Germany or was simply a German manoeuvre, and expressing the belief that the agreement was merely temporary. To allay any fears of a war against the Soviet Union, on 5 May 1934, Poland renewed the Soviet–Polish Non-Aggression Pact, which had been first signed on 25 July 1932. It was extended until 31 December 1945 despite Hitler’s repeated suggestion to form a German-Polish alliance against the Soviets. A report on the declaration by the Soviet ambassador in Warsaw, Vladimir Osvieyenko, pointed out that the agreement contained no secret terms. German denunciation German policy changed drastically in late 1938, after the annexation of Sudetenland sealed the fate of Czechoslovakia, and Poland became Hitler's next target. In October 1938, German Foreign Minister Joachim Ribbentrop presented Poland with the proposition of renewing the agreement in exchange for allowing the Free City of Danzig to be annexed by Germany and the construction of an extraterritorial motorway and railway through the Polish Corridor, with Germany accepting Poland's postwar borders. Since Poland refused, Hitler denounced the declaration unilaterally on 28 April 1939 during an address before the Reichstag while Germany renewed its territorial claims in Poland. A note to Poland from the German government on 28 April 1939 expressed the view that their denunciation was justified by the signing of the Anglo-Polish alliance. After another few months of rising tension and the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact between Germany and the Soviet Union, which contained a secret protocol by which Hitler and Stalin agreed to divide Poland between them, Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939 which initiated World War II, with the Soviets invading Poland shortly after on 17 September 1939. Legacy Historiography The historical significance of the agreement has been a matter of controversy. The British historian Hugh Seton-Watson, writing in 1945, stated that the 1934 declaration “marked the beginning of German-Polish active cooperation in an aggressive policy in Eastern Europe.” Similarly AJP Taylor writing in his 1961 book The Origins of the Second World War considered that the declaration had removed the possibility of Polish support for France, thus freeing Hitler to take further actions. Later historians have been less critical of the agreement. The American historian Anna Cienciala wrote in 1975 that the agreement, together with the Polish-Soviet non-aggression pact, formed a "policy of equilibrium" whereby Poland's leadership sought to preserve Poland's independence by balancing Poland's relations with Germany and the Soviet Union and thus avoid