany—unlike Imperial Germany—was prepared only for a short war (Blitzkrieg

Blitzkrieg

For other uses of the word, see: Blitzkrieg Blitzkrieg is an anglicized word describing all-motorised force concentration of tanks, infantry, artillery, combat engineers and air power, concentrating overwhelming force at high speed to break through enemy lines, and, once the lines are broken,...

). According to Andreas Hillgruber

Andreas Hillgruber

Andreas Fritz Hillgruber was a conservative German historian. Hillgruber was influential as a military and diplomatic historian.At his death in 1989, the American historian Francis L...

, without the necessary supplies from the USSR and strategic security in the East, Germany could not have succeeded in the West. Had the Soviet Union joined the Anglo-French blockade, the German war economy would have soon collapsed. With its own raw materials as of September 1939, Germany could have only been supplied for mere 9 to 12 months.

According to Mr. Rapoport, "one of Stalin's first gifts to the Nazis was to turn over some 600 German Communists, most of them Jews, to the Gestapo at Brest-Litovsk in German-occupied Poland.". The Soviets also offered support to the Nazis in official statements, Joseph Stalin

Joseph Stalin

himself emphasized that it was the Anglo-French alliance that had attacked Germany, not the other way around, and Molotov affirmed that Germany had made peace efforts, which had been turned down by 'Anglo-French imperialists'.

By annexing Poland and the Baltic States, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union eliminated the buffer state

Buffer state

A buffer state is a country lying between two rival or potentially hostile greater powers, which by its sheer existence is thought to prevent conflict between them. Buffer states, when authentically independent, typically pursue a neutralist foreign policy, which distinguishes them from satellite...

s between them and magnified the threat of war

Volksdeutsche in the Soviet Union

Ethnic Germans in Soviet Russia of the 1920s enjoyed a certain degree of cultural autonomy, had their own national districts and Volga German Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic

Volga German Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic

The Volga German Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was an autonomous republic established in Soviet Russia, with its capital at the Volga port of Engels .-History:...

(Volga German ASSR), schools and newspapers, in compliance with the policy of national delimitation in the Soviet Union.

In September 1929, discontented with the reintroduction of coercive grain requisitions and collectivization of agriculture

Collectivisation in the USSR

Collectivization in the Soviet Union was a policy pursued under Stalin between 1928 and 1940. The goal of this policy was to consolidate individual land and labour into collective farms...

, several thousand of Soviet peasants of German descent (mostly Mennonites) convened in Moscow, demanding exit visas to emigrate to Canada, provoking a significant political scandal in Germany, which soured Soviet-German relations. The charity "Brothers in Need" was established in Germany to raise money for the Soviet Germans, President Paul von Hindenburg

Paul von Hindenburg

Paul Ludwig Hans Anton von Beneckendorff und von Hindenburg , known universally as Paul von Hindenburg was a Prussian-German field marshal, statesman, and politician, and served as the second President of Germany from 1925 to 1934....

himself donated 200 thousand Reichsmarks of his money for that purpose. The Soviet government first permitted 5,461 Germans to emigrate, but then deported the remaining 9,730 back to their original places of residence. However, throughout 1930, efforts were still being put by the Soviet government into increasing the number and quality of German national institutions in the Soviet Union.

The first mass arrests and show trials specifically targeting Soviet Germans (those who were considered counter-revolutionaries) occurred in the Soviet Union during the 1933 Ukrainian terror. However, with the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (b)'s decree of November 5, 1934, the domestic anti-German campaign took on all-union dimensions.

In 1933-1934, a campaign was launched in Germany to help Soviet Volksdeutsche

Volksdeutsche

Volksdeutsche - "German in terms of people/folk" -, defined ethnically, is a historical term from the 20th century. The words volk and volkische conveyed in Nazi thinking the meanings of "folk" and "race" while adding the sense of superior civilization and blood...

during the famine by sending food packets and money

Deeply concerned over cross-border ethnic ties of national minorities (such as Germans, Poles, Finns), in 1934 the Soviet Union decided to create new border security zone

Border Security Zone of Russia

The Border Security Zone in Russia is the designation of a strip of land where economic activity and access are restricted without permission of the FSB. In order to visit the zone, a permit issued by the local FSB department is required. The restricted access zone The Border Security Zone in...

along its western border, and in 1935-1937 potentially disloyal nationalities (including German) were mostly (albeit not completely) deported from this strip of land to the inner parts of the Soviet Union by NKVD

NKVD

The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the public and secret police organization of the Soviet Union that directly executed the rule of power of the Soviets, including political repression, during the era of Joseph Stalin....

. German national institutions were gradually abolished

In 1937-1938 NKVD conducted mass operations "for the destruction of espionage and sabotage contingents" (known as National operations of NKVD) among diaspora

Diaspora

A diaspora is "the movement, migration, or scattering of people away from an established or ancestral homeland" or "people dispersed by whatever cause to more than one location", or "people settled far from their ancestral homelands".The word has come to refer to historical mass-dispersions of...

nationalities against both Soviet and foreign citizens (resulting in arrest and usually execution), including German operation of the NKVD against Germans, in fact indiscriminately targeting national minorities in that important campaign of the Great Terror

Great Terror

Great Terror may refer to:* Reign of Terror , a period of extreme violence during the French Revolution, last weeks of which are sometimes referred to as the Red Terror or Great Terror...

