- noiembrie 1918 – Revoluția germană – abdicarea regelui Wilhelm II (Prăpușirea monarhiei, instalarea republicii) -

- 11 noi – semnarea armistițiului și capitularea Germaniei- Iunie 1919 – semnarea Tratatului de la Versailles (Negocierile, contrar tradiției

post-război, au exclus părțile învinse). Efectul socio-economic+psihologic a fost consolidarea nazismului

- August 1919 se încheie revoluția germană când se instalează Republica Weimar (= o republică parlamentară, titulatura fiind dată de orașul Weimar unde a avut loc Adunarea Constituțională) = 14 ani de existență, până la ascensiunea lui Hitler

Soviet–German relations date to the aftermath of the First World War. The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk,[1] ending World War I hostilities between Russia and Germany, was signed on 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 overthrow the system 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 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.[2][3] 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.

Cooperation ended in 1933, as Adolf Hitler came to power and created Nazi Germany. The countries' economic relationship dwindled at the beginning of the Nazi era, but some diplomatic initiatives continued through the 1930s, culminating with the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of 1939 and various trade agreements. Few questions concerning the origins of the Second World War 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.[4]

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;[5] that the USSR pursued a purely defensive policy;[6] 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, [7] and to avoid, in paraphrasing Stalin's words to the 18th Party Congress on March 10, 1939, "pulling other nation's (the UK and France's) chestnuts out of the fire."

Revolution, end of World War I and the Treaty of Rapallo

The outcome of the First World War was disastrous for both German Reich and Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. During the war, the Bolsheviks struggled for survival, and Vladimir Lenin had no option except 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,[9]

which ceded large swathes of western Russian territory to the German Empire. On 11 November 1918, the Germans signed 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.[10]

Initially, the Soviet leadership hoped for a successful socialist revolution in Germany as part of the "world revolution". However, this was put down by the right-wing freikorps. Subsequently, the Bolsheviks became embroiled in the Soviet war with Poland of 1919-20. As Poland was a traditional enemy of Germany (see e.g. Silesian Uprisings), and the Soviet state was also isolated internationally, the Soviet government started adopting a much less hostile attitude towards Germany, seeking closer relationships. 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.[11]

In the 1920s, many in the leadership of Weimar Germany, humiliated by the conditions of the Treaty of Versailles 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.[12][13]

On April 15, 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". 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 set up.[14]

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.

The Treaty of Rapallo between Weimar Germany and the Soviet Union 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 trade and diplomatic partner of the Soviet Union.[15] 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.[14] This point of view was later challenged.[16][17][18] On November 5, 1922, six other Soviet republics, which would soon become part of the Soviet Union, agreed to adhere to the Treaty of Rapallo as well.[19]

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.[20]

The first German officers went to the Soviet state for these purposes in March, 1922. One month later, Junkers began building aircraft at Fili, outside Moscow, in violation of Versailles. 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 at Vivupal, near Lipetsk, to train the first pilots for the future Luftwaffe.[2] Since 1926, the Reichswehr had been able to use a tank school at Kazan (codenamed Kama) and a chemical weapons facility in Samara Oblast (codenamed Tomka). In turn, the Red Army gained access to these training facilities, as well as military technology and theory from Weimar Germany

Relations in the 1920s

Since the late nineteenth century, Germany, which has few natural resources,[22][23] had relied heavily upon Russian imports of raw materials.[24] Before World War I, Germany imported 1.5 billion German Reichsmarks of raw materials and other goods per year from Russia.[24] This fell after World War I, but after trade agreements signed between the two countries in the mid-1920s, trade had increased to 433 million Reichsmarks per year by 1927.[25] In the late 1920s, Germany helped Soviet industry begin to modernize, and to assist in the establishment of tank production facilities at the Leningrad Bolshevik Factory and the Kharkov Locomotive Factory.

The Soviets offered submarine-building facilities at a port on the Black Sea, but this was not taken up. The German Navy did take up a later offer of a base near Murmansk, where German vessels could hide from the British. One of the vessels that participated in the

invasion of Norway came from this base. During the Cold War, this base at Polyarnyy (which had been built especially for the Germans) became the largest weapons store in the world.

Most of the documents pertaining to secret German-Soviet military cooperation were systematically destroyed in Germany.[26] The Polish and French intelligence communities of the 1920s were remarkably well-informed regarding the cooperation. This did not, however, have any immediate effect upon German relations with other European powers. After World War II, the papers of General Hans von Seeckt and memoirs of other German officers became available,[14] and after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, a handful of Soviet documents regarding this were published.[27]

Alongside the Soviet Union's military and economic assistance, there was also political backing for Germany's aspirations. On July 19, 1920, Victor Kopp told the German Foreign Office that Soviet Russia wanted "a common frontier with Germany, south of Lithuania, approximately on a line with Białystok".[citation needed] In other words, Poland was to be partitioned once again. These promptings were repeated over the years, with the Soviets always anxious to stress that ideological differences between the two governments were of no account; all that mattered was that the two countries were pursuing the same foreign policy objectives.

