Counselor of the German Embassy in the USSR Gustav Hilger during the negotiations on the Soviet-German non-aggression pact was Ribbentrop's translator. Hilger was present at Ribbentrop's first meeting with Stalin and Molotov in the Kremlin on August 23, 1939, and at Schulenburg's subsequent night visits to the Kremlin. And it is thanks to his published memoirs that we know what was happening in the offices of Stalin and Molotov, about the reaction of Soviet leaders, their behavior, the general situation and atmosphere of these surreal rendezvous. In his sparse sketches, Hilger showed himself to be a good psychologist and analyst, capable of separating the main from the secondary, distinguishing “playing for the public” from real politics.