September 28 1939 of the USSR and Germany signed an agreement "On friendship and the border"
28 September 1939, the USSR and Germany signed an agreement "On friendship and the border." He was signed by German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, he arrived in Moscow on September 27, and on the Soviet side Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov, People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the USSR. Joseph Stalin, the Soviet plenipotentiary in Germany, A. A. Shkvartsev, and the German Reich to the USSR, Friedrich-Werner von der Schulenburg, also took part in the negotiations on the conclusion of the German-Soviet agreement. This agreement consolidated the liquidation of the Polish state and confirmed the earlier concluded Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of August 23 from 1939. The contract was valid until 22 June 1941, when, after the German attack on the USSR, all Soviet-German treaties lost their force. According to the Treaty on Friendship and Frontiers, the Soviet and German governments, after the collapse of the former Polish state, viewed exclusively as their task the issues of restoring peace and order in this territory and ensuring the peaceful existence of the peoples living there, corresponding to their national characteristics.
Several additional protocols were attached to the contract. The confidential protocol determined the procedure for the exchange of Soviet and German citizens between both parts of dismembered Poland. Two secret protocols corrected zones of "interests" in Eastern Europe in connection with the division of the Polish state and the upcoming "special measures in Lithuanian territory to protect the interests of the Soviet side" (Lithuania moved into the sphere of influence of the Soviet Union in exchange for Polish lands east of the Vistula, departed to Germany). There were also established the obligation of the parties to stop any "Polish agitation" affecting the interests of the two powers.
Poland on the road to death
Modern Poles like to call themselves the “victims” of two totalitarian regimes - Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin. Between them, they put an equal sign and some even want to bill modern Russia for the occupation, dismemberment and destruction of the Polish state. What is particularly disgusting is that in Russia there are their accomplices who want to “punish” our homeland.
However, if you look closely at stories Of the Republic of Poland in 1918 — 1939 (II Polish – Lithuanian Commonwealth) then it can be found that the Polish state was not an “innocent victim” of the wiles of its aggressive neighbors. Since 1918, Warsaw has been pursuing an active foreign policy aimed at restoring Great Poland “from sea to sea”. The main direction of the expansion of the Poles was eastern, however, and other neighbors experienced the territorial claims of Warsaw. Polish politicians did not prevent the start of a big war in Europe. In fact, Poland was a "hotbed of war," in every way rocking the "pan-European boat," did everything to start a world war. In September, 1939, Poland had to pay for the mistakes of previous years and the policies of its government.
Until 1918, the Polish people lived in three empires - Austria-Hungary, Germany and Russia. In World War I, all three empires were defeated and collapsed. The victorious states of Great Britain, the United States and France isolated the Poles from the fallen powers and connected them to the Kingdom of Poland, which gained independence from the hands of the Bolsheviks. In the east, the border of Poland was determined by the so-called. "Curzon line". The Poles took advantage of the fact that their lands were surrounded by defeated empires and their debris and seized much more land than they were assigned. So in October 1920, the Polish armed forces seized part of Lithuania with the city of Vilna (the historical capital of Lithuania). From the Poles also suffered Germany and the new state of Czechoslovakia. Entente was forced to recognize these squatters.
In the spring of 1920, when the territory of Russia was torn apart by the Civil War, Polish troops easily captured large areas of Ukraine and Belarus, including Kiev and Minsk. The Polish leadership, headed by Józef Pilsudski, planned to restore the Polish state within the historic borders of the Commonwealth 1772 of the year, with the inclusion of Ukraine (including Donbass), Belarus and Lithuania. Polish elite, after the defeat of Germany and Russia in the First World War. planned to dominate Eastern Europe. The Soviet armies launched a counter-offensive and drove the enemy from the Soviet territories. However, Lenin and Trotsky lost their sense of proportion and confident at the beginning of the revolution in Poland, turning it into one of the socialist republics, and gave the order to invade Polish territories proper. Tukhachevsky suffered a serious defeat near Warsaw. Under the Riga Peace Treaty of 1921, extensive lands were ceded to the Polish state, which were located east of the Curzon Line, with a predominance of non-Polish population. The structure of Poland includes Western Ukraine and Western Belarus, the Grodno province, the Volyn province and part of the territories of other provinces of the former Russian Empire. This agreement has already laid a "mine" under the relations of the two countries. Moscow sooner or later had to raise the issue of the return of Ukrainian and Belarusian lands. Warsaw was unhappy with the results of the war - it was not possible to create the Rzeczpospolita within the boundaries of 1772. Having seized such booty, the Poles in the following years pursued a policy of national oppression and colonization of the eastern regions. Lithuanians, Belarusians, Ukrainians, Rusyns and Russians became second-class citizens in Poland. This, until the very beginning of the Second World War, determined the consistently poor relations between the USSR and Poland, with Warsaw regularly acting as the initiator. In particular, at the beginning of the 1930, the USSR had trade agreements with almost all countries of the world, and Poland agreed to conclude such an agreement only in the 1939 year, several months before its death.
