Before invading Poland, hitler reached a secret agreement the

Hitler signed a secret treaty with the Soviet Union, the Ribentropp-Molotov Pact. It was a non-aggression accord that allowed both states to buy time. In the document, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union also agreed to divide Poland between themselves. The USSR would occupy eastern Polish territories, and Germany would occupy Polish territory in the west and in the center. The pact was signed on August 23, 1939 - just a week before the German invasion of Poland - by the Soviet and the Nazi foreign ministers Vyacheslav Molotov and Joachim von Ribbentrop.

On August 23, 1939-shortly before World War II (1939-45) broke out in Europe-enemies Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union surprised the world by signing the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact, in which the two countries agreed to take no military action against each other for the next 10 years.