A Bad Deal, 80 Years Ago

Townhall.com ^ | August 15, 2019 | Victor Davis Hanson

[Kaslin]

Some 80 years ago, on Aug. 23, 1939, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, formally known as the "Treaty of non-aggression between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics."

The world was shocked — and terrified — by the agreement. Western democracies of the 1930s had counted on the huge resources of Communist Russia, and its hostility to the Nazis, to serve as a brake on Adolf Hitler's Western ambitions. Great Britain and the other Western European democracies had assumed that the Nazis would never invade them as long as a hostile Soviet Union threatened the German rear.

The incompatibility between communism and Nazism was considered by all to be existential — and permanent. That mutual hatred explained why dictators Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin both despised and feared each other.

Yet all at once, such illusions vanished with the signing of the pact. Just seven days later, on Sept. 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland. World War II had begun.

After quickly absorbing most of Eastern Europe by either coercion or alliance, Hitler was convinced that he now had a safe rear. So he turned west in spring 1940 to overrun Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Luxembourg, France, and the Netherlands.

Hitler accomplished all that relatively easily, failing only to conquer Great Britain with an exhaustive bombing campaigning.

During all these Nazi conquests, a compliant Stalin shipped huge supplies of food and fuel for the German war effort against the West. Stalin cynically had hoped that Germany and the Western democracies would wear themselves out in a wasting war — similar to the four horrific years in the trenches of the Western Front during World War I.

[Vaquero]

Funny. Russia grabbed eastern Poland and Germany western Poland. But only Germany was declared war against.

[BenLurkin]

Western democracies of the 1930s had counted on the huge resources of Communist Russia, and its hostility to the Nazis, to serve as a brake on Adolf Hitler's Western ambitions.

Did not some in the West also look to the Nazis to keep the Reds in check?

[nathanbedford]

I would move the start of the second world war back from September 1939, the date of the Molotov/Ribbentrop pact to September 1931, the date of the invasion of Manchuria by Japan. But I take Dr. Hansen's point and would add to it.

For some time I have been warning that a strategic threat to America involves a China/Russia/German axis that would combine the petroleum and minerals of the world's greatest landmass with the population and economy of China and the technology of Germany. Such a combination, while unlikely, becomes more threatening every day.

Just yesterday my next-door neighbor here in Germany observed that the future of Germany lies not with America but with Russia.

It appears that Stalin came to believe that he was better served by joining with Germany than by making an alliance with the Western democracies against Nazi Germany because the Western democracy had convinced him by their repeated appeasement of Germany that they simply would not fight.

As to the question why did we (meaning at that time Great Britain and the Empire) not declare war on Russia for invading Poland, one has to be observant of realities on the ground. The idea that England could take on both of these superpowers ( between them Germany and Russia would kill approximately 35 million of each other's people in a war in which Britain and America each lost less than 500,000 dead), is simply not credible. That is why Churchill uttered his famous quip in support of his making an alliance with Russia against Nazi Germany, "If Hitler invaded Hell I would at least make a friendly reference to the devil in the House of Commons."

Many of us on these threads think it is "cool" to break up NATO. Nothing could be further from the interests of the United States whose real interests lie in reforming NATO just as our real interests lie in reforming the EU. We need Europe as a counterweight to an axis which is already forming between Russia and China.

[ArtDodger]

Was before my time, of course, but seems to me the platforms of the Socialists and the Communists were similar enough in the various European countries that they were vying for the same blocks of voters. Same thing in Germany. The Socialists promoted a hatred of the Communists to get more voters and control of the governments. Once that was accomplished, friendly pacts were made with the USSR.

[GOPsterinMA]

Like a wise man once said: “National Socialism vs. International Socialism”.

Two sides of the same coin.

They should have been left alone and literally wiped each other off the face of the Earth. Think how much better everything would be today.

[vetvetdoug]

Russia has broken every treaty they ever signed except this one; Germany broke it first.

[DesertRhino]

“The incompatibility between communism and Nazism was considered by all to be existential — and permanent.”

Same system, same red flags, different crew and national quirks at the top.

[BenLurkin]

Bump!

[LS]

Read Peter Zeihan. He thinks Russia will be a problem, but that due to mutual energy needs, Russia and Germany cannot possibly ally.

Germany will also be a problem. Their nearest source of oil is over 1,000 miles away.

Both have hugely declining populations. Neither has east-west navigable rivers. Germany is heavily dependent (as it was in WW II) on a low-wage/slave labor work force.

Of the two, Germany is the most dangerous as it will be the most desperate.

BTW, by 2030, the US will be, on average, 3 years younger than China. “Demographics is destiny.”

[fso301]

It appears that Stalin came to believe that he was better served by joining with Germany than by making an alliance with the Western democracies against Nazi Germany because the Western democracy had convinced him by their repeated appeasement of Germany that they simply would not fight.

