“The Soviet-German Pact of 1939 is often regarded as a moment of opportunism, a temporary alignment of interests between Hitler and Stalin. That is only part of the story.”
By Ian Ona Johnson
IN THE EARLY morning hours of Aug. 23, 1939, Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov and his German counterpart Joachim Ribbentrop affixed their signatures to the Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the U.S.S.R.
In addition to including a pledge that neither would initiate hostilities against the other, a secret protocol within the pact marked Eastern Europe into ‘spheres of influence’ between the two states. The agreement also initiated the exchange of Soviet raw materials for German weapons and industrial goods.
The announcement that the Fascists and Communists would suddenly abandon their mutual antipathy and partner together shocked the world.
American journalist Walter Lippmann would write that, “In all history it would be hard to find another conspiracy so terrible in its consequences, or to match its perfidy.”
Seven days later, on Sept. 1, Germany invaded Poland from the west; the Soviets followed suit from the east on Sept. 17.
Great Britain and France reluctantly honoured their pledges to Poland and declared war on Germany, marking the beginning of the Second World War in Europe.
The Soviet-German Pact of 1939 is often regarded as a moment of opportunism, a temporary alignment of interests between Hitler and Stalin. That is only part of the story. In fact, the 1939 agreement marked the culmination of nearly two decades of on-and-off cooperation between Berlin and Moscow. In its first phase, between 1922 and 1933, this cooperation would lay the essential groundwork for the rearmament of both Germany and the Soviet Union.
That first phase of cooperation began tentatively in the aftermath of the First World War. Mutual antagonism to the new state of Poland encouraged the German army to begin surreptitiously passing intelligence to the Soviets, while also connecting Red Army representatives with German industrial firms who might produce weapons or logistical equipment for them. Two years later, the Treaty of Rapallo normalized relations between Germany and the U.S.S.R., laying the basis for an expansion of cooperation.
In its first phase, cooperation between the German military and the Soviet Union was primarily economic. Seeking to avoid the limitations of the Versailles treaty on weapons development and production, the German military assisted domestic firms in relocating banned industrial production to facilities in the U.S.S.R. This process began with the opening of a chemical weapons complex near Samara and an aircraft production plant near Moscow in 1923.
Germany soon became the U.S.S.R’s largest trading partner. German businesses – more than 250 of which negotiated contracts with the Red Army – were particularly prominent in weapons production, including the manufacture of artillery, tanks, poison gas and aircraft on Soviet soil. In exchange, the Germans gained a place to employ expert engineers and, in theory, develop munitions stockpiles in the event of a future war.
Given the early success of the economic partnership, the German military and Soviet state decided to expand cooperation in 1923. In that year, German pilots began arriving to train Soviet cadets at an airbase located near Lipetsk in south-central Russia. Two years later, the Red Army offered to lease the base to the Reichswehr in exchange for training assistance and access to German aircraft prototypes.
Lipetsk would be the first of four jointly operated military facilities on Soviet soil. A chemical weapons testing ground opened near Moscow the following year; a second, much larger, facility would replace it in 1927, located near Samara. That same year, the two sides began work on a joint armoured warfare training and testing ground near Kazan. These facilities would operate until 1933, when Hitler deemed them no longer necessary.
These 11 years of corporate and military cooperation would play a significant role in preparing Germany for future war. Less than a thousand Germans participated in the training work in the U.S.S.R., but, for context, the entire German officer corps numbered only 4,000. Those who did complete training in the Soviet Union would disproportionately reach senior ranks: more than 40 Luftwaffe or Wehrmacht generals visited, studied, trained, or taught in the U.S.S.R., including future marshals Heinz Guderian, Wilhelm Keitel, Erich von Manstein, Walter Model and Friedrich von Paulus. Given how few German officers had practical experience with tanks or aircraft in 1933, alumni of the Soviet facilities would play an outsized role in training the next generation of officers during the expansion of the German army and air force between 1933 and 1939.
In technological terms, the work conducted in the U.S.S.R. was an essential prerequisite for future rearmament. All but one of Germany’s aircraft manufacturers sent their aircraft prototypes to the facility at Lipetsk; all of the German firms working on tank design likewise sent their prototypes to Kazan. Entire teams of engineers would relocate to the Soviet Union. In the words of one German industrialist, “Through years of secret work, scientific and basic groundwork was laid in order to be ready again to work for the German Armed Forces at the appointed hour without loss of time or experience.” That moment would arrive in 1933, when Hitler came to power and accelerated rearmament.
The Red Army and Soviet air force also profited enormously from German assistance. More than 150 senior Soviet officers — including six future marshals of the Soviet Union — studied, trained, or attended maneuvers in Germany. German instructors embedded in Soviet schools taught thousands of Soviet officers; hundreds more studied alongside the Germans at the joint facilities.
German engineers helped build many of Stalin’s key military-industrial projects, while German industrial firms assisted the Soviets with aircraft and tank design. It was not an unalloyed blessing, however. While such work played a significant role in building up Soviet military industry and modernizing the Red Army, the perception of Soviet dependence on Germany was likely one reason for the purge unleashed by Stalin on the Red Army in 1936.
In early 1939, both Soviet and German leaders revisited their previous partnership. Hitler told his diplomats in Moscow to convey his interest in a “renewal” of the earlier partnership, while Stalin’s envoys requested a resumption of military purchases from German industry. The end result six months later was the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and the subsequent invasion of Poland. Twenty years of on-again, off-again partnership between Berlin and Moscow had laid the groundwork for a new world war – one they would begin as partners, but end as enemies.
Ian Ona Johnson is the author of Faustian Bargain: The Soviet-German Partnership and the Origins of the Second World War (Oxford, June 2021). He is the P.J. Moran Family Assistant Professor of Military History at the University of Notre Dame.
