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What Did the Secret Protocols of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact Do? - The Dual Invasion of Poland in 1939 | Sleepy Facts About History · Sleepy Facts About History

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Welcome to Sleepy Facts About History. On August
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23, 1939, two regimes that had spent years denouncing
0:18
each other as the embodiment of evil signed a
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non -aggression pact in Moscow. This episode
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examines the Nazi -Soviet pact, exploring how
0:28
a temporary convergence of interests between
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Hitler and Stalin translated directly into the
0:34
destruction of the Polish state. We look at the
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failure of Anglo -French collective security
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negotiations, the secret protocols that divided
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Eastern Europe into spheres of influence, and
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the dual invasion that left Poland fighting a
0:49
war on two fronts. The episode also details the
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distinct nature of the two occupations that followed,
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contrasting the racial and genocidal aims of
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the German administration with the class -based
1:02
Sovietization imposed by the Soviet Union. I
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kept returning to one question while working
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on this episode. How do two ideological enemies
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agree to carve up a country neither of them has
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even conquered yet? It is easy to view the handshake
1:18
in Moscow as a sudden betrayal. But the diplomatic
1:21
breakdown of the summer of 1939 reveals a more
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complex failure of trust, strategic geometry
1:28
and mutual suspicion. Understanding the precise
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mechanisms of this pact and the very different
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systems of terror that followed helps clarify
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the actual geopolitical realities of 1939. It
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is a sobering look at how temporary diplomatic
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arrangements can produce permanent catastrophes
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for millions of people. On August 23, 1939, a
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former champagne salesman and a man who had signed
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thousands of death warrants sat down in Moscow
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to divide a country that neither of them had
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yet conquered. In doing so, they made its destruction
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possible. In August 1939, two men who had spent
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years denouncing each other as the embodiment
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of evil sat down in Moscow and shook hands. One
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was Joachim von Ribbentrop, the foreign minister
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of Nazi Germany. He was a former champagne salesman
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who had risen through Hitler's inner circle on
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loyalty and bluster. The other was Vyacheslav
2:33
Molotov, the Soviet foreign minister. He was
2:37
a hard -eyed survivor of Stalin's purges who
2:40
had already signed death warrants for thousands.
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They were there to sign a non -aggression pact
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between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. The
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announcement shocked the world. For years, Nazi
2:53
propaganda had raged against Jewish Bolshevism.
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Soviet propaganda had denounced fascism as the
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last gasp of capitalist imperialism. Communist
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parties across Europe had built their identity
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on the anti -fascist struggle. Now the two regimes
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promised not to attack each other. The pact was
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not merely surprising. It was the deliberate
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enabling act that allowed Germany to invade Poland.
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It allowed the Soviet Union to seize its eastern
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half, and it allowed millions of Polish citizens
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to be subjected to dual occupation, deportation,
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and mass violence. This is the story of how that
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handshake translated into the destruction of
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a state. To understand why Stalin and Hitler
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reached across the ideological chasm, we need
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to look at the summer of 1939 as it actually
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unfolded. We need to see it not as it appears
3:54
in hindsight. The post -19 European order had
3:59
created an independent Poland after more than
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a century of partition by Russia, Prussia and
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Austria. The new Polish state sat in an unenviable
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position. It had flat terrain, long borders and
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two powerful neighbors to the western east who
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resented its very existence. Germany under Hitler.
4:23
had already absorbed Austria and dismantled Czechoslovakia
4:27
at Munich in 1938. The Nazi regime made no secret
4:32
of its desire to revise the eastern settlement.
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Danzig, the free city under League of Nations
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protection with a German majority, must return
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to the Reich. The Polish corridor, which separated
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East Prussia from the rest of Germany, must be
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eliminated. Beyond these immediate demands lay
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the vast project of Lebensraum, living space
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for German settlement in the East. The Soviet
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Union under Stalin presented a different face.
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The Red Army had been decapitated by purges in
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1937 and 1938. Thousands of officers, including
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three of five marshals and most of the senior
5:16
command staff, had been executed or imprisoned.
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Soviet military readiness was damaged, though
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the full extent was not clear to outside observers.
