Adolf Hitler knew that if he wanted Germany to win this time around, they couldn’t be fighting on two fronts. And Russia, too, was worried about Japan on its eastern border. So in a move that no one expected the world’s most powerful military and the world’s largest nation concluded a non-aggression pact.
On this day August 23rd, in 1939, Germany and Russia sign a non-aggression pact which was intended to continue for 10 years. Under the terms of the agreement, the two split Poland, but the pact was broke soon after, when Germany attacked the Soviet Union.
Germany made every effort to disguise their attack; so as late as a few hours before the attack there were still German trains crossing into Russia. And when they finally launched the attack, the Russian leader Joseph Stalin refused to believe it. He took a long time to order the troops into defensive action.