Joint Soviet-Nazi military parade held 80 years ago today in Poland

"A radical change for the better in the relations between the Soviet Union and Germany found its expression in the non-aggression pact signed last August. These new, good relations between the USSR and Germany have been tested in practice in connection with events in former Poland, and their strength has been sufficiently proved." - Vyacheslav Molotov, Soviet Foreign Minister,  Speech Delivered on 1 August 1940

Soviet and Nazi soldiers fraternize after conquering Poland in 1939

Eighty years ago on September 22, 1939 a joint Nazi–Soviet military parade in Brest-Litovsk was held to celebrate the successful invasion of Poland.


Soviet troops paid their respects as the Swastika flag was lowered, and Germans moved west to their agreed upon line of partition.  

German and Soviet soldiers salute lowering of the Nazi flag on September 22, 1939 in Poland

Russian chess master and human rights defender, Garry Kasparov, described the event and its significance.

"On September 22, 1939, conquering Soviet and German forces held a joint victory parade in the Polish city of Brest-Litovsk, before the German military withdrew back behind the line agreed by Molotov-Ribbentrop. Less than a year later, the Baltic states were next to be occupied and annexed by the USSR. People who wanted only independence were trapped between two evil superior forces trying to destroy and enslave them."

One day earlier on September 21, 1939 Soviet Commander Vladimir Yulianovich Borovitsky and Nazi General Heinz Guderian in Brest, Poland (now Brest, Belarus) work out the Nazi-Soviet boundary demarcation of occupied Poland.

Soviet Commander Yulianovich Borovitsky and German General Guderian in Brest, Poland

Six days earlier, in the early morning hours of September 17, 1939, the Soviet Union invaded Poland from the East. 

21 days earlier at 4:45am on September 1, 1939 Nazi Germany invaded Poland from the west. This marked the start of World War II.

On August 23, 1939 the Hitler-Stalin Pact (formal name the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact) was signed that publicly proclaimed a non-aggression treaty, but had secret protocols that divided up Central Europe and partitioned Poland.

This was not the first time Nazis and Communists would collaborate nor would it be the last.  This history calls for a deeper reflection on the two ideologies and their commonalities.