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Chdarnin faced potential threats on two distant
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fronts. Japan threatened in the east, where fighting
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had already broken out at Lake Kazan and would
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soon escalate at Kalhingol. Germany threatened
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in the west. The Soviet leader had reasons to
5:44
fear being isolated. He had reasons to fear fighting
5:48
Germany alone. He had reasons to fear that the
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Western democracies might somehow encourage German
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expansion eastward rather than resist it. The
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mechanism that might have prevented this isolation
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was collective security. Britain and France,
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alarmed by Hitler's march into Prague in March
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1939, had finally abandoned appeasement and guaranteed
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Poland's independence. They also opened negotiations
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with Moscow. Soviet, British and French military
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delegations met in the Soviet capital through
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July and August 1939. The British delegation
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travelled by slow merchant ship and arrived without
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full negotiating authority. The French delegation
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included a retired admiral with limited political
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influence. The Soviet side, led by Defence Commissar
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Klymant Voroshilov and Marshal Shapochnikov,
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pressed for concrete military commitments. The
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central obstacle was practical and became insurmountable.
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If Germany attacked Poland or Romania, how would
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Soviet forces reach the battlefield? The Soviet
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delegation demanded the right to move troops
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through Polish and Romanian territory. The Polish
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government, understandably suspicious of Soviet
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intentions after centuries of Russian domination,
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refused. The Romanian government followed suit.
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The British and French could not compel their
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guarantee recipients to accept Soviet passage.
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Stalin watched these negotiations stall. He concluded
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with some reason that the Western powers were
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not serious about a genuine military alliance.
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Or at least they were not serious about one that
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would serve Soviet interests. The atmosphere
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in Moscow was one of mutual suspicion, procedural
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delay, and growing recognition that the talks
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were failing. This was the opening Hitler needed.
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The German dictator had already decided on war
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against Poland. What he feared was a two -front
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conflict. Poland lay in the East. France and
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Britain potentially lay in the West. And the
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Soviet Union might join them. If he could neutralize
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the Soviet Union, he could isolate Poland and
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dare the Western powers to do more than declare
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war. In late July and early August, German feelers
8:22
went out to Moscow. The Soviet response was cautious
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but interested. On August 19, a German -Soviet
8:31
trade agreement was signed. It provided for massive
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German industrial and military goods in exchange
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for Soviet raw materials. This was the economic
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foundation. On August 22, Hitler personally authorized
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Ribbentrop to fly to Moscow with full powers
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to conclude a political agreement. Ribbentrop
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arrived that evening. The negotiations were conducted
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through the night. Stalin himself intervened
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on points of detail. At one point, he suggested
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adjustments to the territorial line that would
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divide Poland. By the early hours of August 23,
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The treaty of non -aggression was ready. The
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public terms were straightforward. Germany and
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the Soviet Union pledged not to attack each other.
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They pledged not to support any third party attacking
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the other. They pledged to maintain neutrality
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if either became involved in war with another
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power. They also agreed to consult on questions
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of mutual interest and to resolve disputes through
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arbitration. This was a standard non -aggression
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pact in form, though shocking in context. What
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made it operational were the secret additional
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protocols, signed separately and concealed from
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the world. These divided Eastern Europe into
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spheres of influence. Poland would be partitioned
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along the line of the Nereo, Vistula and San
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Rivers. The Soviet sphere would include Finland,
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Estonia and Latvia. plus Bessarabia in Romania.
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Lithuania, initially assigned to the German sphere,
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would later be transferred to the Soviet sphere
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in a supplementary secret protocol of September
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28 after the partition of Poland was underway.
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These were not vague declarations of interest.
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They were precise territorial assignments. They
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were a map -drawing exercise that became a blueprint
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for military occupation and state destruction.
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The announcement on August 23 produced genuine
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shock. In Paris, members of the French Communist
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Party gathered at their usual cafes and union
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halls to read the news in stunned silence. Many
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had supported rearmament against fascism. Many
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had voted for military credits. Many had built
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their political lives on the anti -fascist popular
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front. Within days, they received instructions
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from Moscow to oppose the coming war as imperialist.
