The Pact and the Partition of Poland

CHAPTER 2 · AUG–OCT 1939 · The War Room — WW2, 1936–1945

On 23 August 1939 the century’s two loudest enemies stun the world: Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union sign a non-aggression pact. Its secret protocol draws a line through Eastern Europe — the dashed line on your map — assigning spheres: western Poland to Hitler, eastern Poland, the Baltics and Bessarabia to Stalin.

The turn: First shots, 1 September, 04:47.

This chapter is one scene of an interactive atlas: the map repaints as the dates advance, campaigns draw themselves, and every chapter argues its causes and consequences — then a field exam asks you to prove it on the map.