We see it all the time with crime families cooperating in the short term while positioning themselves for the next street war. Hitler only got Western Poland. Stalin got Eastern Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and German recognition of Iran being in the Soviet sphere of influence.

[NorseViking]

USSR was at war with Germany in Spain in earlier 1930s before anyone else. Before 1939 Molotov toured all around Europe to assemble an alliance against Hitler UK and France in the first place. We know how it worked. ‘Peace in our time’ as Chamberlain puts it.
The Western Europeans hoped Hitler would be busy bleeding dry in the East before them but the pact ruined their expectations and for that reason described as a sort of evil alliance.
The pact in reality was not like a military alliance more like a truce in a Cold War and an assurance the war won’t get hot.
It was a sort of checkmate for France and UK, that is why they hate it.
A number of small nations were victims true but it is how it worked before UN. Poland among other things had similar pact with Germany to dismember Czechoslovakia before it fell to the Soviet-German pact.

[NorseViking]

“” “” It appears that Stalin came to believe that he was better served by joining with Germany than by making an alliance with the Western democracies against Nazi Germany because the Western democracy had convinced him by their repeated appeasement of Germany that they simply would not fight.”” “”

Please, read Kissinger’s ‘Diplomacy’ if you don’t trust Russian sources on the subject. The real situation was very different. The alliance with Germany was never on table since Stalin took side in a Spanish War. Also Hitler’s ideas on Lebenstraum and overall attitude toward the Slavic ‘race’ weren’t particularly a big secret. The inevitability of war with Germany was clear for everyone with half a brain in Russia in a year after Hitler took over Germany.

[nathanbedford]

I found this confirmation of my view on Britannica:

The Western democracies’ hesitance in opposing Adolf Hitler, along with Stalin’s own inexplicable personal preference for the Nazis, also played a part in Stalin’s final choice

https://www.britannica.com/event/German-Soviet-Nonaggression-Pact

[ScholarWarrior]

You are on the right track.

[NorseViking]

As I said earlier Britannica is a biased source on the subject because the truth puts UK in a bad light.
What ‘personal preference’ they are talking about? Details are needed to support this claim. There was no alternative deal with UK and France for Russia. Molotov flew to London and Paris before the idea of the German pact ever floated. He got nothing. It is all well documented. Kissinger actually describes Chamberlain as a bumbling morron.

[Rummyfan]

The incompatibility between communism and Nazism was considered by all to be existential — and permanent.....

Wrongly so. They had much more in common than differences. Different modes of totalitarianism. So why did Hitler attack and invade the USSR? Because he was insane.

[nathanbedford]

Actually southern Germany has a river, the Donau which we call the Danube which connects all of Bavaria through its tributaries with most of the ancient cities of Eastern Europe ticked off by Winston Churchill in his Iron Curtain speech and ultimately carrying trade to the Black Sea and thereby to Russia.

When I first came here an elderly lady, my next-door neighbor, gave me a book styled,Inn herrlich strömender, grünblauer Fluß which describes the trade running near my house through Bavaria and on to the black sea dating to the middle ages. Interestingly, the crews on the barges that handled the horses and the towing were required by law to get many liters of beer a day.

Rivers today are not of much relative economic importance but they historically account for the fact that most of the village churches in my area have Bell shaped steeples. And they account for the fact that Hitler, the son of a minor custom official, was born on a little town along the river where a custom station was established, as described in the book above.

As to declining populations, I entertain a very minority view, at least in the longer-term, I believe that those countries, especially Japan, which refrains from importing uneducated and dependent workers to compensate for an aging population will prosper because they turn to robots. I think Germany's problem will be the demographic wave which now appears to be inexorable that show a Muslim takeover in my children's lifetime. If that occurs, Germany will have more on his plate than its energy policy.

Perhaps the irony is that a Muslim population will bring Germany to its senses-at least about its obsessive environmentalism. Electric bills here are the highest in Europe after they shut down domestic atomic energy sources of electricity. We still get much energy from atomic energy, but that comes from France where the prevailing winds will no doubt bring us the results of any catastrophe.

Germany has always looked to the Eastern states as substitute colonies that Germany could not acquire because it came into the nationstate business under Bismarck too late for colonies of consequence so it turned to the east for markets and exploits the European Union in that fashion even today. Incidentally, German GDP consists of more than 40 % exports!

Thus, when my neighbor speaks of needing Russia more than America, he is thinking traditionally about markets for Germany's exports. Better he should look into those churches under those bell steeples for relief from the demographic wave about to crest over Germany.

,

[Don Corleone]

The incompatibility between communism and Nazism was considered by all to be existential — and permanent.

Two sides of the same coin.

[AceMineral]

The Germans don’t have to win, but the Russians must lose.