The agreement effectively normalised relations between Poland and Germany, which had been strained by border disputes arising from the territorial settlement in the Treaty of Versailles.

[3] In 1925, under the Locarno treaties, it was agreed that France would never send forces into Germany outside of its own occupation zone in the Rhineland and that both Britain and Italy would guarantee the Franco-German border against any attempt to change it from either side.

One of the most noted of Józef Piłsudski's foreign policies was his rumoured proposal to France to declare war on Germany after Adolf Hitler had come to power, in January 1933.

Some historians speculate that Piłsudski may have sounded out France on the possibility of joint military action against Germany, which had been openly rearming in violation of the Treaty of Versailles.

It has been argued that Piłsudski had the Polish embassy start rumours about a "preventive war" to pressure the Germans, who were demanding for Poland to abrogate its 1921 Franco-Polish alliance.

On the Polish side this was promoted by Beck making what Moltke interpreted as "a veiled proposal for direct contact with Germany" in April 1933.

Hitler for his part encouraged this by stating on 2 May 1933 by saying to Wysocki that he did not "...share the view that questions Poland's right to exist...", and then on 17 May saying in a speech to the Reichstag that he did not believe that it was possible to "...make Germans out of Poles...".

However, by the next month the Polish ambassador in Berlin had already asked Hitler whether the loss of security caused to Poland by Germany's exit from the talks might be compensated by "...direct German-Polish relations...".

The German side proposed a draft declaration to this effect that was accepted in principle by the Polish government, and after a month the talks on the text of the agreement were quickly concluded in January 1934.

[23] An additional benefit Poland received from the declaration was that it enabled the Polish foreign minister, Józef Beck, to have a line of direct communication with Berlin regarding developments in the Free City of Danzig.

Beneš, speaking to Joseph Addison (the British ambassador in Prague), claimed that the agreement was a "stab in the back" and went on to say that it showed that Poland was a "useless country" that deserved another partition.

[33] German policy changed drastically in late 1938, after the annexation of Sudetenland sealed the fate of Czechoslovakia, and Poland became Hitler's next target.

[36] The signing of the Anglo-Polish agreement prompted Hitler to seek a rapprochement with Moscow, an offer that was positively received by the Soviet Union.

[38] 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.”[39] 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.

[21] Piotr S. Wandycz writing in 1986 criticised the view of AJP Taylor as giving insufficient weight to the assurances the declaration gave regarding Poland's alliance with France, and not taking into account that both Beck and Piłsudski were aware that the agreement would not hold for long.

[40] On 1 September 2009, on the 70th anniversary of the beginning of the Second World War, Russia's foreign intelligence agency, the SVR, declassified documents it said were gathered by undercover agents between 1935 and 1945 allegedly showing that Poland secretly conspired with Germany against the Soviet Union.

[41] In his 2024 interview with Tucker Carlson, Vladimir Putin made reference to the conspiracy theory that Poland had "collaborated with Hitler" by signing the declaration.

Historian and professor emerita at the London School of Economics Anita J. Prazmowska stated in an interview with the BBC that "The accusation that the Poles were collaborating is nonsense," and that the declaration was essentially diplomatic outreach by Poland to a threatening neighbour.