Betrayal of France and external aggression. 12 March 1938, Germany sent troops to Austria. However, on the eve, 10 March, an incident occurred on the Polish-Lithuanian border, a Polish soldier was killed there. Poland rejected the offer of Lithuania to create a joint commission to investigate this incident. An ultimatum was put forward demanding to recognize Poland as belonging to the Vilna region and establish diplomatic relations between the states. This ultimatum was also supported by Germany. The Polish press launched a campaign calling for a march on Kaunas, Warsaw began to prepare for the seizure of Lithuania. Berlin was ready to support the occupation of the Lithuanian Poles, saying that he was only interested in Klaipeda (Memel). The Soviet Union was forced to intervene. The head of the Soviet foreign affairs agency 16 and 18 March summoned the Polish ambassador and explained that although there is no military alliance between Lithuania and the USSR, the Union may intervene in the Polish-Lithuanian conflict.
France was an ally of Poland and found itself in a difficult situation. Germany seizes Austria, and the Poles, in alliance with the Germans, threaten Lithuania. Allied Poland gets the prospect of war with the USSR. Paris offers Warsaw to calm down and help the French in the Austrian issue. However, the Poles reproach the French that they do not support them in the Lithuanian question. An interesting picture emerges: the Third Reich captures Austria and is preparing to bring down the Versailles system completely, France is afraid of this and wants to attract as an ally of the USSR, which also looks with dismay at the emergence of a “hotbed of war” in Europe. At this time, the official ally of France, Poland, with the blessing of Germany, is preparing to seize Lithuania. As a result, the issue of the admission of Soviet troops through Polish territory, in the event of war over Austria, was not resolved positively. Thus, Warsaw allowed Berlin to seize Austria without consequences and weakened France. In fact, the Poles helped to commit the first aggression in Europe. Although the simultaneous harsh actions of France, the USSR and Poland against the aggressor, which would have supported Britain, could have stopped the future great war.
Warsaw also played an important role in the process of the destruction of Czechoslovakia. Czechoslovakia had a defensive alliance with France directed against Germany (France had the same alliance with Poland). When Berlin made claims against Prague in the 1938 year, it was in the interest of the French that the Poles enter into a military alliance with the Czechoslovakians. However, Poland categorically refused to do so. A similar situation will arise in the 1939 year, when Warsaw will withstand the heavy pressure of Paris and refuse to enter into a military alliance with the Soviet Union.
Further events will show that Warsaw had a predatory interest in Czechoslovakia - the Poles wanted to snatch their cousses from the country that came under attack. The French concluded a military agreement with the USSR on the defense of Czechoslovakia against the Germans in 1935. Moreover, Moscow pledged itself to help Czechoslovakia only if France helped her. In 1938, the Germans demanded that Prague give away a part of the territory - the industrially developed, mineral-rich region in the north and north-west of the Czech Republic, the Sudetenland (received its name from the Sudety Mountains located on its territory). As a result, France, as an ally of Czechoslovakia, in the event of an attack by the Germans, was to declare war on the Third Reich and strike at it. At this moment, Paris’s ally, Warsaw, declares to the French that in this case Poland will remain aloof from the conflict. since not Germany attacks France, but France attacks Germany. In addition, the Polish government refuses to let the Soviet troops in Czechoslovakia. In the event that the USSR tried to force its way through Polish territory, then apart from Poland, Romania would have entered the war with the Union (the Poles had a military alliance with the Romanians against Russia). By its actions, Warsaw completely deprived France of the motives to defend Czechoslovakia. Paris did not dare to defend Czechoslovakia.
