DISINFO: Drawing attention to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact is a distortion of the truth
DISINFORMATION CASE DETAILS
  • Outlet: pl.sputniknews.com (archived)*
  • Date of publication: February 04, 2020
  • Outlet language(s): Polish
  • Reported in: Issue 184
  • Countries / regions discussed: UK, France, Germany, Russia
Tags:
Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact Historical revisionism WWII Nazi/Fascist

DISINFO: Drawing attention to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact is a distortion of the truth

SUMMARY

The armies of France and the UK counted 115 divisions against 11 divisions of Nazi Germany. Despite this fact, France and the UK did not do anything – they intentionally gave Hitler the possibility to develop his military might. They could have stopped the war, but they did not do it. The same happened in Munich. That is why drawing attention to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact is a mistake and the distortion of the truth – the treason started in Munich and it was continued on the Western Front.

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 the statements that the USSR was forced to sign this pact; other European countries signed various international agreements with Adolf Hitler, Munich Agreement triggered WWII and various historical conspiracies saying that the Western democracies wanted to inspire a war between Nazism and Communism.

The Munich Agreement (September 30, 1938), indeed, permitted the German annexation of the Sudetenland in western Czechoslovakia. The policy of appeasement towards Adolf Hitler was heavily criticised in Europe and proved to be a disastrous move. World War II began in Europe one year later, on 1 September 1939, when Germany invaded Poland.

The signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was a mutual decision of two totalitarian regimes (Nazi Germany and the Stalinist USSR) aimed at the division of Eastern and Central Europe between these two powers. It is a well-known fact that the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact contained the Secret Supplementary Protocol, which assumed the division of Poland and other Eastern European countries between the USSR and Germany. Thus, the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact enabled the German and Soviet military aggression against Poland in September 1939, which resulted in the occupation of this country by Germany and USSR, triggering the beginning of WWII.

Read similar examples of the Russian historical revisionism concerning this issue - Signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact thwarted the UK’s expansionist plans in Europe, The Molotov-Ribbentrop pact did not violate the rights of the Polish state, The shift of all blame for WWII outbreak at the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact the best example of manipulation of history.

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Cases in the EUvsDisinfo database focus on messages in the international information space that are identified as providing a partial, distorted, or false depiction of reality and spread key pro-Kremlin messages. This does not necessarily imply, however, that a given outlet is linked to the Kremlin or editorially pro-Kremlin, or that it has intentionally sought to disinform. EUvsDisinfo publications do not represent an official EU position, as the information and opinions expressed are based on media reporting and analysis of the East Stratcom Task Force.

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