German–Soviet relations date to the aftermath of the First World War. The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, dictated by Germany ended hostilities between Russia and Germany; it was signed on March 3, 1918.Full text in English: The Peace Treaty of Brest-Litovsk; March 3, 1918 A few months later, the German ambassador to Moscow, Wilhelm von Mirbach, was shot dead by Russian Left Socialist-Revolutionaries in an attempt to incite a new war between Russia and Germany. The entire Soviet embassy under Adolph Joffe was deported from Germany on November 6, 1918, for their active support of the German Revolution. Karl Radek also illegally supported communist subversive activities in Weimar Germany in 1919.

From the outset, both states sought to overturn the new order that was established by the victors of World War I. Germany, laboring under onerous reparations and stung by the collective responsibility provisions of the Treaty of Versailles, was a defeated nation in constant turmoil. This and the Russian Civil War made both Germany and the Soviets into international outcasts, and their resulting rapprochement during the interbellum was a natural convergence.Gasiorowski, Zygmunt J. (1958). The Russian Overture to Germany of December 1924. The Journal of Modern History 30 (2), 99–117.Large, J. A. (1978). The Origins of Soviet Collective Security Policy, 1930–32. Soviet Studies 30 (2), 212–236. At the same time, the dynamics of their relationship was shaped by both a lack of trust and the respective governments' fears of its partner's breaking out of diplomatic isolation and turning towards the French Third Republic (which at the time was thought to possess the greatest military strength in Europe) and the Second Polish Republic, its ally. The countries' economic relationship dwindled in 1933, when Adolf Hitler came to power and created Nazi Germany; however, the relationships restarted in the end of 1930s, culminating with the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of 1939 and several trade agreements.

Few questions concerning the causes of World War II are more controversial and ideologically loaded than the issue of the policies of the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin towards Nazi Germany between the Nazi seizure of power and the German invasion of the USSR on June 22, 1941.Haslam, Jonathan (1997). "Soviet-German Relations and the Origins of the Second World War: The Jury Is Still Out". The Journal of Modern History 69: 785–797. A variety of competing and contradictory theses exist, including: that the Soviet leadership actively sought another great war in Europe to further weaken the capitalist nations;Raack, R. C. Stalin's Drive to the West, 1938–1945: The Origins of the Cold War. Stanford, California, 1995, p. 12. that the USSR pursued a purely defensive policy;Geoffrey Roberts, The Soviet Union and the Origins of the Second World War: Russo-German Relations and the Road to War 1933–1941 (New York, 1995), p. 73. or that the USSR tried to avoid becoming entangled in a war, both because Soviet leaders did not feel that they had the military capabilities to conduct strategic operations at that time,Haslam, Jonathan. The Soviet Union and the Struggle for Collective Security in Europe, 1933–39. New York, 1985, pp. 140–41. and to avoid, in paraphrasing Stalin's words to the 18th Party Congress on March 10, 1939, "pulling other nations' (the UK and France's) chestnuts out of the fire."Lukacs, John, June 1941: Hitler and Stalin, Yale University Press, 2006.

The Soviet Union and Weimar Germany

Revolution and end of World War I

The outcome of the First World War was disastrous for both Germany's future and for the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. During the war, the Bolsheviks struggled for survival, and Vladimir Lenin had no option except to recognize the independence of Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland. Moreover, facing a German military advance, Lenin and Leon Trotsky were forced to enter into the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, which ceded large swathes of western Russian territory to the German Empire. On 11 November 1918, the Germans signed an armistice with the Allies, ending the First World War on the Western Front. After Germany's collapse, British, French and Japanese troops intervened in the Russian Civil War.Montefiore 2005, p. 32

Initially, the Soviet leadership hoped for a successful socialist revolution in Germany as part of the "world revolution". However, the attempts to set up soviet-style republics in Germany were local and short-lived (Bavaria: 25 days; Bremen: 26 days; Würzburg: 3 days) or failed altogether (such as the Spartacist uprising). Subsequently, the Bolsheviks became embroiled in the Soviet war with Poland of 1919–1920. Because Poland was a traditional enemy of Germany (see e.g. Silesian Uprisings), and because the Soviet state was also isolated internationally, the Soviet government began to seek a closer relationship with Germany and therefore adopted a much less hostile attitude towards Germany. This line was consistently pursued under People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs Georgy Chicherin and Soviet Ambassador Nikolay Krestinsky. Other Soviet representatives instrumental in the negotiations were Karl Radek, Leonid Krasin, Christian Rakovsky, Victor Kopp and Adolph Joffe.Kochan, Lionel (1950). The Russian Road to Rapallo. Soviet Studies 2 (2), 109–122.

