The Hitler-Stalin Pact: Is History Repeating Itself?
We are seeing a connection developing between some rising German leaders and Russia. This development brings to mind some disturbing history.
Remember that on Aug. 21, 1939, the government of Nazi Germany and the government of the Soviet Union agreed on “a pact of nonaggression” with each other. Two days later, the infamous Molotov-Ribbentrop pact was official. Some people call it the Hitler-Stalin Pact, which it essentially was.
Just a week after this pact was signed, Germany invaded Poland, officially igniting World War ii!
This history is crucial to remember because Germany and Russia are now getting cozy again. That is an indication that war is coming, because these two powers do not love each other. This is purely a marriage of convenience.
In the Trumpet’s October 2008 issue, I wrote: “I believe Germany may well have been complicit in Russia’s plan to attack Georgia.” That statement was backed up by events that happened later. In January 2009, after Moscow shut down its supply of natural gas to Ukraine and Georgia, German Chancellor Angela Merkel met with Russia’s Vladimir Putin and appears to have joined him in forcing Ukraine to back down. The Germans also tacitly supported Russia when it marched into Georgia and virtually took control of the country.
What is going on behind the scenes?
In June 2009, then German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier praised the relationship between Russia and Germany, calling Russia “an indispensable partner for Germany and the European Union” and touting “German-Russian cooperation as a model of interaction, so that both sides will benefit if our potential is united” (emphasis mine throughout).
Stratfor commented on the significance of those statements: “One cannot fault the rest of the world if it takes Steinmeier’s comments with a bit of apprehension. The last time Germany and Russia ‘united their potential,’ the result was the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, which carved up Eastern Europe between the Soviet Union and the Third Reich in 1939. … The last-minute assist by the Kremlin [referring to a business deal that saved German carmaker Opel] might be the first glimpse of a new political alliance developing in Europe” (June 11, 2009).
The September 2009 Trumpet said “this forming Russian-German axis is one of the most significant and underrated trends on the world scene.” It truly is!
In World War ii, these two powers were interested in getting other people’s land and anything else they could possibly get. That is what they were doing!
But at least one modern leader doesn’t seem at all ashamed of his country’s legacy with that bloody pact.
Putin’s Version of History
In November 2014, Putin shocked the world by saying nothing was wrong with the Soviet Union signing that blood-spattered deal. “Serious research must show that those were the foreign-policy methods then. The Soviet Union signed a nonaggression treaty with Germany. People say: ‘Ach, that’s bad.’ But what’s bad about that if the Soviet Union didn’t want to fight; what’s bad about it?”
But the Hitler-Stalin Pact was no declaration of pacifism! And Putin’s historic revisionism won’t make it so! Putin knows very well that the pact included secret protocols that divided Poland, Romania, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Finland into “spheres of influence” for Germany and for the Soviets. Until 1989, the Russians denied these protocols existed, but since then they have acknowledged them.
As a direct result of the protection from each other granted by the pact, both the Soviets and the Nazis ravaged Poland. The ussr captured and executed more than 20,000 Poles in the 1940 Katyn massacre, and the Germans started a campaign that ended up slaughtering around 3 million Polish Jews.
Is that behavior justified because “those were the foreign-policy methods” at the time? Putin’s endorsement of that pact should sober us all. It should wake us up to how dangerous the world is again becoming!
Cooperation in Ukraine War
The world was astounded in 2014 when forces from Russia invaded Ukraine with significantly upgraded operations, remarkably sophisticated technology, and enough operational security to prevent even America’s finest intelligence agencies from seeing it coming.
How did the Russians advance their capabilities so quickly since the days of the Cold War?
The Daily Beast reported on April 22, 2014, that it was thanks in large part to help from Germany: “In 2011 … the German defense contractor Rheinmetall signed a $140 million contract to build a combat simulation training center in Mulino, in southwest Russia, that would train 30,000 Russian combat troops per year. While the facility wasn’t officially scheduled to be completed until later this year, U.S. officials believe that Germany has been training Russian forces for years. … Top defense officials are now acknowledging that Russia’s military has been revolutionized in recent years.”
The Congressional Research Service (crs) reported on April 26, 2012, that Rheinmetall’s partner in the agreement was Russia’s state-owned Oboronservis (Defense Service) company. Together, the two were working to build a training center modeled after one used by the German military. Rheinmetall considered it to be “the most advanced system of its kind worldwide.”
“The German company appears to view the deal as a precursor to additional contracts, stating that ‘In light of the plans to modernize the equipment of the Russian armed forces, the opportunities for follow-on order from the Russian Federation are considerable,’” the crs wrote.
The Daily Beast said American officials were “privately expressing anger and frustration about the German work with the Russian military. … [T]hese officials look at the radical upgrade of Moscow’s forces—especially its special-operations forces—experienced since they last saw major action in 2008’s invasion of Georgia. The U.S. officials believe that some of the German training over the last few years was given to the gru Spetsnaz, the special operations forces that moved unmarked into Crimea and who can now be found stirring up trouble in eastern Ukraine” (op cit).
Even after Russia used its new know-how to annex Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula, Rheinmetall defended its training projects with Russia!
“It’s unfortunate that German companies were directly supporting and training Russia’s military even during the attacks against Ukraine,” one senior Senate aide told the Daily Beast.
As the significance of the warming German-Russian relationship becomes clear, we will all see that it is far more than “unfortunate”!
Links With Bavaria
One interesting aspect of the increasing German contact with Russia is that almost all of it is coming from the Christian Social Union (csu). The csu operates only in the German state of Bavaria. I believe something must be happening behind the scenes to make even the Russians understand that Germany’s real power is going to come from Bavaria. That is where Edmund Stoiber was in power. That is where Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg is from and where he remains staggeringly popular. Guttenberg recently said he has been traveling to Germany about once per month, and it looks like the bulk of these visits are to Bavaria.
We can’t know all that is going on in Germany or Russia, but we do know that Germany will need some kind of a pact like the old Hitler-Stalin agreement before it unleashes its military power. And the Bible prophesies that this is just what Germany is going to do. (For proof, read our e-book “Germany’s Secret Strategy to Destroy Iran.”
Last September, Bavarian State Premier Horst Seehofer said the Syrian situation could not be stabilized without Putin’s help. In a February 12 Center for Strategic and International Studies article, Guttenberg made similar statements: “The West will have to work with … the ‘least bad’ partners in this enterprise [a proposed coalition against jihad], including Russia, and define tactical arrangements for specific goals, including simultaneous joint air strikes, no-fly zones and house-to-house clearing.”
There is a reason these men are working toward such cooperation. When German and Russian leaders start talking about cooperating, and working toward modern equivalents of the old Hitler-Stalin pact, then you need to think about the potential for an imminent war!
