At 5 a.m., Moscow time, Ribbentrop and Molotov sign their new treaty, which cynically guarantees the Polish people “living there a peaceful life in keeping with their national character.” A secret clause promises that both counties “will tolerate in their territories no Polish agitation,” and “will suppress…all such agitation.”
Ribbentrop bounces home to Berlin, where he tells his colleagues that his trip to Moscow was like being “among old party comrades.” This statement makes Ribbentrop feel important, but it sickens the old party comrades, like Rosenberg, for whom anti-bolshevism is a religion.
Ribbentrop has a new assignment now – placate the Italians, who are not parties to the Non-Aggression Pact and are dismayed by Hitler’s alliance with Stalin. Ciano expresses Italian outrage in his diary, writing, “Absolute silence from Berlin. As usual, we are told nothing…I tell the Duce that it is very difficult for us to go on like this. The alliance between Moscow and Berlin is a monstrous union against the letter and the spirit of tour Pact. It is anti-Rome and anti-Catholic. It is a return to barbarism, which it is our historic function to resist…That man Ribbentrop is a sinister being and his influence on events is extremely dangerous.”
The new treaty binding Hitler and Stalin eliminates the existence of Poland. Stalin himself inscribes the new border between Germany and the Soviet Union on the River Bug. German troops that have withdrawn to the Vistula to accommodate the Soviet advance now can move forward to the Bug. 22 million Poles are now under German rule, instead of Soviet, hardly a move up.
The Nazis add to Poland’s misery, by initiating their euthanasia program, murdering thousands of mental patients, the chronically ill, and the feeble.
Molotov is a busy man on the 29th. He signs another Treaty of Mutual Assistance, this time with Estonia, forcing the latter nation to give the Soviets the right to occupy Estonia’s naval bases at Narva, Baltiski, Haapsalu, and Parnu. Stalin will not leave a vacuum between the Soviet frontiers and the triumphant Nazi juggernaut. No matter what the treaties say, he wants his tanks facing the German guns.
In New York, Fritz Kuhn, head of the German-American Bund, finally goes to jail for embezzling his supporters.
Maj. Gen. Bernard Law Montgomery’s 3rd Infantry Division ships out from Southampton to France.
The British undertake a national census to obtain information on rationing and mobilization.
After a 25-day interval since the last bombing raid on German warships, 11 Hampdens in two formations are dispatched to search the Heligoland area. Six aircraft bomb two destroyers but score no hits. The second formation, five aircraft of 144 Squadron, does not return. A German radio broadcast says the formation ran into German fighters and all were shot down. Postwar records show that 18 of the 24 aircrew were killed, including the 144 Squadron commander, Wing Commander J.C. Cunningham. One of the RAF planes, flown by Flt. Lt. K.C. Doran, swoops so low over the Admiral Scheer, he can see washing on the pocket battleship’s deck.
That indefatigable Swede, Birger Dahlerus, makes one more try to bring peace, with another offer from Hitler, brought to the British attention via Ogilvie Forbes, a counselor at the British Embassy in Oslo. Now that Poland is dead, the Germans and British have nothing to fight over. Chamberlain answers Hitler’s offer in the House of Commons, saying that the British have gone to war to stop Nazi aggression and nothing has changed that position. Chamberlain, showing unusual steel, warns that Hitler’s assurances assure nothing, and that the Molotov-Ribbentrop suggestion that the war be “liquidated” is meaningless.
Cadogan diaries harshly, “No assurances, no promises, no signatures of present (Nazi) regime are worth anything. Germany must do some deed as evidence of good faith.”
In Berlin, the Germans warn the Western media that should the German and Soviet efforts to bring peace be unsuccessful, “the governments of Germany and Russia will consult each other as to necessary measures.” Bill Shirer writes: “This is ludicrous, but may mean that Russia comes into the war on the side of Germany. The same Nazi circles which last August said that Britain and France wouldn’t fight after the first Nazi-Soviet accord, tonight were sure that the two democracies would agree to stop the war now. They may be wrong again, but I’m not sure.”
Food rationing is introduced in occupied Czechoslovakia.
HMAS Australia, under Capt. R.R. Stewart RN, completes trials after her two-year modernization refit at Sydney and rejoins what is still the Australian Squadron of the Royal Navy. She is the nation’s most modern heavy cruiser.
“We receive first through the press, and then from the ambassadors, the texts of the Moscow agreements,” diaries Ciano. “They deal with an outright partition of Poland, although they contain something that allows us to foresee that on the German side at least there is some intent for a face-saving formula later. The Duce, however, is rather pessimistic and believes that in view of present conditions it is almost impossible to attempt a peaceful solution.”
