SOVIET RUSSIA'S COMMON CAUSE
WITH NAZI GERMANY, 1939

Stanislaw Stronski

It is indisputable that Soviet Russia was Nazi Germany's partner in provoking and initiating the 1939 war. It was Soviet Russia who, while encouraging the illusions of Great Britain and France by open negotiations from March to August 1939 about checking further German aggression, was at the same time involved in secret conversations with Germany, suddenly signed the Non-Aggression Treaty (Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact) of the 23 August 1939, and after the German invasion of Poland on the 1 September joined Germany by attacking Poland from the east on the 17 September 1939. These actions are much more eloquent and conclusive evidence than any written testimony.

Nevertheless, different views existed as regards the share Soviet Russia took in this partnership in 1939. Said Valentine McEntee in the House of Commons on the 20 October 1939:

... Had it not been for the pact between Russia and Germany, had Russia stood aloof from the pact, it is very doubtful whether Germany would ever have taken the step that she did take of sending troops into Poland.

This seemed so obvious that no one contested it, but nevertheless, there were attempts to disculpate Soviet Russia and her aggression against Poland in partnership with Nazi Germany by some secondary considerations. Said British foreign secretary, Lord Halifax, in the House of Lords on the 26 October 1939:

... The Soviet government would never have taken that action, if the German government had not started it and set the example that they did set, when they invaded Poland without any declaration of war.

The opinion that Russia was simply guilty of following a bad example and that she acted under pressure from Germany was by no means isolated and seemed general.
This article is an attempt to prove that this latter opinion is misleading and even disparaging to Russia:

1. Misleading, as Russia's share in coming to agreement with Germany in 1939 was no less active than Germany's, and one can even say that Russia's contribution was greater and more decisive.
2. Disparaging, as the assertion that Russia was only the instrument of skillful German policy and did not control her own policy, always carefully planned, underestimates the Soviet policy.

Discovering the TRUTH - A Lengthy Business

Soviet-German negotiations and underhand dealings from March to August 1939 were a very well kept secret for eight years, during three subsequent periods:

1. In the first period of Soviet-German friendship from 1939 to the middle of 1941, no detail of these negotiations was disclosed. The different white, yellow and blue books, published by governments in 1939 display no knowledge of them. It was not known that Molotov and von Ribbentrop signed not only an open, but also a secret agreement in Moscow on the 23 August 1939.
2. Even after the outbreak of the Soviet-German war on the 22 June 1941, and until the end of war in 1945, both parties continued carefully to conceal their previous agreements, displaying a most striking similarity in their attitude in this respect. In his speech, made on the very day of the attack on Russia, Hitler limited himself to a most general and very veiled mention of an annex to the open agreement of the 23 August 1939:

... A special agreement was concluded in case Britain should succeed in inciting Poland actually to go to war against Germany, and in this case, too, the German plans were subject to a limitation entirely out of proportion to the achievements of the German forces.

Thus Hitler reproached Russia for having secured too high a price. Moscow turned a deaf ear.
3. After the war, in 1945, when the British and Americans occupying Western Germany took possession of the archives of the German ministry of foreign affairs [Auswärtiges Amt], up to the end of 1946 their behaviour was different from their actions after the beginning of 1947. In the first stage, the German documents were used for the Nuremberg Trial in 1946, but nothing was disclosed that might have been considered to put the blame on Russia. But at nearly the same time, as Pres. Truman made his famous speech of the 12 March 1947, Prof. Harold C. Deutsch, who was officially entrusted with the research into the German archives, published in the Evening Star [March 10-13] in Washington a four-installment essay on Soviet-German friendship from 1939 to 1941, and at the beginning of 1948 the US State Department published the complete collection of documents, entitled NAZI-SOVIET RELATIONS, 1939-1941.