In the 1920s, many in the leadership of Weimar Germany, who felt humiliated by the conditions that the Treaty of Versailles had imposed after their defeat in the First World War (especially General Hans von Seeckt, chief of the Reichswehr), were interested in cooperation with the Soviet Union, both in order to avert any threat from the Second Polish Republic, backed by the French Third Republic, and to prevent any possible Soviet-British alliance. The specific German aims were the full rearmament of the Reichswehr, which was explicitly prohibited by the Treaty of Versailles, and an alliance against Poland. It is unknown exactly when the first contacts between von Seeckt and the Soviets took place, but it could have been as early as 1919–1921, or possibly even before the signing of the Treaty of Versailles.Smith, Arthur L. (1956). The German General Staff and Russia, 1919–1926. Soviet Studies 8 (2), 125–133.Hallgarten, George W. F. (1949) General Hans von Seeckt and Russia, 1920–1922. The Journal of Modern History 21 (1), 28–34.

On April 16, 1920, Victor Kopp, the RSFSR's special representative to Berlin, asked at the German Foreign Office whether "there was any possibility of combining the German and the Red Army for a joint war on Poland".John Erickson, ed., The Soviet High Command: A Military-Political History, 1918–1941, 3rd ed. (London, England: Frank Cass Publishers, 2001), p. 148. This was yet another event at the start of military cooperation between the two countries, which ended before the German invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941.

By early 1921, a special group in the Reichswehr Ministry devoted to Soviet affairs, Sondergruppe R, had been created.Gatzke, Hans W. (1958). Russo-German Military Collaboration during the Weimar Republic. The American Historical Review 63 (3), 565–597. online

Weimar Germany's army had been limited to 100,000 men by the Treaty of Versailles, which also forbade the Germans to have aircraft, tanks, submarines, heavy artillery, poison gas, anti-tank weapons or many anti-aircraft guns. A team of inspectors from the League of Nations patrolled many German factories and workshops to ensure that these weapons were not being manufactured.

Treaty of Rapallo 1922 and secret military cooperation

The Treaty of Rapallo between Weimar Germany and Soviet Russia was signed by German Foreign Minister Walther Rathenau and his Soviet colleague Georgy Chicherin on April 16, 1922, during the Genoa Economic Conference, annulling all mutual claims, restoring full diplomatic relations, and establishing the beginnings of close trade relationships, which made Weimar Germany the main trading and diplomatic partner of the Soviet Union.Full text in English: German-Russian Agreement; April 16, 1922 (Treaty of Rapallo) .

Rumors of a secret military supplement to the treaty soon spread. However, for a long time the consensus was that those rumors were wrong, and that Soviet-German military negotiations were independent of Rapallo and kept secret from the German Foreign Ministry for some time. This point of view was later challenged.Gordon H. Mueller, "Rapallo Reexamined: A New Look at Germany's Secret Military Collaboration with Russia in 1922" Military Affairs (1976) 40#3, 109–117. excerptKretschmer, Ernst (1930). Germano-Russian trade relations and the Five-Year Plan. Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics 6 (1), 111–133.Fraenkel, Ernst (1940). German-Russian Relations Since 1918: From Brest-Litovsk to Moscow. The Review of Politics 2 (1), 34–62 On November 5, 1922, six other Soviet republics, which would soon join the Soviet Union, agreed to adhere to the Treaty of Rapallo as well.Full text in English: Supplementary Agreement to the German-Russian Agreement; November 5, 1922

The Soviets offered Weimar Germany facilities deep inside the USSR for building and testing arms and for military training, well away from Treaty inspectors' eyes. In return, the Soviets asked for access to German technical developments, and for assistance in creating a Red Army General Staff.Gatzke, Hans W. (1958). Russo-German Military Collaboration during the Weimar Republic. The American Historical Review 63 (3), 565–597.

The first German officers went to Soviet Russia for these purposes in March 1922. One month later, Junkers began building aircraft at Fili, outside Moscow, in violation of Versailles. The joint factory built Junkers' most recent all-metal designs. Soviet aircraft designers learned new techniques at the factory, such as Andrei Tupolev and Pavel Sukhoi. After the factory was turned over to Soviet use, Soviet adaptations of the Junker bombers were manufactured there, such as the Tupolev TB-1 and Tupolev TB-3.

The great artillery manufacturer Krupp was soon active in the south of the USSR, near Rostov-on-Don. In 1925, a flying school was established near Lipetsk (Lipetsk fighter-pilot school) to train the first pilots for the future Luftwaffe. Since 1926, the Reichswehr had been able to use a tank school at Kazan (Kama tank school) and a chemical weapons facility in Saratov Oblast (Tomka gas test site). In turn, the Red Army gained access to these training facilities, as well as military technology and theory from Weimar Germany.Dyakov, Yu. L. & T. S. Bushueva. The Red Army and the Wehrmacht. How the Soviets Militarized Germany, 1922–1933, and Paved the Way for Fascism. New York: Prometheus Books, 1995.

The Soviets offered submarine-building facilities at a port on the Black Sea, but this was not taken up. The Kriegsmarine did take up a later offer of a base near Murmansk, where German vessels could hide from the British. During the Cold War, this base at Polyarnyy (which had been built especially for the Germans) became the largest weapons store in the world.

Documentation