German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact summary

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German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact, or Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact, (Aug. 23, 1939) Agreement stipulating mutual nonaggression between the Soviet Union and Germany. The Soviet Union, whose proposed collective security agreement with Britain and France was rebuffed, approached Germany, and in the pact the two states pledged publicly not to attack each other. Its secret provisions divided Poland between them and gave the Soviet Union control of Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and Finland. The Soviets hoped to buy time to build up their forces to face German expansionism; Germany wished to proceed with its invasion of Poland and the countries to its west without having to worry about the Red Army. News of the pact shocked and horrified the world. Nine days after its signing, Germany began World War II by invading Poland. The agreement was voided when Germany attacked the Soviet Union in 1941. Until 1989 the Soviet Union denied the existence of the secret protocols because they were considered evidence of its involuntary annexation of the Baltic states.

Germany Summary

Germany, country of north-central Europe, traversing the continent’s main physical divisions, from the outer ranges of the Alps northward across the varied landscape of the Central German Uplands and then across the North German Plain. One of Europe’s largest countries, Germany encompasses a wide

Third Reich Summary

Third Reich, official Nazi designation for the regime in Germany from January 1933 to May 1945, as the presumed successor of the medieval and early modern Holy Roman Empire of 800 to 1806 (the First Reich) and the German Empire of 1871 to 1918 (the Second Reich). With the onset of the Great

Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, 1922–91

Soviet Union Summary

Soviet Union, former northern Eurasian empire (1917/22–1991) stretching from the Baltic and Black seas to the Pacific Ocean and, in its final years, consisting of 15 Soviet Socialist Republics (S.S.R.’s): Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belorussia (now Belarus), Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kirgiziya (now

Joseph Stalin Summary

Joseph Stalin was the secretary-general of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (1922–53) and premier of the Soviet state (1941–53), who for a quarter of a century dictatorially ruled the Soviet Union and transformed it into a major world power. During the quarter of a century preceding his