I wonder if this pact would ever have been signed if it did not included the secret part, in which Hitler and Stalin shared territories like Poland or Baltic states.

In other words, was this secret part the main core of the treaty ?

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In my opinion I would think so. Imagine you are Stalin and Hitler comes to you with a proposal for a non-agression pact. The same Hitler that has publicly denounced Communism. The same Hitler that has outline his plan for fighting the Eastern countries in his book. Would you sign a pact with him without creating a buffer zone? Without the secret clauses, Hitler would have been right on the Soviet border. He could then have moved north into the baltic countries and taken them for himself.

Nah, without the secret clauses, I do not believe Stalin would have signed. Hitler also needed that pact and Russia's cooperation. Hitler was ready to take on Poland but not Russia. Not yet.

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If I ask myself would there have been a pact without the secret part the answer is no.So it was an essential part of the pact.

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I am also going to agree. As much as Hitler disliked Stalin, he needed assurance that he would not be attacked while conquering Europe. Stalin liked the plan because it would give him the same assurance with a buffer zone and give hime time to build up his military.

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The war against Russia will be such that it cannot be conducted in a knightly fashion. This struggle is one of ideologies and racial differences and will have to be conducted with unprecedented, unmerciful and unrelenting harshness. -Adolf Hitler

To my thinking the essential heart of the pact WAS the secret part. I believe that as far as both sides were concerned, the most important reasons for even making a pact were contained in that portion, not in the publicly released window dressing behind which they concealed it. Take away the secret portions, particularly the partitioning agreement and the exchange of foreign credit by the Germans in exchange for critical resources from the Soviets, and you are left with nothing but a "non-aggression" pact, just as was publicly sold to the world. But both sides knew from the outset that no such peace pact would hold for any longer than both sides found it convenient, so there was no reason for them to have even bothered unless it were to achieve other aims.

For Stalin, as others have said, it was to put a buffer between the USSR and Germany and buy time for him to prepare his forces for the war he knew was coming. He had known for some time that the western allies were trying to set him up as Germany's first target in the hopes that the Fascists and Communists would weaken each other enough so that neither would be a threat to the West. So he took steps to turn the tables and have the Fascists and western Allies do the same thing and lessen the threat to the USSR. He also had need for the foreign currency in order to try to purchase overseas some of that multitude of things his military needed but currently lacked.

For Germany it was only a little different. They, too, wanted a buffer at their back while they took on Western Europe. They also needed the petrol, food, lumber and a few other strategic materials in order to keep a war economy moving long enough to secure other sources of most of those commodities by force.

All of that said, it seems to me a better question to ask, were there reasons for drafting a public non-aggression treaty other than as window dressing to hide the secret protocols?

Why even bother to be secret anyway? The rest of the world would know that Russia occupied parts of Poland then the Baltic states as soon as they did it. But yes I also agree that the secret part was important.

Do you think the there would have been an agreement without the secret part? I think there would have been. Neither Russia nor Germany were ready for a war. Even if Stalin didn’t like I think he would have agreed to buy time either to build his personal military or to build an alliance with France and Britain. As it was France debated declaring war on Russia when it invaded Poland.

Hindsight shows this to be true but at the time Hitler did not expect France and Britain to declare war. He expected them to do another Munich tap dance for him. So the Buffer was really to appease Stalin while Hitler strengthened his position in the West (politically) before taking on Stalin.

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Do you have some support for this, because it runs contrary to what I have read elsewhere. If there is some evidence that Hitler actually expected to be able to invade and then partition Poland without the Allies declaring war on Germany, I would find that extremely interesting to study.

I think Hitler was rather annoyed at Ribbentrop once the war declarations started coming in, who was telling Hitler how well he knew how the West would behave. Then again Ribbentrop probably always agreed with Hitler.

But the fact is that Hitler never wanted war , at least with Britain, which is why he later on on several occasions suggested peace, and also he believed that Britain would not enter war because that would be the end of the Empire.

I think by google with search words Hitler,Ribbentrop, war declaration, Britain,France and 1939 will get you alot of sites on the subject.

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Agreed Kai. What were those famous words Hitler used upon receipt of Britain's declaration of war................"what now". Like is said in my post, in hindsight, the non-aggression pact worked in Hitler's favor but that was not the original intent.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/low/special_..._ii/430918.stm

http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/ultimatum.htm

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Good links. Thanks, PzJgr.

Thank you for all your replies and explanations.

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No problem. Cheers.

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