Without the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact there would have been no war in Europe. To what extent is this statement accurate?
Within Europe leading up to World War II, the Nazis and Soviets made the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression pacts which negligible of the pact it seems inevitable that the war would have existed as there were many other major factors that provoked the war in Europe. These factors include the unresolved issues of World War One, with the Treaty of Versailles being the main one, Hitler’s actions, one of these being the invasion of Poland, the failure of appeasement and the failure of the League of Nations. With these major factors the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact was only a minor factor in the war in Europe and so without it the war would have still broke out.
On August 23, 1939, enemies Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union signed the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact, in which the two countries agreed to, take no military action against each other for the next 10 years. By signing this pact, Germany had protected itself from having to fight a two-front war and the Soviet Union was awarded land, including parts of Poland and the Blatic States. Soviet leader Stalin viewed the pact as a way to keep his nation on peaceful terms with Germany, while giving him time to build up the Soviet military, while Hitler used the pact to make sure Germany was able to invade Poland unopposed. Historian Ian Kershaw notes in “Hitler: 1936–1945: Nemesis,” the German chancellor was ecstatic. He congratulated his foreign minister and said the pact “will hit like a bombshell.” Hitler had planned on invading Poland from the start as it would bring lebensraum for the German people. According to Hitler’s plan, the “racially superior” Germans would colonise territory. German expansion had begun with the annexation of Austria in 1938 and continued in 1939 with the occupation of the Sudetenland and then all of Czechoslovakia. Both