Officials and historians have condemned the 1939 German-Soviet Treaty of Non-Aggression, known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, that sought to divide Europe between the two totalitarian regimes.
In an article entitled “Why Should We Remember August 23, 1939," Moorhouse wrote that “the non-aggression treaty between Moscow and Berlin … gave a green light to Hitler’s aggression against Poland and so paved the way for the outbreak of World War Two in Europe.
He said: "It is a date which is seared into the memories of many millions of people in Poland, Romania, and the Baltic States – or those whose origins lie there – yet its significance is still strangely unrecognized in the standard western narrative of the war.”
'Nazi-Soviet Pact still barely features in Western narrative'
Moorhouse continued: “Yet, for all that, the Nazi-Soviet Pact still barely features in the Western narrative … When one considers the pact’s obvious significance and magnitude, this is little short of astonishing. Under its auspices, Hitler and Stalin – the two most infamous dictators of 20th-century Europe – found common cause in destroying Poland and overturning the Versailles order. Their two regimes, whose later conflict would be the defining clash of World War Two in Europe, divided Central Europe between them and stood, side by side, for almost a third of the conflict’s entire timespan.
"They traded secrets, blueprints, technology and raw materials, oiling the wheels of each other’s war machines. Stalin was no passive or unwilling neutral in this period, he was Adolf Hitler’s most significant strategic ally.”
According to Moorhouse: “For all these reasons, the German-Soviet strategic relationship – born on 23 August 1939 – fully deserves to be an integral part of our collective narrative of the war. But it isn’t. It is worth speculating for a moment on the myriad reasons for this omission.
"To some extent, it can be attributed to the traditional myopia that appears to afflict the Anglophone world with regard to Central Europe; the mentality so neatly expressed by British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, who dismissed Czechoslovakia in 1938, as 'a faraway country,' inhabited by 'people of whom we know nothing.' 1938 is a long time ago, but to a large extent the sentiment still prevails, in spite of the recent outpouring of support for Ukraine.”
Russia's invasion of Ukraine plunging Europe 'once more into war'
In closing, Moorhouse considers the present-day significance of the 83rd anniversary of the Nazi-Soviet Pact: “Some might imagine that, with Russia’s recent invasion of Ukraine plunging the European continent once more into war, arguments about the finer points of 20th-century history are somehow a luxury that can be ill-afforded.
"I would argue the contrary, however. Russia’s brutal and unprovoked invasion of its neighbour is merely the latest instalment of a bloody continuum; a new offence in a catalogue of crimes – stretching back to the Nazi-Soviet Pact and beyond – which betray the mindset of suspicion, paranoia and naked aggression that has long guided the Kremlin’s world view.
"Now is the time for the scales, finally, to fall from our eyes; for us to realise – in bloody technicolour – the true vicious nature of Europe’s neighbour to the east, and to redouble our efforts in studying and disseminating the darkest chapters of its history. In that endeavour, August 23 can and must play a central, defining role.”
Born in 1968, Moorhouse is an expert in modern German and Polish history, especially the wartime period. His recent publications include First to Fight: The Polish War 1939.
(mk/gs)
