Basis Nord - Background

Background

Further information: Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and Nazi–Soviet economic relations

During the summer of 1939, after conducting negotiations with both a British–French group and Germany regarding potential military and political agreements, the Soviet Union chose Germany, resulting in an August 19 German–Soviet Trade Agreement providing for the trade of certain German military and civilian equipment in exchange for Soviet raw materials and the August 23 Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, which contained secret protocols dividing the states of Northern and Eastern Europe into German and Soviet "spheres of influence."

One week after the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact's signing, the partition of Poland commenced with the German invasion of western Poland, followed by the Soviet Union's invasion of Eastern Poland on September 17, which included coordination with German forces.