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It was a reversal that shattered years of political
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commitment. In London, communist intellectuals
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who had defended the Soviet Union through the
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Moscow Trials now faced an impossible choice
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between loyalty and conscience. In Spain, veterans
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of the international brigades read the news with
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disbelief. They had fought and watched comrades
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die against German -backed forces in the Civil
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War. Some tore up party cards. Others waited
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for explanations that never came. For anti -fascists,
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who had looped to Moscow as the bulwark against
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Hitler, the pact felt like a betrayal. For Stalin,
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it was calculation. The West had failed to deliver
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a secure alliance. Germany was offering territory
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and time. and the ideological rhetoric could
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be temporarily shelved. Hitler now had what he
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wanted. On September 1, 1939, German forces invaded
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Poland from the north, south, and west. The invasion
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began before dawn. At 4 .40 in the morning, the
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Luftwaffe bombed Willow, a small town with no
12:29
military significance. Hundreds of civilians
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died in the first deliberate terror bombing of
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the war. Simultaneously, the German battleship
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Schleswig -Holstein opened fire on the Polish
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military depot at Westerplatte, on the Danzig
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peninsula. The Polish garrison there, outnumbered
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and outgunned, held for seven days against naval
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bombardment, dive bombers, and infantry assault.
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Their commander, Major Hanrek Srycharski, had
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expected to resist for perhaps 12 hours. The
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defense became one of the first symbols of Polish
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resistance. The German invasion was not a limited
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border adjustment. It was a full -scale war of
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destruction. It employed the new tactics of rapid
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maneuver that would soon be called Blitzkrieg.
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The Luftwaffe bombed cities and airfields. Panzer
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columns sliced through Polish positions. The
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German force numbered roughly 1 .5 million men.
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The Polish army numbered about 1 million, many
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of whom were still mobilizing. The Polish army
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fought bravely but faced impossible strategic
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geometry. It was outflanked from the north through
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the German exclave of East Prussia. It was outflanked
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from the south through Slovakia, which Germany
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had just absorbed from the dismembered Czech
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state. The Polish command had prepared for a
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war against Germany alone. They expected to hold
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in the west while mobilizing reserves. They had
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not prepared for the speed and coordination of
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the German assault. Poland did not collapse without
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resistance. This is essential to understand.
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Polish forces fought hard and, in places, effectively.
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Polish cavalry units attacked German armor. Not
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with swords against tanks, as later propaganda
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claimed, but with anti -tank weapons and determination.
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The Polish Air Force, though outnumbered, fought
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in the air and on the ground. The problem was
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not courage or will. The problem was strategic
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position, industrial capacity, and the arithmetic
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of invasion from two directions when the defenders
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had prepared for one. Britain and France declared
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war on Germany on September 3 as their guarantee
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required, but they did not launch a major offensive
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in the west. French forces made a brief advance
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into the Saarland, then withdrew behind the Maginot
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Line. This was the Phoney War. It left Poland
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to face Germany alone in the field, at least
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from the west. The second invasion came on September
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17. In eastern Poland, families were awakened
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by radio announcements or word from neighbors.
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The Red Army had crossed the frontier. For many,
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this news arrived while Polish forces were still
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fighting in the West. The government still functioned.
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The state had not yet surrendered. The Soviet
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justification was pretext. Moscow claimed the
15:47
Polish state had collapsed. It claimed that Soviet
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forces were entering to protect Belarusian and
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Ukrainian populations. The Polish state had not
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collapsed. The government and high command were
16:01
still functioning. They were still ordering resistance.
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They were still hoping that somehow the Western
16:08
allies would relieve pressure. Polish forces
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were engaged against the Germans in the west
16:14
and center. Now they faced a new enemy in the
16:18
east. The Polish commander -in -chief, Marshal
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Edward Rydz -Migui, ordered his forces not to
16:26
engage the Soviets. He hoped to preserve units
16:30
for a possible continued struggle. Some Polish
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units, unaware of the order or unable to comply,
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did fight Soviet forces. The resistance was real
16:42
but overwhelmed by the strategic impossibility
16:44
of war on two fronts against vastly superior
16:48
forces. Warsaw held out under siege from September
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8 to September 27. It endured artillery bombardment
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and aerial bombing that reduced large sections
16:59
of the city to rubble. Civilian populations sheltered
17:04
in cellars as the German 4th Army pressed in.
