The devils' alliance

Description

Explores the causes and implications of the Nazi-Soviet Pact, an unholy covenant whose creation and dissolution were crucial turning points in World War II. Forged by the German foreign minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop, and his Soviet counterpart, Vyacheslav Molotov, the nonaggression treaty briefly united the two powers in a brutally efficient collaboration. Together, the Germans and Soviets quickly conquered and divided central and eastern Europe; Poland, the Baltic States, Finland, and Bessarabia. The human cost was staggering: during the two years of the pact hundreds of thousands of people in central and eastern Europe caught between Hitler and Stalin were expropriated, deported, or killed.

Description

For nearly two years the two most infamous dictators in history actively collaborated with one another. The Nazi-Soviet Pact stunned the world when it was announced, the Second World War was launched under its auspices with the invasion and division of Poland, and its eventual collapse led to the war's defining and deciding clash. It is a chapter too often skimmed over by popular histories of the Second World War, and in The Devils' Alliance Roger Moorhouse tells the full story of the pact between Hitler and Stalin for the first time, from the motivation for its inception to its dramatic and abrupt end in 1941 as Germany declared war against its former partner. Using first-hand and eye-witness testimony, this is not just an account of the turbulent, febrile politics underlying the unlikely collaboration between these two totalitarian regimes, but of the human costs of the pact, as millions of eastern Europeans fell victim to the nefarious ambitions of Hitler and Stalin.

Subjects

Other Editions

• The devils' alliance: Hitler's pact with Stalin, 1939-1941Basic Books, a member of the Perseus Books Group2014-01-01
• The devils' allianceThe Bodley Head Ltd2014
• Devils' AlliancePenguin Random House2016-01-01