The First Step - Taken by Stalin

Three weeks after Munich and the annexation of Sudetenland, in a conversation with the Polish ambassador to Germany, Jozef Lipski on the 24 October 1938, the German minister of foreign affairs, Joachim von Ribbentrop asked Poland to agree to the occupation of Gdansk [Danzig] by the Reich, and to grant the Germans autostradas [highroads] across Polish Pomerania to East Prussia. In a second conversation in Berlin on the 19 November 1938, he upheld these claims, rejected flatly by Poland. News of these conversations spread in diplomatic and journalistic quarters and the dispute between Poland and Germany became a topical question of European policy. The attitude of the Kremlin was by no means passive in this conjuncture. On the 26 November 1938, a joint statement by the Soviet people's commissar for foreign affairs, Maksim Litvinov, and the Polish ambassador to Soviet Russia, Waclaw Grzybowski, was published. According to this, Soviet-Polish relations were based on the agreements existing between these two states, including a non-aggression pact, which was to be valid until the end of 1945. What was the meaning of that attitude of Moscow in the dispute between Poland and Nazi Germany? Moscow was not discouraging Poland in resisting Nazi Germany; consequently, she was basing her plans on the development of the conflict, not on its settlement. At the same time - and this is the most important fact - Moscow made her presence felt by Germany at the moment, when the problem of her neighbour, Poland, was on the agenda.

It would be a big mistake and underestimation of the Kremlin policy to suppose that this first step was taken by Russia without any thought for the future and without establishing in advance what her position might be as regards Poland and Germany, and this may be outlined in the following way - to do nothing to stop Poland being involved in a dispute with Germany, and to present her own demands at a suitable moment and come to an understanding with the latter about sharing the spoils.

When the dispute continued after the meetings between Hitler and Poland's minister of foreign affairs, Jozef Beck at Berchtesgaden on the 5 January 1939 and between von Ribbentrop and Beck in Warsaw on the 25 and 26 January 1939, in his speech at the XVIII Party Congress on the 10 March 1939, Stalin pronounced these momentous words, after having stated that Germany was more pushed by the West against Russia than she had intended:

... We are for peace and the development of neutral relations with all states.

After six years of the Third Reich's adamant attitude towards Russia, this hint could not have passed unnoticed, especially in Berlin. During his hearing at Nuremberg on the 29 March 1946, von Ribbentrop stated:

... In March 1939 Marshal Stalin delivered a speech, in which he made certain hints of his wish to have better relations with Germany. At that time, I informed Hitler of this speech and asked him whether or not we could not see whether this hint on Stalin's part had something real behind it. Hitler was at first hesitant; he then, however, became more and more receptive to this idea.

One should not be surprised to notice that von Ribbentrop remembered this first step, when he met Stalin personally a few months later, in August 1939.

At first, Hitler was rather reluctant to enter into partnership with Russia, as it was contrary to the general lines of his policy, and he hoped that Poland might eventually become amenable. After the invasion of Czecho-Slovakia, believing that it might serve as a lesson to Poland, von Ribbentrop repeated the German claims on the 21 March 1939 in a conversation with Amb. Lipski, who then left for Warsaw to discuss the matter. On the eve of the latter's departure, on the 25 March 1939, in a talk with Gen. Walther von Brauchitsch, published in the Nuremberg documents, Hitler expressed the hope that Lipski might bring some indication that the Polish government would not consent to the occupation of Gdansk by Germany, but that the problem might nevertheless be solved, if the Germans carried on and Poland was faced by a fait accompli. But Lipski informed von Ribbentrop on 26 March 1939 that the Polish government once more peremptorily refused.

When, a few days later, news came first of Chamberlain's declaration of the 30 March 1939, stating his readiness to assist Poland in the event of aggression against her, and then of Beck's journey to London, and the Polish-British declaration of the 6 April 1939 on mutual assistance, Hitler remembered the encouraging words of Stalin.

Under the influence of the news from London, Hitler said in anger to the head of the German military intelligence service [Abwehr], Adm. Wilhelm Canaris, who immediately repeated it to his collaborator, Hans Gisevius (the latter stated it at Nuremberg and then published it in his book Zum bitteren Ende):

... I will prepare them a devil's brew.

And at the same time (according to other testimony, mentioned by Prof. Deutsch in his essay), he gave von Brauchitsch a big shock in a conversation with him:

... Please sit down and get a grip on yourself. My next step will come as unexpected to you. I am preparing to pay a state visit to Moscow.

