Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact

The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, officially the Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, was a non-aggression pact between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union signed in Moscow on 24 August 1939 by Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov and German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, with a secret protocol establishing Soviet and German spheres of influence across Eastern Europe. Under that secret protocol, Germany and the Soviet Union agreed to partition Poland, with Latvia, Estonia, Finland and Bessarabia allotted to the Soviet sphere and Lithuania largely to the German sphere; a week after signing, Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939, and the Soviet Union invaded Poland from the east on 17 September. The pact was terminated on 22 June 1941 when Germany launched Operation Barbarossa and invaded the Soviet Union, and after the war Ribbentrop was convicted of war crimes at the Nuremberg trials and executed.