Operacion barbarroja hitler biography

German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact

In August 1939, Germany signed a mutual non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union, then led by Joseph Stalin, in which the two nations agreed not to take military action against each other for a period of 10 years.

Given the long history of bitter conflict between the two nations, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact surprised the world and dismayed France and Britain, who had signed their own agreement with Hitler’s regime only to see it violated when Germany invaded Czechoslovakia earlier that year.

Hitler wanted to neutralize an existing mutual defense treaty between France and the Soviet Union and ensure the Soviets would stand by when Germany invaded its next target: Poland.

The pact included secret plans to divide Poland into spheres of influence, with Germany annexing the western half of the country and the Soviet Union the east.

Eastern Front

On September 3, 1939, two days after Nazi Germany invaded Poland, France and Britain declared war on Ger