The Second Step - Taken by Merekalov

But while the uncommunicative Hitler was thinking over the possibilities suggested by Stalin and trying to ascertain von Brauchitsch's reactions, the Kremlin was not certain whether Berlin would be willing to avail herself of these hints. For this reason Russia, after an open but general suggestion by Stalin, decided to knock at the door of Berlin for the second time, secretly and more explicitly.

On the 17 April 1939, the Soviet ambassador in Berlin, Aleksey Merekalov, called on the under-secretary of state, Ernst von Weizsäcker at the Auswärtiges Amt for the first time since he had taken office ten months before. Von Weizsäcker reported this visit to von Ribbentrop and Hitler:

... The Ambassador thereupon stated approximately, as follows:
Russian policy had always moved in a straight line. Ideological differences of opinion had hardly influenced the Russian-Italian relationship, and they did not have to prove a stumbling block with regard to Germany either. Soviet Russia had not exploited the present friction between Germany and the Western democracies against us, nor did she desire to do so. There exists for Russia no reason why she should not live with us on a normal footing. And from normal, the relations might become better and better.
With this remark, to which the Russian had led the conversation, Mr. Merekalov ended the interview. He intends to go to Moscow in the next few days for a visit. [1]

In diplomatic language, one cannot imagine a more stimulating suggestion to join in the dance - after six years of very strained relations and violent mutual provocations, particularly malicious and disparaging on the part of the Germans. This time, Hitler responded after ten days - mutely, but how expressively. In his famous speech at Reichstag on the 28 April 1939, in which he denounced unilaterally the Non-Aggression Pact with Poland and the Naval Agreement with Great Britain, he said no word - for the first time - against Russia.

The Third Step - Exit Litvinov, Enter Molotov

Then Moscow, considering Hitler's silence as encouragement, passed on to action, and most momentous one. On the 3 May 1939 Vyacheslav Molotov succeeded Litvinov as people's commissar for foreign affairs, a change in a key post. Litvinov, who had been chief deputy of the people's commissar for foreign affairs to often ill Chicherin, and who had succeeded him in 1929, keeping the post for ten years, was considered in the world as a partisan of the policy of peace and promoter of non-aggression pacts as well as of the Russia's collaboration with the League of Nations; he had frequent clashes with the Third Reich and was anxious to maintain good relations with the Western Powers, with whom conversations and negotiations had been going on in Moscow since March 1939 in order to check further German aggression. As a matter of fact, it was his main task at the last.

According to the information of the German chargé d'affaires in Moscow, Werner von Tippelskirch, reported by him in a cipher telegram to the Auswärtiges Amt on the 4 May 1939:

... The decision is apparently connected with the fact that differences of opinion arose in the Kremlin on Litvinov's negotiations. The reason for differences of opinion presumably lies in the deep mistrust that Stalin harbours towards the entire surrounding capitalist world. At the last Party Congress, Stalin urged caution lest Soviet Union be drawn into conflicts. Molotov (not a Jew) is held to be "most intimate friend and closest collaborator" of Stalin. His appointment is apparently to guarantee that the foreign policy will be continued strictly in accordance with Stalin's ideas. [2]

And the following day, the 5 May 1939, the Soviet counsellor of the embassy and chargé d'affaires, Georgyj Ashtakov, mentioned the matter to Dr. Karl Schnurre at the Auswärtiges Amt:

... Then Ashtakov touched upon the dismissal of Litvinov and tried, without asking direct questions, to learn whether this event would cause a change in our position towards the Soviet Union. [3]

A few days later, on the 9 May 1939, the same Ashtakov made coaxing confessions to Gustav Braun von Stumm at the Auswärtiges Amt:

... The recently practiced reserve of the German press toward Soviet Russia had already attracted the attention of the foreign press. [4]

