[ScaniaBoy]

Thanks for posting. A good reminder. However, the author does not go far enough. Hitler would likely not have gained power in Germany if the Nazis and the Soviet secret organs had not cooperated since at least the early 1930s.

There is a lot of writings, both memoirs from the prewar years and academic historical research showing the early collaboration between Hitler and Stalin. For the layman maybe the most easily accessible book is Double Lives by Stephen Koch:

Double Lives

[dfwgator]

Stalin was terrified of the German Communists gaining power because they very well may have taken the reins of the Comintern away from Moscow.

[skepsel]

Soviet-German collaboration predated Hitler by a decade, beginning with the 1922 Treaty of Rapallo and included economic agreements, military-technical cooperation and a 10 year non-aggression pact.