ON THIS DAY ·
Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact signed
Ribbentrop flies to Moscow: the century’s two loudest enemies sign a pact — with a secret map dividing Eastern Europe between them.
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The moment in context
The pact was a temporary bargain between ideological enemies, and each side entered it for a concrete short-term gain. Hitler removed the danger of a war on two fronts and secured Soviet grain, oil, and metals that would blunt any British blockade. Stalin gained time to rebuild an army recently gutted by his own purges, together with territory that pushed the Soviet frontier westward as a buffer. The secret protocol drew a line through Eastern Europe, and the partition of Poland simply followed that line. Because the two regimes still meant to destroy each other, both treated the partnership as a pause rather than a peace.
From Invasion of Poland, chapter 2 of The War Room — WW2, 1936–1945 (SEP 1939).
Teach this in 5 minutes
- Why it happened — Soviet distrust after Munich. Stalin doubted that Britain and France would form an effective anti-German alliance. A deal with Germany offered time, territory, and distance from…
- The turn — First shots, 1 September, 04:47. The battleship Schleswig-Holstein fired on the Polish depot at Westerplatte. Its 182 defenders resisted for seven days. The local defense could not…
- What it changed — The Phoney War begins. Britain and France were formally at war but remained largely inactive on the western land front for eight months. Germany gained time to prepare its…
Then ask the room: Why would two sworn ideological enemies — fascism and communism — sign a pact? The argued answer is on the chapter page →
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