The Daily History Chronicle

On August 23, 1939, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union signed a public promise of peace and a secret plan to erase three nations' independence. Stalin treated it as a pragmatic delay of a war he thought inevitable, Hitler treated it as the green light for invasion, and the Poles, Balts, and Finns it carved up never had a vote in any of it. This episode traces the treaty from the Kremlin toast to the invasion of Poland eight days later, and asks what a peace agreement is worth when the people it decides for are never in the room.