So I’m finishing up my research for a paper that is due on Thursday and the subject has become increasingly interesting, I must admit. At first, I was not that interested in studying the diplomatic relations between Hitler and Stalin from 1939-1941. For some reason, World War II just doesn’t interest me that much, I don’t know why, I can’t explain it logically I just find myself bored with the story at times. World War II is like the Wal-Mart of wars, and my disdain for Wal-Mart is coincidentally similar to my boredom with World War II - there’s just too much. The Second World War did everything big; genocide, firepower, dictators (at least four counting the latter days of the Vichy), human rights violations commited by ‘civilized powers’ such as the U.S., Japan, Germany, etc. I feel that for the study of World War II we are much better off being what Francis Bacon would have called the ant, gather as much information as you like but infer little. It’s inevitable that the closer one is to any historic moment the more flawed, biased and generally unobjective our view is on the matter. One of my History Instructors at SAHEC (Southeast Area Higher Education Center) once said that you should wait at least 50 years until you study a subject - that would render much work regarding World War II as useless. Now if you pressured me I wouldn’t tell you to do such a thing, throw away numerous scholarly accounts of the war, because it really boils down to a matter of taste. I am still developing my Philosophy of History along with my personal values and attitudes on a number of things, part of growing up I guess, so I will just call my views on World War II a prejudice of a sort. And keeping with traditional prejudice, it has no logical backing whatsoever.
Anyway, this post is about Hitler and Stalin, not my views on the period of World History from 1939-1945. I have read multiple accounts of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact/Nazi-Soviet Pact, its history and consequences. Which is basically the story of the alliance of Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia. Two countries that ideologically hated each other, and somehow moved beyond such ideological quarrels to carve up most of Eastern Europe. In a twisted sort of way, its a beautiful story, something told on Lifetime or Oxygen with different character names and replace ‘carve up most of Eastern Europe’ with ‘love’.
Since I need to get my brain working so I can write the blasted paper I thought I would tell some of the story here. Prior to Hitler’s rise to power, Germany and the USSR shared a diplomatic-commercial-military ‘friendliness’ of sorts. They cooperated up until the author of Mein Kampf became Chancellor. The Soviets inevitablly wanted to know if Hitler and the Nazi government were planning to carry out Hitler’s vision in Mein Kampf, telling Berlin that they understood the difference between ideology and policy - always the pragmatists those Soviets. At a startling speed the two countries experienced a deteriation in relations. The Soviets recognized the threat the Germans posed, with Hitler’s military buildup, and began to make manouvers to check them. The Soviet Union spent much of the 1930s supporting a military doctrine called Collective Security. One neednot go into the details here, the doctrine spells out just how it reads. Of course, for the Soviets to have an effective Collective Security policy they required the help of France and Britain.
Triple alliance negotations began and ended in a rather quick way. The Soviets, especially Stalin, were suspicious of Anglo-French goals and they seemed to suspect that the two powers wanted the Soviets and Nazis to destroy each other. This was probably a hope, but a pipe-dream hope of the two. While these negotiations took place, Berlin began to make tentative overtures to the Russians. Why? Well, we are now in 1939 and Hitler had Poland on the mind. As plans began to finalize themselves and the German Army was prepared to invade, Berlin’s ‘overtures’ began to become more intense. Moscow quickly found itself as the prom date with the overzealous boyfriend. Like the boyfriend, Berlin made a lot of promises for the day after - some kept, others not. So the two ended up signing what various historians and politicians then and now have described as the most notorious diplomatic episode in the history of the world. Quite a description I must admit. The Commintern (Communist International) were baffled, briefly, with what to say - the fascists were the great enemy and now they were the ally. The ideolological shift from enemy to ally and then later back to enemy should not be hard to understand. Americans performed the same dance with their views on the Soviet Union before, during and after the Second World War. The period following the signing of the pact was marked by Hitler taking much of Western Europe and Stalin taking the Baltic and grabbing at the Balkans. Historians seem to regard the latter as the pretext for war Hitler used when he invaded the Soviet Union, June 1941.
