DISINFO: Poles were the first to sign a pact with Hitler in 1934
SUMMARY
Poles were the first to sign a pact with Hitler in 1934, hoping to participate in the “onslaught to the east.” Five years later, in September 1939, Poland paid the price for its treachery and remained on the world map only thanks to the courage of the Red Army.
RESPONSE
This message is part of the Kremlin’s policy of historical revisionism and an attempt to erode the disastrous historical role of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact by stating that other European countries signed various international agreements with Germany throughout the 1930s. The same article contains another disinformation message about Poland planning to partition the USSR. It is impossible to compare the German-Polish Non-Aggression Pact of 1934 with the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact as the former was a standard international agreement aimed at the mutual recognition of borders and a declaration that existing political contradictions would be solved through diplomatic tools. There is no evidence that this pact contained any secret protocols, which assumed common aggressive actions of Germany and Poland against the USSR or other countries. Moreover, the pact did not include any agreements on advanced political, economic and military relations between Poland and Germany. While the Red Army's contribution to the liberation of Poland is a fact, it did not achieve it single-handedly as is often suggested by pro-Kremlin narratives. The article fails to notice that there was a strong resistance movement in Poland, the Home Army, Armia Krajowa. It was one of the largest resistance groups in occupied Europe, numbering over 350,000 soldiers. In August 1944, as the Red Army was approaching the Eastern Suburbs of Warsaw, Armia Krajowa organised an uprising against the Nazis. But the Soviet advance stopped, allowing Germans to regroup and destroy the city during the suppression of the uprising, which lasted 63 days. The Home Army was disbanded on 19 of January 1945 to avoid civil war and armed conflict with the Soviets. Read similar examples of the Russian historical revisionism concerning Poland such as Poland posed a military threat to the USSR in 1938-1939, Nazi Germany considered Poland its best ally, if Poland realised a rational policy in 1939, Moscow would have had a different approach towards it and the German-Polish Non-Aggression Pact of 1934 assumed the partition of the USSR.