Karol Nawrocki marked the anniversary of the Ribbentrop–Molotov Pact with a message on social media, drawing connections between past aggressions and present dangers. In his statement, he spoke of “unsettled accounts of injustice” and “sick dreams of empire.”
“Eighty-six years ago, Stalin and Hitler signed the Ribbentrop–Molotov Pact, an agreement that opened the path to World War II and cost millions of lives across the world. Poland was the first to fall victim to German, and later Soviet, aggression,” Nawrocki wrote on Saturday. “Germany has still not paid its historical debts, while imperial resentments are once again stirring in Russia. The world must draw lessons from these facts and prevent sick imperial ambitions from destroying more lives,” he added.
The Fourth Partition of Poland — 86 Years Since the Ribbentrop–Molotov Pact
On August 23, 1939, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union signed the Ribbentrop–Molotov Pact, a treaty of non-aggression concluded just days before the German invasion of Poland. This agreement sealed the fate of the Polish Republic and reshaped Central and Eastern Europe.
Because of its secret protocol, the pact is often described as the “Fourth Partition of Poland.” That protocol laid out the division of spheres of influence in the region, fixing the line of separation roughly along the rivers Narew, Vistula, and San — in practice, dividing Poland between Berlin and Moscow. It also envisaged the curtailment, or outright loss, of sovereignty for Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Finland, and Romania. Both Germany and the Soviet Union pledged to cooperate in suppressing Polish aspirations for independence.