Hello, and thank you for listening to the history of World War II podcast, episode 139,

Finland, ally to the North.

When German Foreign Minister von Reben-Trop signed the Non-Aggression Act with Soviet Russia

in August of 1939, Finland was relieved.

Clearly, the two leaders did not desire war with each other, nor want war in areas to

the North.

Yet, as we now know, and Russia would not even admit to the secret protocols of the pact

until 1989, the two countries had marked out spheres of influence.

Quote, in the event of a territorial and political rearrangement in the areas belonging to the

Baltic States, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, the Northern Boundary of Lithuania

shall represent the boundary of the spheres of influence, of Germany, and the USSR.

But what this agreement really created was a buffer zone, as neither side rightly so,

trusted each other.

What's more, Stalin was given time to get on with the industrialization of his country,

while Hitler got the freedom he needed to attack Poland.

And both used their gains well.

Poland was subdued, Soviet Russia went on selling its foodstuffs for finished, normally, German

goods, as well as having more time to bring the country and its military up to modern standards.

But Stalin wasn't finished.

Russian negotiations between Soviet Russia and Finland failed, and they were designed to fail,

over a redrawing of their borders, plus Russia's leasing of the port of Hanukkah on the western

end of the Gulf of Finland for 30 years, for the purpose of establishing a naval base,

...