In The Secret Protocol, Antonella Salomoni offers a meticulously researched and compelling account of the Nazi–Soviet Pact and its secret protocols, situating the agreement not only in the diplomatic crisis of 1939 but also in the decades-long struggle over its documentation, interpretation, and political afterlife. As such, Salomoni moves well beyond a conventional diplomatic history of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. Instead, she reconstructs the pact’s origins, implementation, exposure at Nuremberg, suppression throughout the Soviet period, and eventual reemergence during perestroika and after, demonstrating how one document—and efforts to conceal it—shaped both the outbreak of the Second World War and subsequent global history.

The opening chapter is particularly valuable, as Salomoni reproduces the text of the agreement while embedding it in the context of German-Soviet rapprochement in spring 1939, including Stalin’s public overtures. This approach ensures that the author does not “waste space” on discussing what is one of the most important historical documents of human history. She pays careful attention to the mechanics of the pact’s signing, including Adolf Hitler’s verbal approval by telephone after the draft had been prepared. Such details underscore the degree to which the highest levels of both regimes were engaged in the agreement. Salomoni also traces subsequent modifications to territorial demarcations and incorporates the later German–Soviet Boundary and Friendship Treaty, making clear that the August 23 pact was only the beginning of a broader and evolving arrangement. This careful attention to resources and the story of the agreement positions it as the authoritative text on the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.

A notable strength of the book is its insistence that the pact was immediately made public—except for the secret protocol—and that contemporaries instantly recognized its significance. Salomoni examines editorial reactions in Germany and the USSR, while also addressing the ideological dissonance the agreement produced within the USSR and among communist parties worldwide. Here, she captures the internal debates and official justifications that accompanied the ideological hoops the USSR was forced to embrace.

The heart of the book, however, lies in Salomoni’s forensic reconstruction of the secret protocols’ documentary trail. She links the agreements to evidence introduced at the Nuremburg trials, particularly testimony from Ulrich Friedrich-Wilhelm Joachim von Ribbentrop, clarifying the relationship between the original pact and the subsequent Boundary and Friendship Treaty. Her account of German–Soviet communications during the invasion of Poland—including Ribbentrop’s urgings for Soviet military action—illuminates the extent of Soviet complicity in the partition of Poland and the outbreak of war.

Perhaps the book’s most original contribution is its detailed account of the seizure, preservation, and organization of German archives by the victorious Allies. Salomoni reconstructs the “chain of custody” for important documents with remarkable precision, cataloguing how the protocols were catalogued, disseminated, and introduced at Nuremberg. She also explores what evidence was permitted or excluded at the trials and the Soviet delegation’s persistent attempts to suppress the secret protocol. At times, her argument reads like a procedural drama, as Salomoni follows the steps by which prosecutors and judges came to recognize Soviet participation in the partition of Poland, even as Moscow tried to revise history.

Perhaps the most surprising part of the book is how Salomoni traces the protocols’ contested status in the late Soviet period. She details rumors circulating within the USSR, official denials in Pravda, and the gradual politicization of historical reckoning during perestroika, particularly in the Baltics and allied Poland. Her details surrounding the Yakovlev Commission, which confirmed the existence of the secret protocols in the USSR’s final years, and the revelation that even senior officials were denied access to key archival materials illustrates Soviet attempts to suppress history. The book concludes by linking these struggles over documentation and acknowledgment to contemporary Russian memory politics, including the rehabilitation of Stalinist foreign policy under Vladimir Putin.

This is an incredibly well-researched and written account of the Nazi–Soviet Pact, encompassing its signing, its public reception, and the protracted Soviet campaign to suppress and reinterpret the secret protocols. For readers interested in the history and politics that shaped the modern world, the book unfolds like a carefully assembled evidentiary brief, complete with chain of custody, corroborating testimony, and primary-source cross-referencing. In demonstrating how the secret protocols were drafted, hidden, exposed, denied, and ultimately acknowledged, Salomoni shows the “life cycle” of why this agreement remains one of the most consequential documents of the twentieth century—and why the struggle over its meaning continues to shape our globe today.