. Concurrently all German and other diaspora national districts and schools in the Soviet Union except the Volga German ASSR and German schools within that republic were abolished.

The Soviet government had made a prior decision to evacuate the entire population of German origin in case of German invasion, which was immediately implemented after the actual invasion by forcibly transferring 1.2 million citizens of German origin from European Russia

European Russia

European Russia refers to the western areas of Russia that lie within Europe, comprising roughly 3,960,000 square kilometres , larger in area than India, and spanning across 40% of Europe. Its eastern border is defined by the Ural Mountains and in the south it is defined by the border with...

to Siberia

Siberia

Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...

and Soviet Central Asia

Hitler breaks the Pact

Nazi Germany terminated the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact with its invasion of the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa

Operation Barbarossa

Operation Barbarossa was the code name for Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II that began on 22 June 1941. Over 4.5 million troops of the Axis powers invaded the USSR along a front., the largest invasion in the history of warfare...

on June 22, 1941. After the launch of the invasion, the territories gained by the Soviet Union due to the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact were lost in a matter of weeks. In the three weeks following the Pact's breaking, attempting to defend against large German advances, the Soviet Union suffered 750,000 casualties, and lost 10,000 tanks and 4,000 aircraft. Within six months, the Soviet military had suffered 4.3 million casualties and the Germans had captured three million Soviet prisoners, two million of which would die in German captivity by February 1942. German forces had advanced 1,050 miles (1,690 kilometers), and maintained a linearly-measured front of 1,900 miles (3,058 kilometers).

Denial of the Secret Protocol's existence by the Soviet Union

German officials found a microfilmed copy of the secret protocols of the Motolotv-Ribbentrop Pact in 1945 and provided it to United States military forces. Despite publication of the recovered copy in western media, for decades it was the official policy of the Soviet Union to deny the existence of the secret protocol.

After the Baltic Way

Baltic Way

The Baltic Way or Baltic Chain was a peaceful political demonstration that occurred on August 23, 1989. Approximately two million people joined their hands to form a human chain spanning over across the three Baltic states – Estonian SSR, Latvian SSR, and Lithuanian SSR, republics of the Soviet...

demonstrations of August 23, 1989, a Soviet commission concluded that the protocol had existed in December 1989. In 1992, the document itself was declassified only after the dissolution of the Soviet Union

Dissolution of the Soviet Union

Post-war commentary regarding the timing of Soviet-German rapprochement

After the war, historians have argued about the start of Soviet-German rapprochement. There are many conflicting points of view in historiography as to when the Soviet side began to seek rapprochement and when the secret political negotiations started.

Some scholars argue that for a long time the collective security doctrine was a sincere and unanimous position of the Soviet leadership, pursuing a purely defensive line, while others contend that from the very beginning the Soviet Union was aimed at the cooperation with Nazi Germany, collective security being merely tactical counter to some unfriendly German moves. However, it might well be the case that Moscow sought to avoid a great war in Europe because it was not strong enough to fight an offensive, but there was much disagreement over the policy between Litvinov and Molotov as to how to attain the goal, and Stalin balanced between their positions, starting pursuing both contradictory lines simultaneously quite early and abandoned collective security only at some point in 1939.

Nazi Germany started its quest for a pact with the Soviet Union at some point in the spring of 1939 in order to prevent an Anglo-Soviet-French alliance and secure Soviet neutrality in a future Polish-German war.

Some argue that the rapprochement could start as early as in 1935-1936, when Soviet trade representative in Berlin David Kandelaki made attempts at political negotiations on behalf of Stalin and Molotov, behind Litvinov's back. Molotov's speech to the Central Executive Committee of the Supreme Soviet in January 1936 is usually taken to mark this change of policy. Thus, Litvinov's anti-German line did not enjoy unanimous support by the Soviet leadership long before his dismissal. Walter Krivitsky

Walter Krivitsky

Walter Germanovich Krivitsky was a Soviet intelligence officer who revealed plans of signing Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact before defecting weeks before the outbreak of World War II....

, an NKVD

NKVD

agent, who defected in the Netherlands in 1937, reported in his memoires in 1938 that already then Stalin had sought better relations with Germany. According to other historians, these were merely responses to German overtures for détente.

It is also possible that the change of foreign policy occurred in 1938, after the Munich Agreement, which became the final defeat of Litvinov's anti-German policy of collective security, which was marked by the reported remark about an inevitable fourth partition of Poland

Partitions of Poland

The Partitions of Poland or Partitions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth took place in the second half of the 18th century and ended the existence of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, resulting in the elimination of sovereign Poland for 123 years...

made by Litvinov's deputy Vladimir Potemkin in a conversation with French ambassador Robert Coulondre shortly thereafter.

