Thread by @JJintheUS

@RusEmbUSA On August 23, 1939, Hitler and Stalin signed a non-agression pact, called the Molotov-Ribbentrop Treaty. Secret protocols of the treaty defined the territorial spheres of influence Germany and Russia would have after a successful invasion of Poland.
jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-molotov-ri…

@RusEmbUSA According to the agreement, Russia would have control over Latvia, Estonia, and Finland, while Germany would gain control over Lithuania and Danzig. Poland would be partitioned into three major areas.

@RusEmbUSA The Warthland area, bordering Germany would be annexed outright to the German Reich, and all non-German inhabitants expelled to the east. More than 77,000 square miles of eastern Polish lands, with a population of over thirteen million would become Russian territory.

@RusEmbUSA The central area would become a German protectorate, named the General Gouvernement, governed by a German civil authority.

@RusEmbUSA Text of the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact

The Government of the German Reich and The Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics desirous of strengthening the cause of peace between Germany and the U.S.S.R.,

@RusEmbUSA and proceeding from the fundamental provisions of the Neutrality Agreement concluded in April, 1926 between Germany and the U.S.S.R., have reached the following Agreement:

@RusEmbUSA Article I. Both High Contracting Parties obligate themselves to desist from any act of violence, any aggressive action, and any attack on each other, either individually or jointly with other Powers.

@RusEmbUSA Article II. Should one of the High Contracting Parties become the object of belligerent action by a third Power, the other High Contracting Party shall in no manner lend its support to this third Power.

@RusEmbUSA Article III. The Governments of the two High Contracting Parties shall in the future maintain continual contact with one another for the purpose of consultation in order to exchange information on problems affecting their common interests.

@RusEmbUSA Article IV. Should disputes or conflicts arise between the High Contracting Parties shall participate in any grouping of Powers whatsoever that is directly or indirectly aimed at the other party.

@RusEmbUSA Article V. Should disputes or conflicts arise between the High Contracting Parties over problems of one kind or another,

@RusEmbUSA both parties shall settle these disputes or conflicts exclusively through friendly exchange of opinion or, if necessary, through the establishment of arbitration commissions.

@RusEmbUSA Article VI. The present Treaty is concluded for a period of ten years, with the proviso that,

@RusEmbUSA in so far as one of the High Contracting Parties does not advance it one year prior to the expiration of this period, the validity of this Treaty shall automatically be extended for another five years.

@RusEmbUSA Article VII. The present treaty shall be ratified within the shortest possible time. The ratifications shall be exchanged in Berlin. The Agreement shall enter into force as soon as it is signed.

@RusEmbUSA [The section below was not published at the time the above was announced.]

Secret Additional Protocol.

Article I. In the event of a territorial and political rearrangement in the areas belonging to the Baltic States (Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania),

@RusEmbUSA the northern boundary of Lithuania shall represent the boundary of the spheres of influence of Germany and U.S.S.R. In this connection the interest of Lithuania in the Vilna area is recognized by each party.

@RusEmbUSA Article II. In the event of a territorial and political rearrangement of the areas belonging to the Polish state, the spheres of influence of Germany and the U.S.S.R. shall be bounded approximately by the line of the rivers Narev, Vistula and San.

@RusEmbUSA The question of whether the interests of both parties make desirable the maintenance of an independent Polish States and how such a state should be bounded can only be definitely determined in the course of further political developments.

@RusEmbUSA In any event both Governments will resolve this question by means of a friendly agreement.

@RusEmbUSA Article III. With regard to Southeastern Europe attention is called by the Soviet side to its interest in Bessarabia. The German side declares its complete political disinteredness in these areas.

@RusEmbUSA Article IV. This protocol shall be treated by both parties as strictly secret.

Moscow, August 23, 1939.

For the Government of the German Reich v. Ribbentrop

Plenipotentiary of the Government of the U.S.S.R. V. Molotov

@RusEmbUSA Source: sourcebooks.fordham.edu/mod/1939pact.a…

@RusEmbUSA On 17 September 1939, Soviet troops invaded Poland fulfilling the provisions of a secret annex to the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact, signed by the Third German Reich and the Soviet Union on 23 August 1939.
poland.pl/history/histor…

@RusEmbUSA The Soviet-German agreement called for dividing up Poland’s territory between the two totalitarian states. The Soviet Union committed itself to supporting Germany in its military operations against Poland.

@RusEmbUSA The pretext for the Soviet invasion of Poland was the recognition by the Soviet government of the non-existence of the Polish state after Germany’s invasion of Poland and the expectation that the Polish government would leave Warsaw.

@RusEmbUSA In doing so, the Soviet authorities had declared the Polish-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact of 1932, a bilateral agreement then in force, to be null and void.

@RusEmbUSA In reality, until 17 September, the supreme Polish authorities were still in the country, and President Ignacy Mościcki declared the Soviet operation to be an act of aggression in his address.

@RusEmbUSA There is no doubt that these operations were a violation of the Polish-Soviet bilateral agreement and international law.

@RusEmbUSA Soviet troops faced resistance from the Polish side in Wilno, Grodno, Lwow and elsewhere. In these cities, like across all eastern voivodeships of the Second Polish Republic, many acts of Soviet violence took place against Polish POWs and the civilian population.

@RusEmbUSA In order to justify that the invasion was done to protect the Belarusian and Ukrainian population, the Soviet authorities openly encouraged representatives of these nationalities to wage attacks on Poles.

@RusEmbUSA With regular Soviet army troops arrived special NKWD units, whose role was to eliminate the Polish state structures and a potential resistance movement.

@RusEmbUSA To this end, mass-scale arrests and executions of higher placed members of the society were carried out in the Soviet-occupied territories.

@RusEmbUSA The majority of Polish Army officers were taken into captivity by the Soviets and became victims of the Katyn Crime, in violation of war-time customs and conventions. Hundreds of thousands of Poles were deported inside the Soviet Union (mostly to Siberia and Kazakhstan).

@RusEmbUSA As the Soviets had repeatedly declared, their operations were ultimately targeted at eliminating the Polish state and incorporating the occupied lands into the Soviet state.

@RusEmbUSA The Soviet invasion of Poland speeded up the Polish government’s decision to leave the country on the night of 17 September 1939. This led to organising state and military structures of the Republic of Poland in Exile headed by President Władysław Raczkiewicz.

@RusEmbUSA .Continuity of institutions was thus preserved enabling the Polish Armed Forces to carry on fighting abroad.

@RusEmbUSA Poland’s defeat in the defensive war of 1939 did not put an end to fighting at home. In the face of repressions by both occupiers, as early as on 27 September 1939, the Service for the Victory of Poland (Polish: Służba Zwycięstwu Polski) was formed.

@RusEmbUSA Clandestine structures of the Polish resistance movement made it possible to create the biggest underground state in Europe. The result of operations by two criminal totalitarian regimes led to the partitioning of Poland, left alone in its struggle.

@RusEmbUSA Mass-scale exterminations of the population in the occupied Polish lands followed and were continued until practically the last day of World War Two in 1945.