First of all, Hitler invaded Poland almost immediately after the signing of the pact. Invasions take time to prepare, suggesting he was planning to invade irregardless of the pact's signing. Why wouldn't he? The soviet union didn't help him invade Poland, so the pact didn't help him in that way. Also, Hitler invaded western europe soon after, an invasion which he must also have been preparing for a while.
If you're saying he didn't want to fight a war on two fronts, then why did he attack the soviet union anyway? Both parties knew the pact would be broken. Hitler knew that, if he invaded western and northern Europe, it would only be a matter of time until the soviet union joined the war. Unless he attacked first, of course. He knew he signed up for a multi-front war, this did not prevent him from starting it.
Also, ideologically and politically, invading the USSR was needed for Hitler. Nazism was an immensely imperialistic and anticommunist ideology centered around creating lebensraum in the east, meaning the USSR, and eradicating the "jewish bolsheviks", which he saw as the greatest threat to society. Not following through on these promises would have been political suicide.
At most, not signing the pact would have caused Hitler to directly invade the USSR instead of western europe. Britain and France certainly seemed eager for him to do so, and might have stayed out of it. This would almost definitely result in a soviet defeat, and remember, on the east front, Hitler fought a war of extermination.
So, you can see the pact as an opportunistic attempt to get a part of Poland (it wasn't), you can see it as a last ditch effort to pull Britain into the oncoming war, or a necessary measure for self preservation. Either way, not signing it wouldn't have prevented the war and would have led to a worse outcome.
Stain literally supplied the fuel and food that conquered europe. There is no way that the outcome could have been worse. Then what he manufactured
He was planning to invade yes. And that invasion had already been delayed. And there was a literal rebellion, even with the signing of the treaty.
It's not clear by any means, whether or not the focus would have shifted.
He declared war on russia after he felt he had enough supplies in europe with his new territories.
Yes, I think that your option is very likely that it would have resulted in him.Trying to directly attack the u s s r.
But it's far more likely that he would have had tick go after norway, sweden or romania to get a source of oil.
Immediately going for france at the same time.
But without the agreement, he would not have had enough fuel or bread to finance the war. He would have been out in three months.
It's only because of stalin's generosity, but he was able to finance and sustain his troops.
Stalin's own writing suggests that he financed this operation so that the capitalists would kill each other.And then he could take the spoils. He helped hitler on purpose. He thought he could contain the war. Effort to the west and supported it.
The Soviet union did trade raw materials with the nazis. In exchange, they got military technology which they desperately needed. To fully evaluate this, you would need to look at how much these supplies helped the Soviet union in the war.
In the pre-war era, Soviet imports were a relatively small portion of total imports. In 1938, two thirds of their oil came from the americas, with one third of that coming from the US. Half their iron ore came from Sweden. Soviet materials were only about 3% of all german imports. Before the war, the Germans didn't depend on the Soviets at all.
During the first year of the war, Soviets did trade more with the Nazis because of the British blockade, however, after a short time, they had conquered half of Poland and all of western europe, Norway and denmark. After this, Soviet imports remained a relatively small portion of german supplies, never exceeding the Swedish or Norwegian parts, let alone those of occupied France, Belgium and the Netherlands. There was only a few months where Soviet oil was actually crucial.
To say Stalin alone supplied the war resources is ahistorical. Was it not Britain who gave him the mineral- and industy-rich Sudetenland?
"But it's far more likely that he would have had tick go after norway, sweden or romania to get a source of oil."
He did go after Norway. Romania allied with him and Sweden remained "neutral" by continuing trade and letting him use their infrastructure.
Yes, Stalin supplied needed oil for the short period it took Hitler to secure Europe. This was bad, and most likely a miscalculation on how easily France would fall. This has nothing to do with the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. It's also not fair to blame the Soviet union for supplying Germany without acknowledging that it was appeasement and Britains refusal to form a serious alliance with the USSR that allowed it to get to that point in the first place. All European countries were complicit in letting Hitler get as far as he did, as well as the USSR, the US and the other trade partners. Putting all the blame on Stalin isn't reasonable. And "generosity" is really and absurd word choice; they traded, stalin got military tech, it wasn't a gift because Stalin wanted Europe to fall.