The only diplomatic document dating from the days, when Molotov succeeded Litvinov, contemporary to the events of the beginning of May 1939, and even published immediately after the outbreak of the war at the end of 1939, was the report of the 7 May 1939 of the French ambassador to Germany, Robert Coulondre, to the French foreign minister, Georges Bonnet on a conversation held the previous day, the 6 May 1939, with a German personage. Coulondre states that this German personage, whom he designates by the letter X, amongst Hitler's closest collaborators and deputies (it is known now that it was Gen. Karl Bodenschatz, used by Göring for diplomatic matters), opened the eyes of the French ambassador in the following manner [LE LIVRE JAUNE FRANÇAIS. Documents Diplomatiques 1938-1939 - No. 123, p. 156]:

... Do you really believe that Hitler will start the game without having all the trumps in his hand? It would be contrary to his way of doing things, owing to which he has scored all the successes previously won without firing a shot.
Were you not struck by the fact that he made no allusion to Russia in his last speech? Did you not notice the sympathetic manner in which the morning papers - which, by the way, received the most precise instructions to this effect - spoke about Mr. Molotov and Russia? You had an inkling that some bargaining was going on, and what about the journey of the Russian Ambassador and Military Attaché to Berlin. They were received on the eve of their departure, the first by Mr. Ribbentrop, the second at the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, and they were fully informed of the views of the Reich Government. I cannot tell you more, but you will learn one day that something is on the move in the East. [5]

Coulondre's report ends with the following passage [ibidem, pp. 156-7]:

... In brief, concludes X., the position may be summed up thus: the Poles believe that they may be haughty towards us, feeling their position strong owing to the assistance of France and England and expecting material help from Russia. They are mistaken in their estimates: just as Hitler considered himself unable to settle Austrian and Czecho-Slovak questions without Italian agreement, he does not think it possible to settle the German-Polish dispute without Russia.
And getting excited, X. declared: There have been already three partitions of Poland; well! believe me, you will see a fourth! [6]

What was the purpose of this strange visit by the trusted spokesman of Göring and Hitler at the French embassy?
These effusions meant that Germany was giving a sort of warning to the Western powers:

We can reach an understanding with Russia, but we would prefer not to enter into partnership with her. France and Great Britain should let us settle our problems with Poland. If they do not, we will come to an agreement with Russia.

Hitler and Göring were more reluctant to become Russia's partners than Stalin and Molotov were to join in with Germany.

The Fourth Step - Molotov Invites

But the Soviets were fully aware that the Germans would not compete for Russia's assistance, and that they must plan carefully and act skillfully in order that Germany might avail herself of Russia's readiness to come to an agreement.

The greatest incentive, offered by Russia to Germany for a secret understanding, was the open negotiations with Great Britain and France, directed against Germany, that is to say against the further encroachments of the latter in Europe.

While one Soviet ambassador, Merekalov, was bewildering Weizsäcker on the 17 April 1939 in Berlin by offering Soviet friendship, another, Ivan Maisky, left London for Moscow after interviews with Lord Halifax at the Foreign Office and up to the 25 April 1939 was, with the Kremlin, preparing a British-French-Soviet agreement, returning to London on the 29 April 1939 with the Soviet proposals. Prime Minister Chamberlain informed the House of Commons of these negotiations on the 6 May 1939, and the Kremlin published an official statement on the 9 May 1939 on the exchange of views and proposals in the matter of the projected agreement which was to be a guarantee against German aggression. On the 10 May 1939, Chamberlain gave more details to the House of Commons about the development of the negotiations. The same day in Warsaw, deputy people's commissar for foreign affairs, Vladimir Potemkin, reaffirmed Moscow's friendly attitude towards Poland.

As Stalin was simultaneously carrying on two negotiations with opposite aims - one open, the other secret - it is obvious that he considered the secret negotiations to be essential and the others a smokescreen. As in this double dealing the Kremlin had not only to frighten Berlin by her negotiations with Great Britain and France, but must also open to Germany encouraging prospects, on the 17 May 1939 Ashtakov called again - on his own initiative - at the Auswärtiges Amt and spoke to Schnurre, who made notes of the conversation:

... During the subsequent conversation, Ashtakov again referred in great detail to the development of German-Soviet relations, as he had already done two weeks ago.
... Ashtakov stated in detail that there were no conflicts in foreign policy between Germany and Soviet Russia, and that therefore there was no reason for any enmity between the two countries.
... In reply to my incidental questions, he commented on the Anglo-Soviet negotiations to the effect that under the present circumstances the result desired by England would hardly be achieved.
... In my replies I was reserved and induced Ashtakov, by means of incidental remarks only, to further elaborate his viewpoint. [7]

When, on the 20 May 1939 - the third week after he had taken his post - Molotov decided finally to give proper direction to the negotiations which had until then been carried out under the disguise of commercial-economic conversations, he declared the following to von der Schulenburg, who reported it to Berlin:

... The Soviet Government could only agree to a resumption of the negotiations, if the necessary "political bases" for them had been constructed. [8]

Berlin was so bewildered that the next day, the 21 May 1939, Amb. von der Schulenburg received the following instruction from the Auswärtiges Amt, through von Weizsäcker:

... On basis of results so far of your discussions with Molotov, we must now sit tight and wait to see, if the Russians will speak more openly. [9]

Amb. von der Schulenburg, who was puzzled himself, completed his previous report:

... The Reichsminister directed me to maintain extreme caution in my conference with Molotov. As a result, I contented myself with saying as little as possible, and took this attitude all the more because the attitude of Mr. Molotov seemed to me quite suspicious. It cannot be understood otherwise than that the resumption of our economic negotiations does not satisfy him as a political gesture, and that he apparently wants to obtain from us more extensive proposals of a political nature. [10]

One can see quite clearly - on the high level, but just the same in the Ashtakov's conversations with Schnurre and von Weizsäcker - to what extent the role of Molotov was active, and that of von der Schulenburg passive.

Notes, circulated by the Auswärtiges Amt for internal use and dated ten days after Molotov's declaration, prove how difficult it was for the Germans to discover the true intentions of Russia, and that they were adapting their tactics to the Soviet moves - for instance, a note dated 29 May 1939, submitted apparently by von Ribbentrop to Hitler, reads:

... If they should have the desire to have a political conversation with us, I personally can imagine this as entirely possible. [11]

And on the 5 June 1939, Amb. von der Schulenburg once more reassures von Weizsäcker on account of the doubts, felt in Berlin:

... In reality, the fact is that Mr. Molotov almost invited political discussions. Our proposal of conducting only economic negotiations appeared insufficient to him. Of course, there was and is the danger that he Soviet Government will utilize German proposals for pressure on the English and French. [12]

But the Kremlin, due to the open British-French-Soviet negotiations, was watchful from restraining Berlin too much in order to prevent these German apprehensions. The more so, as head of the British Mission to the Soviet Union, Sir William Strang, being sent from London to Moscow was aimed at speeding up the outcome of the negotiations (as usually, Chamberlain stated this openly in the House of Commons on the 7 June 1939). Strang, with two ambassadors present, had his first interview at the Kremlin with Molotov on the 15 June 1939. On that very day, an appropriate Soviet stratagem was used in Berlin.

The Bulgarian envoy, Parvan Draganoff, called on the under-secretary, Dr. Ernst Woermann at the Auswärtiges Amt on the 15 June and told him that the previous day he had had an interesting talk with Ashtakov, who had invited him to the Soviet embassy without any ostensible reason, and had said that Russia was considering the alternative of an understanding with Great Britain and France, or with Germany, but:

... This last possibility, with which ideological considerations would not have to become involved, was closest to the desires of the Soviet Union. [13]

Woermann closes his report with this candid statement by the Bulgarian envoy:

... At the end, Mr. Draganoff repeated again that he had no indications why Mr. Ashtakov had given him this information. He was pondering the possibility that this was probably done with the intention of having Mr. Draganoff report it to us. [14]

The Fifth Step - Molotov Hands Over a Draft of the Agreement

After Molotov's invitation to political negotiations, to which Berlin had become accustomed, the secret Soviet-German negotiations were carried on in Berlin from mid-June to mid-August 1939. At the same time the open British-French-Soviet negotiations were going on in Moscow, attended since August by military missions, after Chamberlain had stated in the House of Commons on the 31 July 1939 that:

... The Soviet government has proposed that at the present stage of negotiations it would be an advantage to begin military conversations forthwith.

and that British and French military delegations, headed by Adm. Reginald Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax and Gen. Joseph Doumenc, arrived in Moscow. The conversations between Berlin and Moscow were more genial on the Soviet than the German side, but still reached no conclusion.