The turn towards Germany could also be made in early 1939, marked by Stalin's speech to the 18th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

in March 1939, shortly after the German occupation of Czechoslovakia

German occupation of Czechoslovakia

German occupation of Czechoslovakia began with the Nazi annexation of Czechoslovakia's northern and western border regions, known collectively as the Sudetenland, under terms outlined by the Munich Agreement. Nazi leader Adolf Hitler's pretext for this effort was the alleged privations suffered by...

, when he warned that the Western democracies were trying to provoke a conflict between Germany and the Soviet Union and declared the Soviet non-involvement in inter-capitalist quarrels, which is sometimes considered a signal to Berlin.

According to others, the first sign of a Soviet-German political détente was the conversation between Soviet ambassador Aleksey Merekalov and Ernst von Weizsäcker

Ernst von Weizsäcker

Ernst Freiherr von Weizsäcker was a German diplomat and politician. He served as State Secretary at the Foreign Office from 1938 to 1943, and as German Ambassador to the Holy See from 1943 to 1945...

, State Secretary in the German Foreign Ministry, on April 17, 1939, when the former hinted at possible improvement of the relations. This was followed by a series of perceived German signals of goodwill and replacement of Litvinov with Molotov. According to Geoffrey Roberts

Geoffrey Roberts

Geoffrey Roberts is a British historian of the Second World War.Geoffrey Roberts was born in Deptford, south London in 1952. His father worked as a labourer at the local power station and his mother as a cleaner and tea lady...

, recently released documents from the Soviet diplomatic show that western historians have been mistaken in assuming that the Merekalov-Weiszäcker meeting of April 1939 was the occasion for Soviet signals of a desire for détente with Nazi Germany. His point of view, supported by Derek Watson and Jonathan Haslam is that it was not until the end of July 1939 – August 1939 that the policy change occurred and that it was a consequence rather than a cause of the breakdown of the Anglo-Soviet-French triple alliance negotiations. It must have been clear to Molotov and Stalin in August 1939, that an agreement with Germany avoided an immediate war with that country and could satisfy Soviet territorial ambitions in eastern Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Finland, and Bessarabia; an alliance with Britain and France offered no territorial gains and a war with Germany in which the USSR was most likely to bear the brunt of a German attack.

Soviet ambassadors (chargés) to Berlin

Adolf Ioffe (1918)
Nikolay Krestinsky (1921–1930)
Lev Khinchuk (1930–1934)
Yakov Surits (1934–1937)
Konstantin Yurenev
Konstantin Yurenev
Konstantin Konstantinovich Yurenev , also known as Konstantin Konstantinovich Krotovsky , was a Soviet politician and diplomat....

(1937)
Alexey Merekalov (1938–1939)
Georgy Astakhov (1939)
Alexey Shkvartsev (1939–1940)
Vladimir Dekanozov
Vladimir Dekanozov
Vladimir Georgievich Dekanozov ) was a Soviet senior state security operative and diplomat.-Before Second World War:...

(1940–1941)

German ambassadors to Moscow

Wilhelm Mirbach
Wilhelm Mirbach
Wilhelm Graf von Mirbach-Harff was a German diplomat.- Biography :Mirbach was born in Bad Ischl in Upper Austria. He participated in the Russian-German negotiations in Brest-Litovsk from December 1917 to March 1918...

(1918)
Karl Helfferich
Karl Helfferich
Karl Theodor Helfferich was a German politician, economist, and financier from Neustadt an der Weinstraße in the Palatinate.-Biography:...
Kurt Wiedenfeld
Ulrich Graf von Brockdorff-Rantzau
Ulrich Graf von Brockdorff-Rantzau
Ulrich Graf von Brockdorff-Rantzau was a German diplomat, the first Foreign Minister of the Weimar Republic and German Ambassador to the USSR for most of the twenties.-Early career:...

(1922–1928)
Herbert von Dirksen
Herbert von Dirksen
Herbert von Dirksen was a German diplomat who is best remembered as the last German Ambassador to Britain before World War II.- Biography :...

(1928–1933)
Rudolf Nadolny (1933–1934)
Friedrich Werner von der Schulenburg
Friedrich Werner von der Schulenburg
Friedrich-Werner Graf von der Schulenburg was a German diplomat who served as the last German ambassador to the Soviet Union before Operation Barbarossa. He began his diplomatic career before World War I, serving as consul and ambassador in several countries...

(1934–1941)

Revolution, end of World War I and the Treaty of Rapallo

Relations in the 1920s

Early 1930s

The Soviet Union and Nazi Germany before World War II

Initial relations after Hitler's election

Relations in the mid-1930s

Collective security failures

1939 needs and discussions

Pact and commercial deal signings

German invasion of western Poland

Soviet invasion of eastern Poland

Amendment of the Secret Protocols

Expanded commercial pact

Soviet war with Finland

Soviets take the Baltics

August tensions

Soviet negotiations regarding joining the Axis

January 1941 Border and Commercial Agreement

Mid-1941 relations

Further development

Volksdeutsche in the Soviet Union

Hitler breaks the Pact

Denial of the Secret Protocol's existence by the Soviet Union

Post-war commentary regarding the timing of Soviet-German rapprochement

Soviet ambassadors (chargés) to Berlin

German ambassadors to Moscow

See also

External links

Further reading