17:07
The capitulation was not a formal surrender of
17:10
the Polish state, but a military necessity. The
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government and high command crossed into Romania,
17:16
where they were interned. Organized resistance
17:19
continued into early October. The last major
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Polish force surrendered on October 6. The state
17:28
of Poland, recreated only 20 years earlier after
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generations of foreign rule, had been destroyed
17:35
by coordinated invasion from two directions.
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The encounter between the invaders at Brest -Litovsk
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on September 22 symbolized the new order. German
17:47
and Soviet officers met at the fortress where
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German troops had surrendered in 1918. They exchanged
17:54
salutes and held a joint military parade. German
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troops passed in review first, then Soviet troops,
18:01
on the same ground where Polish soldiers had
18:04
recently fought. Photographs show the spectacle.
18:08
The swastika and the red flag were raised near
18:11
each other. Wehrmacht officers and Red Army officers
18:15
stood together. dividing a country between them.
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The physical setting mattered. There was the
18:23
ancient fortress, the Bug River Bridge, the muddy
18:27
ground of a border town that had changed hands
18:29
before. The symbolism was precise. This was not
18:34
alliance in any traditional sense. It was partition,
18:38
temporary and cynical, with each side expecting
18:42
eventual betrayal by the other. The occupations
18:47
that followed were not identical. This distinction
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matters. It matters not to minimize either horror,
18:54
but to understand what actually happened to the
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millions of Polish citizens caught between the
18:59
two regimes. German policy in occupied Poland
19:03
was explicitly racial from the outset. Western
19:07
Poland, including Poznań and much of Silesia,
19:11
was annexed directly to the Reich. The German
19:15
minority was identified and elevated. The Polish
19:18
majority was degraded. The central Rump territory,
19:22
including Warsaw, Krakow, and Lublin, became
19:26
the general government. It was administered not
19:30
as annexed land, but as a colonial zone of exploitation.
19:35
Hans Frank, a Nazi lawyer and longtime Hitler
19:38
associate, was appointed governor general. His
19:42
jurisdiction was not governed by German law but
19:44
by arbitrary decree. Polish elites were targeted
19:48
for arrest and execution. They included politicians,
19:52
intellectuals, clergy and former military officers.
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The A .B. Yatronchen of 1940 killed thousands
20:00
of Polish professionals and leaders. Jews were
20:03
concentrated in ghettos, beginning in late 1939
20:07
and accelerating through 1940. This was the first
20:11
stage of what would become genocide. The economic
20:15
purpose was clear. Poland would feed Germany,
20:19
supply German industry, and provide forced labor.
20:23
The racial purpose was equally clear. The Polish
20:27
population would be reduced to helot status.
20:30
Education would be limited. Reproduction would
20:34
be controlled. And the space would eventually
20:37
be cleared for German settlement. Soviet policy
20:41
in eastern Poland was different in ideology and
20:45
method, though not in brutality. The territory
20:49
was annexed not as occupied land, but as recovered
20:52
provinces of the Belarusian and Ukrainian Soviet
20:55
republics. Soviet institutions were imposed.
21:00
Elections were staged in October and November
21:03
1939, with single candidates and controlled voting.
21:08
They produced people's assemblies that duly requested
21:10
incorporation into the USSR. The Supreme Soviet
21:14
approved these requests in formal sessions. Private
21:18
land was collectivized, or the process begun.
21:22
Polish farmers who had owned small plots found
21:25
their land absorbed into collective farms. Their
21:29
livestock was confiscated. Their grain was requisitioned.
21:34
Banks and industry were nationalized. Polish
21:38
shopkeepers and craftsmen lost their businesses
21:41
without compensation. Polish state officials,
21:44
military settlers, landowners and anyone deemed
21:48
a class enemy were arrested, deported or executed.
21:52
For a teacher or a priest, class enemy meant
21:56
membership in a category marked for elimination.
