The Nazi-Soviet Pact (1939)

The Government of the German Reich and The Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, directed by the wish to strengthen the cause of peace between Germany and the USSR . . . have reached the following agreement:

Article 1: The two contracting parties undertake to refrain from any act of violence, and aggressive action, or any attack against one another, whether individually or jointly with other powers.

Article 2: In case of the contracting parties should become the object of warlike acts on the part of a third party, the other contracting party will no longer support that third power in any form.

Article 4: Neither of the two contracting parties will participate in any grouping of powers which is indirectly or directly aimed against the other party.

Article 5: Should disputes or conflicts arise between the contracting parties regarding questions of any kind whatsoever, the two parties would clear away these disputes or conflicts solely by means of friendly exchanges of views or if necessary by arbitrary commissions.

Secret Additional Protocol: On the occasion of the signature of the Non-Aggression Treaty between the German Reich and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the undersigned . . . parties discussed in strictly confidential conversations the question of the delimitation of their respective spheres of interest in Eastern Europe. These conversations led to the following result:

1. In the event of a territorial and political transformation in the territories belonging to the Baltic States (Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania), the northern frontier of Lithuania shall represent the frontier of the spheres of interest both of Germany and the USSR. . . .

2. In the event of a territorial and political transformation of the territories belonging to the Polish State, the spheres of interest of both Germany and the USSR shall be bounded approximately by the line of the rivers Narev, Vistula, and San.

3. This Protocol will be treated by both parties as strictly secret.

[Source: Documents in German Foreign Policy (London: HMSO, 1956), series D, vol. 7, pp. 245-247.]

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