THE NAZI-SOVIET PACT, 1939 term paper

In the mid-1930s, the Soviet Union strongly supported the idea of collective security against fascist aggression. Maxim Litvinov, the Soviet foreign minister, arranged treaties with France and Czechoslovakia. He also sought to make the League of Nations a more effective organization. The Munich Agreement (see entry #30), represented a severe defeat for his policy.

Early in 1939, V. V. Molotov, Josif Stalin’s close associate, replaced Litvinov. Over the next several months, the Soviet Union hinted that it desired better relations with Germany. At the same time, it continued to negotiate with Great Britain and France. Also that year, Adolf Hitler completed the destruction of Czechoslovakia and put pressure on Poland to cede the free city of Danzig (which contained a mixed population of Poles and Germans) to Germany. Great Britain and France responded by guaranteeing support to Poland.

Hitler was determined to use the Danzig issue to force a war with Poland. He apparently did not believe Britain and France would actually defend Poland. He did, however, want to avoid a two-front war, which meant securing the neutrality of the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union also feared a two-front war, in its case one with Japan and Germany.

In August, while negotiations involving the Soviet Union, Britain, and France continued in Moscow, Stalin suddenly agreed to allow Joachim von Ribbentrop, the Nazi foreign minister, to come to Moscow. Ribbentrop, who had tried vainly to secure an appointment, quickly agreed. At the talks, Molotov, Stalin, and Ribbentrop drafted a Non-Aggression Treaty between Germany and the Soviet Union. In addition to agreeing not to attack one another, the two countries agreed that, if one country became involved in a war with a third country, the other would not aid the third country. The two countries also agreed to a secret protocol calling for the Soviet Union to enter a war against Poland should one break out and also dividing eastern and central Europe into spheres of influence. Stalin, who believed Britain and France might be planning to turn Nazi Germany against the Soviet Union, signed the treaty despite the complete about-face it represented. Many communists outside the Soviet Union found it difficult to understand why Stalin would make such a cynical deal, but most accepted it as necessary. Hitler, now reassured, went ahead with the invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939.
Suggestions for Term Papers
1. Investigate the career of Maxim Litvinov and his interest in collective security. How sincere was his support of collective security?
2. How had Joachim von Ribbentrop become foreign minister in Germany, and what had he accomplished up to the point of negotiating the Nazi-Soviet Pact?
3. Review the efforts of the British and French to negotiate cooperation with the Soviet Union in the Polish question. Why did the negotiations fail?
4. Survey the history of Poland between the wars and assess its successes and failures in this period. See Richard M. Watt, Bitter Glory: Poland Its Fate, 1918–1939 (see Suggested Sources).
5. Follow the efforts of Germany and the Soviet Union to work out the details of the secret protocol over the two years between the signing of the pact and the German invasion of the Soviet Union.
6. Stalin has been criticized not so much for signing the Nazi-Soviet Pact as for ignoring signs that Hitler intended to discard it and invade the Soviet Union. Examine the period during which the pact was in force and evaluate Stalin’s handling of the situation.
Research Suggestions

In addition to the boldfaced items, look under the entries for “The Spanish Civil War, 1936–1939” (#29), “The Munich Agreement, 1938” (#30), and “The Battle of Stalingrad, 1942–1943” (#33). Search under Baltic States (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania), Bessarabia, Finland, Sitzkrieg (“Phoney War”), and Operation Barbarossa.

SUGGESTED SOURCES

Primary Sources

Documents on German Foreign Policy, 1918–1945, from the Archives of the German Foreign Ministry. Series D (1937–1945), Vol. 6, The Last Months of Peace, March–August 1939 ; Vol. 7, The Last Days of Peace, August 9–September 3, 1939. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1956. The German Foreign Ministry’s view of 1939 and the coming of war.

Nazi-Soviet Relations, 1939–1941: Documents from the Archives of the German Foreign Office. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1948. Captured German documents which offer a rich source for the study of the Nazi-Soviet Pact.

Hitler, Adolf. The Speeches of Adolf Hitler, April 1922–August 1939. 2 vols. Edited by Norman H. Baynes. London: Oxford University Press, 1942. Useful background material.

Secondary Sources

Adamthwaite, Anthony P. France and the Coming of the Second World War, 1936–1939. London: Frank Cass, 1977. An important book on the French involvement in events leading to World War II.

Bullock, Alan. Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives. New York: Random House, 1993. A good review of the developments leading up to the Nazi-Soviet Pact.

Haslam, Jonathan. The Soviet Union and the Search for Collective Security, 1933–1939. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1984. Places the Nazi-Soviet Pact in the larger context of Soviet efforts in the 1930s to create dependable security arrangements.

Murray, Williamson. The Change in the European Balance of Power, 1938–1939: The Path to Ruin. Princeton: PrincetonUniversity Press, 1984. An assessment of the military context within which diplomatic discussions took place.
Read, Anthony, and David Fisher. The Deadly Embrace: Hitler, Stalin, and the Nazi-Soviet Pact, 1939–1941. New York: W. W. Norton, 1988. A highly readable narrative.

Roberts, Geoffrey K. The Unholy Alliance: Stalin’s Pact with Hitler. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989. A recent, well-informed study.

Scott, William Evans. Alliance Against Hitler: The Origins of the Franco-Soviet Pact. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1962. A careful study of efforts by the French and Russians to establish an alliance in the mid-1930s.

Tucker, Robert C. Stalin in Power: The Revolution from Above, 1928–1941. New York: W. W. Norton, 1990. The second of a projected three-volume biography of Stalin. An outstanding study.

Watt, Richard M. Bitter Glory: Poland Its Fate, 1918–1939. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1979. A highly readable account.

Weinberg, Gerald L. The Foreign Policy of Hitler’s Germany: Starting World War II, 1937–1939. Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press, 1994. The best discussion available of Hitler’s intentions.

World Wide Web

“Treaty of Nonaggression between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.” http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/nazsov/nonagres.htm. Part of “The Avalon Project at the Yale Law School.” The secret protocol to the Nazi-Soviet Pact is the next document on the Web site.