German-Polish Non-Aggression Pact

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The German-Polish Non-Aggression Pact (German: deutsch-polnischer Nichtangriffspakt, Polish: Polsko-niemiecki pakt o nieagresji) was an international treaty between Nazi Germany and the Second Polish Republic signed on January 26, 1934. In it, both countries pledged to resolve their problems through bilateral negotiations and to forgo armed conflict for a period of ten years. It effectively normalized relations between Poland and Germany, which were previously strained by border disputes arising from the territorial settlement in the Treaty of Versailles. As a consequence of the treaty, Germany effectively recognized Poland's borders and moved to end an economically damaging customs war which existed between the two countries during the previous decade.

Józef Piłsudski used Adolf Hitler's rise to power and international isolation of Germany's new regime as an opportunity to reduce the risk that Poland would become the first victim of German aggression or of a Great Power deal (especially the Four Power Pact). Germany's new rulers seemed to depart from the traditionally Prussian anti-Polish orientation. Piłsudski regarded the new chancellor as less dangerous than his immediate predecessors, going back to Gustav Stresemann, and saw the Soviet Union as the greater threat, to the point where he opposed French and Czechoslovak efforts to include the Soviet Union in a common front against Nazi Germany.

In the text of the treaty the Poles insisted on stating that it did not nullify any previous international agreements, in particular the crucial alliance between Poland and France. Nevertheless, by easing Poland's disputes with Germany bilaterally, the treaty did weaken France's diplomatic position versus Germany. Poland's leader, Józef Piłsudski, first suggested to France that a preventive war should be launched against Nazi Germany, but the French were not interested [1]. Under these circumstances, Poland decided to seek a rapprochement with Germany instead. To allay any fears that the warming of relations between Poland and its western neighbor were anything but peaceful, on May 5, 1934 Poland renewed the Polish-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact, first signed in July 25, 1932.

As a consequence of the treaty, Poland was able to maintain friendly relations with Germany for the next five years, while maintaining good relations with France and Great Britain, though it may have also led to foreign policy inattentiveness regarding the activities of the crumbling League of Nations and disinterest in the collective security schemes proposed by French in the early 1930s.

German policy changed drastically in late 1938, after the annexation of Sudetenland sealed the fate of Czechoslovakia and Poland became Hitler's next target. In October 1938 the Nazi foreign minister Joachim Ribbentrop presented Poland with the proposition of renewing the nonaggression treaty in exchange for allowing the Free City of Danzig (Gdańsk) to be annexed by Germany and for permitting the building of an extraterritorial motorway and railway between East Prussia and Germany proper through Polish Pomorze (the Danzig Corridor proposal). Poland refused to accept these demands. As a consequence, the non-aggression pact was unilaterally abrogated by Adolf Hitler on April 28, 1939 [2], during an address before the Reichstag, as Germany renewed its territorial claims in Poland. After another few months of rising tension, Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, initiating the Second World War.

[edit] See also

Soviet-Polish Non-Aggression Pact

[edit] References

Piotr Stefan Wandycz, The twilight of French eastern alliances. 1926-1936. French-Czecho-Slovak-Polish relations from Locarno to the remilitarization of the Rheinland., Princeton University Press, 1988 (republished in 2001). ISBN 1-59740-055-6