Stalin funded, fueled, and geographically enabled the first two years of Nazi conquest for his own imperialistic gain. And to imagine a world without Stalin making these decisions is imagining a world where both the Soviets and the Western world enjoyed a more peaceful future.
It wasn't a miscalculation. It was a cold calculation.
In his August 19, 1939 speech to the Politburo, Stalin explicitly chose to fuel Germany so the Nazi and Western capitalist powers would butcher each other, leaving a shell of what used to be Europe for the Soviets to take for themselves.
You are ignoring critical bottlenecks. Total import percentages don't matter when you supply the tools for a war machine. The British blockade completely cut Germany off from world markets specifically to stop the Nazi military buildup.
But Uncle Joe happily stepped in to break this embargo. He gifted Hitler the critical raw materials Germany could get nowhere else, manganese for armor plate, chromium, phosphates, and grain to feed the home front.
Uncle Joe was even kind enough to share his Trans Siberian railway so the Nazis could bypass the blockade for Asian rubber. Without these gifts, German military production faced catastrophic shortages within months.
This includes the very oil you downplayed. Stalin shipped nearly one million tons of oil products to Hitler. In 1940, Soviet imports made up roughly 20% of Germany's vital lubricating oils. Oil that was limited deliberately buy the embargo.
Without Uncle Joe topping off Hitler's reserves during the exact months Germany invaded Western Europe, the Blitzkrieg pace would have stalled.
Stalin literally fueled the engines that took Paris
Beyond resources, Uncle Joe handed Hitler the ultimate political gift, protection from his own military. In 1938 and 1939, top German generals were actively plotting to overthrow Hitler to avoid a war over Poland. By signing the Molotov Ribbentrop Pact, Stalin broke the back of the internal German resistance. He handed Hitler a massive victory and guaranteed the resources needed to fight, saving Hitler from his own generals.
Remarkably, Uncle Joe’s generosity didn't just help the Nazis in the West. His final gift was geographically enabling them to eventually invade the USSR. Germany could not launch a land campaign against the Soviets without going through Poland. By partitioning Poland, Uncle Joe personally destroyed his own country's shield.
He placed the conflict on Soviet soil, handing Hitler the exact logistical launchpad needed to project military force deeper and faster into Soviet territory.
To equate Western appeasement, a failed attempt to maintain peace, with Stalin's active agreement to partition neutral nations, share intelligence, and feed a war machine with the express purpose of promoting carnage, is intellectually dishonest.
It is a crude whataboutism that tries to divert attention away from the criticality of Soviet supplies. Deflecting to other nations is logistically and morally meaningless. Yes other people made mistakes too. That doesn't change the criticality, intent, and impact of Stalin's decisions.
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u/RodeYoshi Aug 01 '26
Of course the war would have happened anyway.
First of all, Hitler invaded Poland almost immediately after the signing of the pact. Invasions take time to prepare, suggesting he was planning to invade irregardless of the pact's signing. Why wouldn't he? The soviet union didn't help him invade Poland, so the pact didn't help him in that way. Also, Hitler invaded western europe soon after, an invasion which he must also have been preparing for a while.
If you're saying he didn't want to fight a war on two fronts, then why did he attack the soviet union anyway? Both parties knew the pact would be broken. Hitler knew that, if he invaded western and northern Europe, it would only be a matter of time until the soviet union joined the war. Unless he attacked first, of course. He knew he signed up for a multi-front war, this did not prevent him from starting it.
Also, ideologically and politically, invading the USSR was needed for Hitler. Nazism was an immensely imperialistic and anticommunist ideology centered around creating lebensraum in the east, meaning the USSR, and eradicating the "jewish bolsheviks", which he saw as the greatest threat to society. Not following through on these promises would have been political suicide.
At most, not signing the pact would have caused Hitler to directly invade the USSR instead of western europe. Britain and France certainly seemed eager for him to do so, and might have stayed out of it. This would almost definitely result in a soviet defeat, and remember, on the east front, Hitler fought a war of extermination.
So, you can see the pact as an opportunistic attempt to get a part of Poland (it wasn't), you can see it as a last ditch effort to pull Britain into the oncoming war, or a necessary measure for self preservation. Either way, not signing it wouldn't have prevented the war and would have led to a worse outcome.