gebhk wrote: ↑21 Jan 2020 10:41
Hi Ijadw.
Not sure what point you are making in the last entry.
The question was whether the Germans had allies in 1939. They clearly did even if their agreement with the USSR was not, arguably, a formal alliance.
How did the Soviet Invasion of eastern Poland help Germany? By ending the campaign substantially more quickly than it would have continued otherwise, thus saving the Germans many casualties and expenditure. One could, with equal reasonableness, ask how did the invasion of Normandy in 1944 by the Western Allies help the Soviet Union. However I would also point out that my reference to helping was not the invasion which came later (17 September when the Soviet Union began predominantly 'helping itself') but the minor assistance it gave such as the provision of navigation beacons.
What Germany may or may not have done in some alternative history is immaterial. The question relates only to what the Soviet Union (and Slovakia plus, arguably, Lithuania) actually did.
Germany had no allies in 1939 : selling war/raw materials to countries at war is not a proof of an alliance : Germany sold weapons to the KMT and US sold oil to Japan, but Germany was not an ally of China neither were the US allies of Japan .
The Soviet invasion of Eastern Poland and its occupation of the Baltics were not proofs of a German-Soviet alliance .
Germany attacked the statu quo in September 1939 and enabled the SU to take back the territories it had lost in 1918 . Without the German attack, the SU would not be able to invade Poland and the Baltics .
Slovakia was a German satellite and not an independent country , while Lithuania took back what it lost on Poland ( Vilnius ) while OTOH 15000 Jewish Poles found refuge in Lithuania .And, AFAICS, Britain and France did not declare war on Slovakia, while there was no DOW of Poland to Lithuania .
For having allies, an alliance is needed .And I remember no alliance between Germany and Slovakia . Germany started to have allies in 1940 .