MAPS OF HISTORY · ON THIS DAY · AUGUST 23 · Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact signed (1939)ON THIS DAY · 23 AUGUST 1939
Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact signed
Ribbentrop flies to Moscow: the century’s two loudest enemies sign a pact — with a secret map dividing Eastern Europe between them.
23 AUGUST 1939 · THE WAR ROOM — WW2, 1936–1945 These maps are reconstructed from published sources · Cliopatria v0.2.1 — dated political boundaries · United States Holocaust Memorial Museum — Danzig and German annexation in September 1939 · United States Holocaust Memorial Museum — German territorial expansion · IGM Fiume, 1:25,000, sheet53B II SE — boundary established in1924 · Natural Earth — physical reference geography · Yugoslavia (1929–1939) location map — international frontier and Adriatic coast · Treaty of Rome (1924), division of Fiume and west-bank boundary · Murli / rowanwindwhistler — Slovakia border changes, 1938–1945 · United States Holocaust Memorial Museum — The Holocaust in Slovakia · Slovak Nation’s Memory Institute — The First Vienna Award
Source details Cliopatria contributors / Seshat Global History Databank. CC BY4.0 · Dated polity and constituent territory selections; campaign-dependent occupation overlays reconstructed separately. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum — Danzig and German annexation in September 1939. Historical chronology consulted; no source prose or artwork republished United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Historical dates consulted; no prose or image copied Istituto Geografico Militare, Fiume (printed1946; 1927 survey with1931–1940 updates), reproduced by Istituto regionale per la storia della Resistenza e dell’Età contemporanea nel Friuli Venezia Giulia. Independent reconstruction from graticule coordinates and boundary observations; archive page reserves artwork rights.. Geographical-fact reconstruction; original archive artwork not distributed Natural Earth. Public domain NordNordWest/Wikipedia. Converted from the published SVG to WGS84; eastern Italian regional territory extracted. Source cites Velhagen & Klasings Großer Volksatlas (1938).. CC BY-SA 3.0 Germany 1924 agreement interpreted alongside the regional history institute and City of Rijeka’s explanation of the Donja/Gornja Drenova division.. Historical geographic facts; citation only Murli; SVG adaptation by rowanwindwhistler (2021). CC BY-SA 2.5; derived geographic paths under the same license · Georeferenced actual published vector regions using eight printed city positions; no map artwork or labels in the atlas. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum — The Holocaust in Slovakia. Historical chronology consulted; no source prose or artwork republished Slovak Nation’s Memory Institute — The First Vienna Award. Historical territorial chronology consulted; no source artwork or prose republished Danzig is shown under German control from September 1939, using the annual source’s free-city outline for its geometry.
Slovak territory is reconstructed from the published 1938–1945 border-change map, which separates the client state from Hungarian and German annexations. This regional source does not resolve small northern frontier changes or survey-level detail. After August 1944, German military occupation supersedes the client-state fill.
The eastern Italian frontier uses the published 1930s regional map and a reconstruction of the 1924 Fiume boundary. Source conquests after April 1941 remain separately dated.
The dates of published political outlines retain the resolution available in their sources. Military fronts and operational perimeters have their own source and method records.
reconstruction: 1936–1939 · reconstruction: 1936–1940 · reconstruction: 1936–1941 · reconstruction: 1936–1942 · reconstruction: 1936–1944 · reconstruction: 1939-09-28;1940 source reference · reconstruction: 1939.75 · reconstruction: 1939–1939 · reconstruction: 1939–1944 · vector: 1912–1955 · vector: 1920–1939 · vector: 1924–1940 · vector: 1927–1939 · vector: 1936–1939 · vector: 1936–1941 · vector: 1936–1945 · vector: 1938–1939 · vector: 1938–1972 · vector: 1939–1939 · vector: 1939–1944 · vector: 1939–2023 · vector: September 1939
Layer records and reconstruction methods
The moment in context In August 1939 Hitler and Stalin made a bargain that gave each of them room to pursue an immediate goal. Their regimes remained ideological enemies, and both leaders expected a later struggle. For the moment, however, Hitler wanted to attack Poland without facing the Soviet Union at the same time. Soviet grain, oil, and metals would also help Germany withstand a British blockade.
From Invasion of Poland , chapter 2 of The War Room — WW2, 1936–1945 (SEP 1939).
Teach this in 5 minutes Why it happened — Soviet distrust after Munich. Munich had excluded the Soviet Union. Stalin doubted that Britain and France would make an effective anti-German alliance, whereas a deal with…The turn — First shots, 1 September, 04:47. The battleship Schleswig-Holstein opened fire on the Polish depot at Westerplatte at 04:47 on 1 September. The 182 defenders held out for seven…What it changed — The Phoney War begins. For eight months after Britain and France entered the war, the western land front was largely inactive. During this “Phoney War,” Germany had time…Then ask the room: Why would two sworn ideological enemies — fascism and communism — sign a pact? The argued answer is on the chapter page →
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