The Soviet Nazi brotherhood of arms

On September 22, 1939, Nazi and Soviet soldiers held a joint parade in the Polish city of Brest-Litovsk, today the city of Brest in Belarus. This marked the withdrawal of German troops to the demarcation line, secretly agreed upon in the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, and the surrender of this city and its fortress to the Soviet Red Army. The secret protocol of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, signed on August 23, 1939, defined the border between the German and Soviet "spheres of influence". However, during the invasion of Poland, some German forces advanced beyond this line. Approaching Brest–Litovsk on the morning of September 22, Semyon Krivoshein, commander of the Soviet tank brigade, realized that Heinz Guderian, commander of the Nazi XIX Army Corps, had already established his headquarters there. Soon after, Guderian's representatives arrived and greeted the Red Army and its general. After a brief exchange of formalities, Krivoshein offered to visit Guderian and pay his respects in person. During the meeting, Guderian proposed a joint parade of Soviet and German troops through the city, including a group of soldiers from both armies in the central square. As the Soviet troops were tired after a long march, Krivoshein refused, but promised to provide military troops and a few battalions, and agreed to Guderian's request that they both stand up and review the parade together. The parade started at 16:00. The Soviets sent the 4th Battalion of the 29th Light Tank Brigade, the first Red Army unit to reach the city. Soviet and German generals paid tribute to each other's respective armies and victories over Polish forces. After the parade, the Germans retreated to the west bank of the Bug, and the Soviets took control of the city as well as the rest of Eastern Poland. Several historical works published in the 80s and 90s of the last century talk about the joint military parades of the Red Army and the German Wehrmacht in other cities of occupied Poland, such as Białystok, Grodno, Lwow and others, in the first days of October 1939. Russian historians call these facts "a myth", arguing that no evidence has been found to confirm that those parades were organized.