21:59
It was not for anything they had done but for
22:02
who they were in the Soviet class schema. The
22:06
NKVD the Soviet security apparatus, operated
22:10
with systematic thoroughness. Between February
22:13
1940 and June 1941, at least four major waves
22:18
of deportation removed hundreds of thousands
22:20
of Polish citizens to Siberia, Kazakhstan, and
22:24
other remote regions. The mechanism was standardized.
22:29
NKVD officers arrived at night. They gave families
22:34
hours to pack. They allowed minimal luggage.
22:38
They loaded them into sealed cattle cars. The
22:42
cars traveled for weeks with limited food and
22:45
water in heat and cold. There were buckets for
22:49
sanitation and no knowledge of destination. Many
22:53
died in transit. Many more died in the labor
22:56
settlements of the far north and central Asia.
22:59
They were dumped there without shelter or adequate
23:02
food in temperatures far below freezing. Families
23:06
were separated without knowledge of each other's
23:08
fate. The precise numbers remain debated among
23:11
historians. Estimates range from roughly 320,
23:16
0 to over 1 million depending on definitions
23:20
and sources. What is clear is the scale. It was
23:25
not thousands but hundreds of thousands, removed
23:28
by state decision from their homes to distant
23:31
suffering. The Soviet occupation was class -based
23:35
and ideological rather than racial in the Nazi
23:38
sense. It targeted categories defined by social
23:42
position and suspected political loyalty rather
23:45
than biological identity. Jews in the Soviet
23:49
zone, for example, were not ghettoized or immediately
23:52
targeted for mass murder as in the German zone.
23:55
Some initially experienced the Soviet takeover
23:58
as relief from Polish anti -Semitism. Though
24:02
this perception would not last, the Soviet aim
24:05
was Sovietization. It was the transformation
24:09
of society along Marxist -Leninist lines, not
24:13
racial annihilation. But the methods produced
24:16
their own catastrophe. Deportation, execution,
24:20
the destruction of national institutions, the
24:23
suppression of Polish culture and religion. And
24:26
for those caught in the NKVD's categories, the
24:30
experience was no less final, than for those
24:32
caught in the SS's racial classifications. The
24:36
destruction of the Polish state was not merely
24:39
administrative. It was the elimination of a nation
24:42
as a political subject. The Polish government
24:46
in exile, first in Paris and then in London,
24:49
continued to claim sovereignty and to organize
24:52
resistance. Władysław Sikorski, a pre -war political
24:56
figure, became Prime Minister and sought to maintain
25:00
Polish interests among the Western Allies. The
25:03
underground state in occupied Poland, one of
25:06
the most organized resistance structures in Europe,
25:09
maintained military units, intelligence networks,
25:13
courts and schools. But the territory itself
25:17
was divided, exploited and subjected to two different
25:20
systems of terror. The Polish experience of 1939
25:25
to 1941. was not occupation by a single enemy.
25:30
It was partition between two, each imposing its
25:34
own form of domination. The violence of the occupations
25:38
did not end with the military campaigns of 1939.
25:42
The most notorious symbol of the Soviet occupation's
25:46
violence belongs to a slightly later period.
25:49
It belongs to the moment when the logic of decapitation
25:53
and population control reached its most concentrated
25:56
expression. In April and May 1940, the MKVD executed
26:02
approximately 22 Polish prisoners of war and
26:06
civilian detainees in a series of mass killings.
26:09
The largest site was the Katyn forest near Smolensk
26:13
in western Russia. There, over four zero officers
26:17
from the Kozels prisoner of war camp were shot
26:20
one by one. Their hands were bound. Their coats
26:25
were pulled over their heads. They were buried
26:28
in mass pits. Other killing sites included Starobelsk
26:34
and Kharkiv in Ukraine, and Mednoi near Tver.
26:37
The victims were not random. They were the professional
26:42
military and intellectual elite of interwar Poland.
26:45
They were officers who had surrendered in September
26:48
1939. They were reserve officers who were doctors,
26:53
engineers, teachers, priests. The purpose was
26:57
decapitation. It was the removal of a generation
27:00
that might lead national resistance or post -war
27:03
reconstruction. Katyn was not discovered until
27:07
1943. German forces, advancing into the Smolensk
27:13
region after their invasion of the Soviet Union,
27:16
uncovered the mass graves and announced the finding
27:18
to the world. International experts, including
27:22
from Poland and the Red Cross, examined the site.