On the 18 August 1939, Molotov handed to Amb. von der Schulenburg an official statement of the Soviet government, closing with the proposal for:

... the conclusion of a nonaggression pact or the reaffirmation of the neutrality pact of 1926, with the simultaneous conclusion of a special protocol which would define the interests of the signatory parties in this or that question of foreign policy, and would form an integral part of the pact. [15]

The following day, Molotov handed to Amb. von der Schulenburg a ready prepared draft agreement, with the following post scriptum:

... POSTSCRIPT: The present Pact will be valid only if a special protocol is signed simultaneously covering the points in which the Contracting Parties are interested in the field of foreign policy. The protocol shall be an integral part of the Pact. [16]

Consequently, it appears that:

1. The whole structure of the agreement, allegedly conceived as a nonaggression pact, of a relatively minor importance, coupled with a secret protocol relating to common interests and practically dividing the anticipated spoils, was originated by Russia.
2. The alleged non-aggression pact, in the way it was drafted by Russia, was by no means a pact against aggression, but on the contrary - it had aggression as its scope. It did not contain the reserve which was introduced in all previous non-aggression pacts, negotiated by the Soviets under Litvinov and according to which, if one of the contracting parties committed aggression against a third state the other party had the right to denounce the pact without notice.
3. Russia imposed a condition that an open, sham treaty should be concluded, but that it would be valid only in conjunction with a secret protocol dividing the spoils, the latter act being the only one which really mattered.
4. Russia handed to Germany a complete draft of the agreement with only the division of the spoils being left for bargaining between the partners.

The Nazi-Soviet pact was signed on the 23 August 1939 on the basis of the foregoing by von Ribbentrop, after his arrival in Moscow - it consisted of an open Nazi-Soviet Treaty of Non-Aggression and a Secret Supplementary Protocol (the latter remained secret until 1946) bestowing on Russia half Poland, the Baltic States and part of Rumania - all territories subsequently occupied by Soviet Russia in 1939-1940.

Conclusion

On the night of the 23/24 August 1939, there was a banquet and speeches at the Kremlin. There is an official German report on this banquet and the speeches, made by Dr. Andor Hencke, the under-secretary at the Auswärtiges Amt. Among the toasts, one shall notice one in particular:

... Mr. Molotov raised his glass to Stalin, remarking that it had been Stalin, who - through his speech of March of this year, which had been well understood in Germany - had brought about the reversal in political relations. [17]

The well known legal adviser of the Auswärtiges Amt, Dr. Friedrich Gaus, in his evidence at the Nuremberg Trial, which he had written from memory (as he emphasizes in several places), stated that it was von Ribbentrop, who recalled that Stalin's speech of the 10 March 1939:

... contained a sentence which, although it did not name Germany, was understood by Hitler to imply that the Soviet Government considered it feasible or desirable to achieve better relations with Germany.

To which Stalin replied:

... That was the intention.

Hencke's report was written six years after the evening party at the Kremlin, but a mistake in the name of the person, who proposed the toast is possible even as a simple lapsus calami, and possibly Gaus' evidence may deserve more credit, in spite of being written six years later. But, whoever it may have been, whether Molotov or von Ribbentrop, who made the first allusion to Stalin's speech, it does not matter. On the night of the 23/24 August at the Kremlin, Stalin confirmed the fact and the meaning of his first step on the 10 March 1939. It was followed by further steps, taken also by Russia, who, always consistent in the general lines of her policy, gradually realizes her aims once the decision has been taken in any matter.

