Summary: The study covers one of the most discussed in the recent years events related to World War II history – the August 23rd 1939 signing of the non-aggression treaty between Germany and the USSR, known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, and especially the secret additional protocol to it. The story of its actual signing on the eve of the war, of its copy‘s discovery among German diplomatic documents at the end of World War II, of its promulgation in the West, and of the „search“ for it for a full 50 years in the East are intended to show that at any given moment all the players in the field of international relations handled the protocol only in the context of their own political aims.
The Soviet leadership signed both the pact and the secret protocol guided by the desire to guarantee the security of the country through territorial gains and expansion of its influence range. This not only betrays an inherently geopolitical mindset, but also frames the Soviet foreign policy as ‚rational and practical realpolitik‘, which moreover is developing under a deep-seated suspicion of a possible armistice between Britain and Germany. The USSR’s Western allies, who were quite well aware not only of the existence of the secret protocol but also of its contents, were not at all bothered by it, guided by their own political interest and pursuing their own goals.
After the war, the wartime allies became irreconcilable enemies and the existence of collusion between Hitler and Stalin became a powerful weapon in the hands of the West in the political and ideological confrontation during the Cold War. At the same time, Moscow’s denial of the existence of a secret protocol (also politically motivated) proved to be an extremely unfavorable strategy. Acknowledging its existence in the last days of 1989, when not only the Eastern bloc was rapidly collapsing, but central forces within the Soviet Union itself were also intensifying, could not stop both the destructive processes in Eastern Europe and the struggle of the nations directly affected by the protocol. As a result of this prolonged and assertive struggle of the already independent in terms of international relations subjects, years later the political decision was taken to name the USSR as one of the main culprits in the outbreak of World War II.
Keywords: World War II, Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, secret protocol, Nazi-Soviet relations, document hunters
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