complete political disinterestedness in these areas. The secret protocol shall be treated by both parties as strictly secret. Though the parties denied its existence, the protocol was rumored to exist from the very beginning. The news of the Pact, which was announced by Pravda and Izvestia on August 24, was met with utter shock and surprise by government leaders and media worldwide, most of whom were aware of only the British-French-Soviet negotiations, which had taken place for months. British and French negotiators, who were in Moscow negotiating what they thought would be the military part of an alliance with the Soviet Union, were told "no useful purpose can be served in continuing the conversation." On August 25, Hitler told the British ambassador to Berlin that the pact with the Soviets freed Germany from the prospect of a two front war, thereby changing the strategic situation from that which had prevailed in World War I, and that therefore Britain should accept his demands regarding Poland. However, Hitler was surprised when Britain signed a mutual-assistance treaty with Poland that day, causing Hitler to delay the planned August 26 invasion of western Poland. The pact was ratified by the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union on August 31, 1939. World War II German invasion of western Poland A week after having signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop pact, on September 1, 1939, Nazi Germany invaded its zone of influence in Poland. On September 3, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand and France, fulfilling their obligations to the Second Polish Republic, declared war on Germany. The Second World War broke out in Europe. On September 4, as Britain blockaded Germany at sea, German cargo ships heading towards German ports were diverted to the Soviet Arctic port of Murmansk. On September 8 the Soviet side agreed to pass it by railway to the Soviet Baltic Sea port of Leningrad. At the same time the Soviet Union refused to allow a Polish transit through its territory citing the threat of being drawn into war on September 5. Von der Schulenburg reported to Berlin that attacks on the conduct of Germany in the Soviet press had ceased completely and the portrayal of events in the field of foreign politics largely coincided with the German point of view, while anti-German literature had been removed from the trade. On September 7 Stalin once again outlined a new line for the Comintern that