27:25
The Soviet Union immediately denied responsibility
27:28
and blamed Germany. The Polish government in
27:32
exile found itself in an impossible position.
27:35
It was under pressure from its Soviet ally and
27:38
from Churchill and Roosevelt, who needed Soviet
27:41
cooperation against Germany. The Western allies
27:45
largely accepted the Soviet version, or at least
27:48
did not press the question. A Soviet commission
27:51
headed by Nikolai Budenko produced a report blaming
27:55
the Germans. It included staged evidence, coerced
27:59
testimony, and fabricated forensic conclusions.
28:03
The truth was suppressed in official discourse
28:06
for decades. Only in 1990, after the fall of
28:11
the Soviet Union, did the Russian government
28:14
acknowledge Soviet responsibility. The full archival
28:18
record remains incomplete. And research continues.
28:22
Katyn belongs to the later history of the Pact's
28:25
consequences, not to the September invasion itself.
28:29
But it stands as the most concentrated expression
28:32
of what Soviet occupation meant for Polish national
28:36
existence. The Nazi -Soviet Pact held for 22
28:40
months. In June 1941, Germany invaded the Soviet
28:46
Union. The temporary arrangement collapsed into
28:49
the most destructive war in human history. This
28:52
collapse was not a reversal of Hitler's fundamental
28:54
aims. From the beginning, he had intended to
28:58
attack the Soviet Union. The pact was a temporary
29:01
measure to avoid a two -front war while dealing
29:04
with Poland and the West. The invasion of the
29:07
Soviet Union fulfilled the ideological and territorial
29:11
ambitions that the pact had merely postponed.
29:14
The territories partitioned in 1939 became battlegrounds.
29:19
Then they shifted again as the Red Army advanced
29:22
west. The post -war settlement recognized the
29:26
Soviet annexation of eastern Poland. It compensated
29:29
Poland with German territory in the west. The
29:33
borders drawn in secret in August 1939, with
29:37
modifications, became the borders of the Cold
29:39
War. What should we understand about this episode?
29:43
The pact was not inevitable. The negotiations
29:47
of summer 1939 could have taken a different course
29:51
if the participants had possessed different interests,
29:55
different fears, different capacities for trust.
29:58
But the failure of collective security was structural.
30:02
The Western powers could not overcome Polish
30:05
and Romanian suspicion of Soviet intentions,
30:08
and Stalin could not overcome his suspicion that
30:12
that the West would prefer to see Germany and
30:14
the Soviet Union exhaust each other. The Pact
30:18
was not an alliance in any meaningful sense.
30:21
Hitler and Stalin remained ideological enemies
30:24
who fully expected eventual conflict. It was
30:28
a temporary convergence of interests. Hitler
30:32
needed to isolate Poland. Stalin needed time
30:36
and territory. The consequences for Poland were
30:40
not abstract. The secret protocols were not symbolic
30:43
gestures. They became operational realities.
30:49
Invasion, partition, occupation, deportation,
30:52
execution, the destruction of a state and the
30:57
subjection of its citizens to two distinct systems
30:59
of terror. Polish resistance was real but overwhelmed
31:04
by coordinated military force from two directions.
31:07
The occupations were not identical. German policy
31:12
was racial and genocidal from the outset. Soviet
31:16
policy was ideological and class -based. Both
31:20
produced mass death. Both aimed at the elimination
31:24
of Polish national independence. The PAK's legacy
31:28
is measured not in diplomatic archives, but in
31:31
the lives of millions. Those who died in the
31:35
September fighting. Those who perished in deportation
31:39
and exile. Those executed at Katyn and other
31:42
killing sites. Those who survived to carry memory
31:46
forward through decades of Soviet denial and
31:49
Western accommodation. The incomplete archival
31:52
record still limits full understanding of how
31:55
many were taken, how many died, how the decisions
31:59
were made. The handshake in Moscow on August
32:02
23, 1939 was not merely a diplomatic surprise.
32:07
It was the enabling act that turned two dictatorships'
32:11
temporary interests into the destruction of a
32:14
state and the catastrophe of its people.