The True Intentions Behind the Hitler-Stalin Pact
The world was stunned on August 23rd, 1939, when Nazi Germany and the communist USSR, each avowedly dedicated to the other’s destruction, signed the German-Soviet Non-Aggression Treaty. Commonly known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact after the Soviet and German foreign ministers, it was a benevolent neutrality treaty that effectively divided Eastern Europe between Germany and the USSR. It also freed Hitler to kick off World War II a week later with an invasion of Poland. The Nazi dictator had secured himself from the risk of a two front war against Britain and France in the west, and the Soviets in the East.
Hitler, whose ultimate aim was an empire in the east that would by necessity be seized from the Soviet Union, simply wanted to buy time. He intended the Pact as a temporary measure to free him to deal with Britain and France, before he turned his attention to his real target: the USSR. Stalin, however, was convinced that the Pact was more durable. The Soviet dictator believed that while war with Germany was inevitable, Hitler would not turn on the USSR before he finished the war with Britain. He turned out to be very, very, wrong.