Here, we come to Mein Kampf again. Therein we find a passage detailing how Germany’s future lay not in the West but in the East. Some Historians claim that Hitler always planned on invading Russia just as Mein Kampf had claimed, others, say that Britains refusal to lay down and die, coupled with a few key episodes in the Balkans were the reasons, not just the pretext, for invasion.
The reasons matter of course. One was policy and the other was ideology. There is a distinct difference in principle and those leaders who blur the two tend to repeat such blunders as Napoleon’s invasion of Russia in 1812. As I research the two, I have gained a more intimate portrait of Stalin than Hitler. This may because Stalin was the star during this period. He was the prom date who the rest of the world was courting and only Hitler had what it took to win him over - I think it was the mutual love of facial hair.
Anyway, this post is about Hitler and Stalin, not my views on the period of World History from 1939-1945. I have read multiple accounts of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact/Nazi-Soviet Pact, its history and consequences. Which is basically the story of the alliance of Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia. Two countries that ideologically hated each other, and somehow moved beyond such ideological quarrels to carve up most of Eastern Europe. In a twisted sort of way, its a beautiful story, something told on Lifetime or Oxygen with different character names and replace ‘carve up most of Eastern Europe’ with ‘love’.
Since I need to get my brain working so I can write the blasted paper I thought I would tell some of the story here. Prior to Hitler’s rise to power, Germany and the USSR shared a diplomatic-commercial-military ‘friendliness’ of sorts. They cooperated up until the author of Mein Kampf became Chancellor. The Soviets inevitablly wanted to know if Hitler and the Nazi government were planning to carry out Hitler’s vision in Mein Kampf, telling Berlin that they understood the difference between ideology and policy - always the pragmatists those Soviets. At a startling speed the two countries experienced a deteriation in relations. The Soviets recognized the threat the Germans posed, with Hitler’s military buildup, and began to make manouvers to check them. The Soviet Union spent much of the 1930s supporting a military doctrine called Collective Security. One neednot go into the details here, the doctrine spells out just how it reads. Of course, for the Soviets to have an effective Collective Security policy they required the help of France and Britain.
Triple alliance negotations began and ended in a rather quick way. The Soviets, especially Stalin, were suspicious of Anglo-French goals and they seemed to suspect that the two powers wanted the Soviets and Nazis to destroy each other. This was probably a hope, but a pipe-dream hope of the two. While these negotiations took place, Berlin began to make tentative overtures to the Russians. Why? Well, we are now in 1939 and Hitler had Poland on the mind. As plans began to finalize themselves and the German Army was prepared to invade, Berlin’s ‘overtures’ began to become more intense. Moscow quickly found itself as the prom date with the overzealous boyfriend. Like the boyfriend, Berlin made a lot of promises for the day after - some kept, others not. So the two ended up signing what various historians and politicians then and now have described as the most notorious diplomatic episode in the history of the world. Quite a description I must admit. The Commintern (Communist International) were baffled, briefly, with what to say - the fascists were the great enemy and now they were the ally. The ideolological shift from enemy to ally and then later back to enemy should not be hard to understand. Americans performed the same dance with their views on the Soviet Union before, during and after the Second World War. The period following the signing of the pact was marked by Hitler taking much of Western Europe and Stalin taking the Baltic and grabbing at the Balkans. Historians seem to regard the latter as the pretext for war Hitler used when he invaded the Soviet Union, June 1941.
Here, we come to Mein Kampf again. Therein we find a passage detailing how Germany’s future lay not in the West but in the East. Some Historians claim that Hitler always planned on invading Russia just as Mein Kampf had claimed, others, say that Britains refusal to lay down and die, coupled with a few key episodes in the Balkans were the reasons, not just the pretext, for invasion.
The reasons matter of course. One was policy and the other was ideology. There is a distinct difference in principle and those leaders who blur the two tend to repeat such blunders as Napoleon’s invasion of Russia in 1812. As I research the two, I have gained a more intimate portrait of Stalin than Hitler. This may because Stalin was the star during this period. He was the prom date who the rest of the world was courting and only Hitler had what it took to win him over - I think it was the mutual love of facial hair.
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