As a result, Warsaw had a hand in the famous Munich Agreement, when Italy, Germany, France and England gave the Sudetenland region to Berlin. The Polish military-political elite not only did not support their ally, France, at this difficult moment, but also took a direct part in the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia. 21 and 27 September, in the midst of the Sudeten crisis, the Polish government presented an ultimatum to the Czechs about the “return” to them of the Cieszyn region, where 80 thousands of Poles and 120 thousands of Czechs lived. In Poland, anti-Czech hysteria was injected, there was a process of creating volunteer detachments, which were sent to the Czechoslovak border and organized armed provocations. Aircraft of the Polish Air Force invaded the airspace of Czechoslovakia. At the same time, the Polish and German military agreed on a demarcation line in case of an invasion of Czechoslovakia. September 30 Warsaw sent a new ultimatum to Prague and at the same time with the Nazi troops launched its army in the Cieszyn region. The Czechoslovak government, remaining in international isolation, was forced to cede Cieszyn region to Poland.
Poland attacked Czechoslovakia completely independently, without the consent of France and England, and even in alliance with Germany. As a result, speaking of the instigators of the Second World War, it is impossible to focus only on Germany, Italy and Japan, the Republic of Poland is one of the aggressors who started the war in Europe.
Friendship of Nazi Germany and Poland. Before the Nazis came to power in Germany, Berlin’s relations with Warsaw were tense (due to the Poles’s seizure of German lands after the First World War). However, when the National Socialists came to power in Germany, the situation radically changed. The Polish elite became a close, although not official, partner of Berlin. The union was based on a common hatred of the Soviet regime. Both the Polish elite and the Nazis cherished the dreams of a “living space” in the East, the vast territories of the USSR were supposed to smooth out the contradictions between the two states.
In the 1938 year, when Poland was preparing to participate in the division of Czechoslovakia, Moscow distinctly warned Warsaw that the USSR could take appropriate measures. Warsaw asked Berlin for his attitude to this problem. The Polish ambassador to Germany informed Warsaw that the Reich in the case of the Polish-Czech conflict would maintain a friendly attitude towards the Polish state. And in the case of the Polish-Soviet conflict, Germany will take a more than benevolent position (Berlin hinted at military support in the war of the Polish state with the Soviet Union). At the beginning of 1939, Berlin and Warsaw conducted negotiations on cooperation against the USSR. Polish Foreign Minister Jozef Beck told the German side that Warsaw is claiming Ukraine and access to the Black Sea.
Poland before the fall. In 1939, Berlin puts forward an ultimatum to the Poles - to provide a corridor for the creation of a railway transport line to East Prussia and to give Danzig. Poland, in response, announces mobilization. It is clear that, in view of such a threat, Poland would not be prevented by a new strong ally. Britain and the USSR offer Poland and Romania to expand the scope of their defensive alliance, sending it to the German threat as well. However, the Polish government categorically refuses. The Polish military-political elite believes that they have all the trump cards in their hands - an alliance with France and guarantees of England. The Poles are confident that the case will end only with threats; the Germans will not dare to war with a powerful coalition of countries. As a result, Hitler will hit the USSR, not Poland. In the event of a German attack on the USSR, through the Baltic States and Romania, the Polish government was going to realize plans to seize Soviet Ukraine.
At this time, the Soviet Union made enormous efforts to create a military bloc with Britain and France (allies of Poland) to prevent a big war in Europe. The Polish government continued its suicidal course and flatly refused military assistance from the USSR. The Anglo-French-Soviet negotiations continued for four months, but did not bring positive results. One of the main reasons for the failure of the negotiations, along with the position of the British government, which pushed Berlin to march to the East, was the unwillingness of Warsaw to send Soviet troops into its territory.
France took a more constructive position - in contrast to the British, the French could not sit on their islands. The death of the Polish state meant that France no longer had allies in Europe, and she was left alone with Germany. The USSR and France even no longer demanded a full-fledged military alliance with the Russians from Poland. The Polish government was asked to provide only a corridor for the passage of Soviet troops, so that they could join the fight against the Germans. Warsaw again responded with a categorical refusal. Although the French also removed the question of the future withdrawal of Soviet troops - they promised to send two French divisions, and one British division, so that the support would be international. The Soviet government, Britain and France could provide absolute guarantees for the withdrawal of the Red Army from Polish territory after the end of the conflict.
As a result, Moscow, realizing the desire of Poland and England to provoke a conflict between the USSR and Germany, decided to gain time, and agreed to conclude a non-aggression treaty with the Germans.
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