Re:Moscow Publishes Photocopies of Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, ...
by Koshkin on Saturday June 01, 2019 @01:53PM
(#20070434)
Looks like the pact was a smart move after the West’s failure to support the initiative to create an anti-fascist coalition (in the hope that Hitler would attack the Soviet Union); its announcement even caused a government crisis in Japan.
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Re:Moscow Publishes Photocopies of Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, ...
by Aloisius on Saturday June 01, 2019 @02:54PM
(#20070808)
The West hoped that Hitler would attack the Soviet Union?
That would mean the West hoped that Hitler would attack Poland as that was the only possible way that Hitler could even get to the Soviet Union at the time the pact was negotiated.
The Soviet Union wanted to modernize and expand. Hitler gave them that opportunity. If anything, it was the Soviet Union that hoped that Hitler and Western Europe would duke it out thereby weakening all their enemies.
Re:Moscow Publishes Photocopies of Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, ...
by kvark on Saturday June 01, 2019 @08:57PM
(#20072790)
Pragmatically, every party knew the massacre was about to start and tried to duke it out.
Re:Moscow Publishes Photocopies of Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, ...
by aivisol on Saturday June 01, 2019 @01:55PM
(#20070454)
Smart move on part of whom, Germany or USSR?
Re:Moscow Publishes Photocopies of Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, ...
by liberal_098 on Saturday June 01, 2019 @02:06PM
(#20070521)
Not only a smart move but also quite typical for that time. Note that Pilsudski was a kind of dictator and the Polish government was rather aggressive with respect to all its neighbors. Therefore, the war between Germany and Poland was a collision of two dictators - Hitler and Pilsudski.
Re:Moscow Publishes Photocopies of Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, ...
by sverige on Saturday June 01, 2019 @03:42PM
(#20071151)
You can't be serious comparing Pilsudski to Hitler. Poland had very good historical reasons for having an aggressive stance toward her neighbors, since it was still within living memory that their neighbors had carved them up and made them disappear from the maps. It happened again shortly after this, along with both the Nazis and Soviets committing gratuitous atrocities during their respective genocides.
I would go so far as to say that it is completely rational for Poland to doubt the intentions of Germany, Austria, Hungary, and Russia to this day.
Re:Moscow Publishes Photocopies of Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, ...
by strzzz on Saturday June 01, 2019 @04:24PM
(#20071454)
Do not forget Poland itself was aggresor occupying part of already independent neighbour Lithuania some 20years before WW2.
Re:Moscow Publishes Photocopies of Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, ...
by Koshkin on Saturday June 01, 2019 @04:08PM
(#20071345)
Well, after losing in the Great War, Germany, too, "had very good historical reasons for having an aggressive stance toward her neighbors." Which is the reason Hitler came to power in the first place.