Hitler, exercising pressure on Poland from October 1938 to March 1939, at first in a conciliatory and almost congenial spirit, hoped in the beginning that Poland would give way and agree on the question of Gdansk and the autostradas across Pomerania [conversation with Gen. von Brauchitsch on the 25 March 1939], and having agreed would share Czecho-Slovakia's fate and become subservient to Germany, who in her turn would reconsider the fate of Russia. After April 1939 and the Polish-British agreement, Hitler anticipated a settlement of accounts with Poland by way of arms, but he would have preferred to do it without Soviet partnership. He hoped that foreshadowing such an agreement might hold in check the Western Powers [the warning given through Gen. Bodenschatz to Amb. Coulondre in a conversation on the 6 May 1939]. He did not believe until the last moment that the Western Powers might declare war in order to assist Poland [conversation with the Italian minister of foreign affairs, Count Galeazzo Ciano on the 13 August 1939]:

... And if, by a hypothesis which he considers preposterous, the Western Powers should intervene ...

That was mid-August 1939. Only then, when the time was approaching for the attack to be launched against Poland so that this problem should be settled about mid-October, before the rains, did he decide to remove any ambiguity on the Soviet side [the notification on the 14 August 1939 of the readiness to send von Ribbentrop to Moscow], as he could not start the war before clarifying the position on both sides.

Even then, after Göring emissary's mission in London in July 1939, a last warning was given on the 15 August 1939 by von Weizsäcker to Sir Neville Henderson [British Blue Book, 1939 - p. 91]:

... but that the USSR would even in the end join in sharing in the Polish spoils.

On the strength of evidence, collected in Germany in 1945-46, Prof. Deutsch wrote [Evening Star - 11 March 1947]:

... To his intimate circle, Hitler had been saying that if the unexpected should happen and the Soviets arrive at an understanding with the Western powers, he would reduce steam, allow the annual Nazi Party Convention to meet in September (on the 17 August 1939, the invitations to attend the Nuremberg convention were sent to the foreign envoys), and postpone the solution of the Polish question for a more propitious occasion. He had little doubt about his ability, again, to lessen the international tension, if that should prove necessary. But now that Russia had been fixed, he was ready to order full speed ahead.

The subsequent secret agreements and military orders, issued by Hitler, confirm the development of the whole question in his mind in accordance with previous conclusions (Nuremberg Trial):

1. On the 24 November 1938, after a negative Polish reply in the conversation Lipski-von Ribbentrop on the 19 November 1938 to the demand for the German occupation of Gdansk and the autostradas across Pomerania, Gen. Wilhelm Keitel issued an order anticipating the occupation of Gdansk by arms, without a war with Poland.
2. On the 3 April 1939, after Chamberlain's declaration of the 30 March 1939 in the House of Commons on assistance to Poland, Gen. Keitel issued the first order relating to preparations for the war against Poland, and Hitler added that these preparations must be completed before the 1 September 1939.
3. On the 23 May 1939, as Moscow's wooing became more insistent and was conducted even personally by Molotov (the 20 May 1939), at a meeting of the supreme commanders of the armed forces Hitler proclaimed the necessity for settling accounts, above all and in the first instance with Poland:

... It is not Danzig which is our target, but the expansion of our living space, the problem of the East and the Baltic area.

Nevertheless, he wanted to achieve these ends without a war with Great Britain and France, perhaps with Russia's agreement. Should Russia kick over the traces, he would launch an attack against her, jointly with Japan - this possibility having been one of Moscow's chief preoccupation in the course of the secret Soviet-German conversations.
4. But it was only on the 22 August 1939, when von Ribbentrop left for Moscow to sign a document, prepared in advance of the Soviet-German collusion, that at the meeting of his High Command at Berchtesgaden Hitler announced the impending attack on Poland and anticipated the issue of final orders on the 26 August 1939 - that is after the signing of the Nazi-Soviet pact.

* * *

If Soviet Russia had not entered into the partnership with Nazi Germany, Hitler would have been unable to start the war because of the position taken up by Great Britain and France.
Moscow decided to join in, so that she might partake in the spoils, bidding for a higher price by her simultaneous, utterly deceitful, negotiations with the Western Powers.

(first published in the EASTERN QUARTERLY - No. 2, Vol. II [London, September 1949])

NAZI-SOVIET FRIENDSHIP, 1939-1941

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