Hitler's rise of power in Germany in 1933 posed a serious threat to the Soviet Union. The Nazi leader attacked the Communist state in his speeches and insisted that the German nation had the right to expand eastward for living space ("lebensraum") in areas under Soviet sovereignty.

As Germany proceeded to arm in violation of the Versailles Treaty of 1919, the western powers, Britain and France, raised objections to Hitler's aggression, but pursued a policy of "appeasement" rather than provoke a general war. Soviet leader Joseph Stalin attempted to persuade them to enter into a mutual aid coalition to stop German expansion, but the western countries considered the Soviet state a threat to their own interests. Stalin came to believe that Britain and France would not object if Hitler expanded the German empire at the expense of Soviet security.

These global issues climaxed in 1938 when Hitler took control of Austria and began to demand that Czechoslovakia surrender the region of Sudetenland, which had a large German-speaking ethnic population. Fearing that Germany would lead Europe into a general war over the Sudeten issue, Britain and France ignored Stalin's offer to confront Hitler at that time. Instead, the western powers reached an agreement with Hitler at the Munich Conference of September 1938, allowing Germany to absorb the Sudetenland. Six months later, German armies occupied the remainder of Czechoslovakia, and Hitler began making territorial demands on Poland.

By 1938, the year of the Munich Pact, the career of Sergei Eisenstein was in decline. His early credits included The Battleship Potemkin (1925) and October/Ten Days that Shook the World (1927), but his departure from Soviet "social realism" in the 1930s angered Communist leaders who forced him to repudiate some of his work. Alexander Nevsky enabled him to restore his standing among Soviet leaders.

Fear of a German invasion appears as the movie's major theme. Prince Alexander Nevsky's triumph over the medieval Teutonic knights in the film served both to rally Soviet patriotism and to warn Nazi Germany of the risk of such an invasion. But while Stalin prepared his people for war with Germany, the failure to reach a mutual security agreement with Britain and France led the Soviet leader to seek diplomatic alternatives.

In August 1939, the two dictators, Hitler and Stalin, signed a Non-Aggression Pact, forestalling the invasion that Alexander Nevsky had warned against. (Secret parts of the treaty also allowed the rival countries to occupy different parts of Poland.)

No longer wary of a war against the Soviet Union, Hitler proceeded to attack Poland on September 1, 1939. That aggression prompted Britain and France to declare war against Germany. As World War II began, the Soviet Union was a non-participant, though Soviet troops occupied portions of Poland. And as a logical outcome of the Non-Aggression Pact, the Soviet government withdrew the film Alexander Nevsky from circulation.

Hitler, however, had not changed his mind about fighting the Soviet Union. In June 1941, German troops attacked. Caught by surprise, Soviet armies could not stop the rapid advance of German troops, almost to the gates of Moscow. By withdrawing before the German armies, the Soviets traded land for time, luring Hitler's forces to overextend their lines. At this time, Eisenstein's film, Alexander Nevsky, returned to public favor.

The climatic battles of World War II occurred at Stalingrad in 1943, when the Soviet armies turned the tide of war and began a long and deadly march that brought the Red Army all the way to Berlin in 1945. The Allied nations (Britain, France, the United States, and the Soviet Union) convened judicial trials at Nuremberg to punish German war criminals.

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