On December 4, 1924, Victor Kopp, worried that the expected admission of Germany to the League of Nations (Germany was finally admitted to the League in 1926) was an anti-Soviet move, offered German Ambassador Ulrich Graf von Brockdorff-Rantzau to cooperate against the Second Polish Republic, and secret negotiations were sanctioned. [2]

However, the Weimar Republic rejected any venture into war.

In 1925, several Rote Hilfe members were put on trial in Leipzig in what was known as the Cheka Trial.

Germany's fear of international isolation due to a possible Soviet rapprochement with France, the main German adversary, was a key factor in the acceleration of economic negotiations. On October 12, 1925, a commercial agreement between the two nations was concluded.[28]

Also in 1925, Germany broke their European diplomatic isolation and took part in the Locarno Treaties with France and Belgium, undertaking not to attack them. The Soviet Union saw western détente as potentially deepening its own political isolation in Europe, in particular by diminishing Soviet-German relationships. As Germany became less dependent on the Soviet Union, it became more unwilling to tolerate subversive Comintern interference.[3]

On April 24, 1926, Weimar Germany and the Soviet Union concluded another treaty (Treaty of Berlin (1926)), declaring the parties' adherence to the Treaty of Rapallo and neutrality for five years. The treaty was signed by German Foreign Minister Gustav Stresemann and Soviet ambassador Nikolay Krestinsky.[29] The treaty was perceived as an

imminent threat by Poland (which contributed to the success of the May Coup in Warsaw), and with caution by other European states regarding its possible effect upon Germany's obligations as a party to the Locarno Agreements. France also voiced concerns in this regard in the context of Germany's expected membership in the League of Nations.[30]

In 1928, the 9th Plenum of the Executive Committee of the Comintern (international communist organization) and its 6th Congress in Moscow favored Stalin's program over the line pursued by Comintern Secretary General Nikolay Bukharin. Unlike Bukharin, Stalin believed that a deep crisis in western capitalism was imminent, and he denounced the cooperation of international communist parties with social democratic movements, labelling them as social fascists, and insisted on a far stricter subordination of international communist parties to the Comintern, that is, to Soviet leadership. The policy of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) under Ernst Thälmann was altered accordingly. The relatively independent KPD of the early 1920s underwent an almost complete subordination to the Soviet Union.[31][32]

Relying on the foreign affairs doctrine pursued by the Soviet leadership in the 1920s, in his report of the Central Committee to the 16th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (b) on June 27, 1930, Joseph Stalin welcomed the international destabilization and rise of political extremism among the capitalist powers.[33]

Early 1930s

The most intensive period of Soviet military collaboration with Weimar Germany was 1930-1932. On June 24, 1931, an extension of the 1926 Berlin Treaty was signed, though it was not until 1933 that it was ratified by the Reichstag due to internal political struggles. Some Soviet mistrust arose during the Lausanne Conference of 1932, when it was rumored that German Chancellor Franz von Papen had offered French Prime Minister Édouard Herriot a military alliance. The Soviets were also quick to develop their own relations with France and its main ally, Poland. This culminated in the conclusion of the Soviet-Polish Non-Aggression Pact on July 25, 1932, and the Soviet-French non-aggression pact on November 29, 1932.[3][34]

The conflict between the Communist Party of Germany and the Social Democratic Party of Germany fundamentally contributed to the demise of the Weimar Republic. It is, however, disputed whether Hitler's seizure of power came as a surprise to the USSR. Some authors claim that Stalin deliberately aided Hitler's rise by directing the policy of the Communist Party of Germany on a suicidal course in order to foster an inter-imperialist war,[35] a theory dismissed by many others.[36]

During this period, the countries' economic relationship fell as the more isolationist Stalinist regime asserted power and the abandonment of post-World War I military control decreased Germany's reliance on Soviet imports,[25] such that Soviet imports fell to 223 million Reichsmarks by 1934

The Soviet Union and Nazi Germany before World War IIFew questions concerning the origins of the Second World War are as controversial as the issue of pre-war Soviet policy toward Nazi Germany, especially due to the absence of a complete opening of the Politburo, Joseph Stalin's and Vyacheslav Molotov's papers on foreign affairs.[38] German documents pertaining to their relations were captured by the American and British armies in 1945, and published by the U.S. Department of State shortly thereafter.[39] In the Soviet Union and Russia, including in official speeches and historiography, Nazi Germany has generally been referred to as Fascist Germany (Russian: фашистская Германия) from 1933 until today

Initial relations after Hitler's election

After Adolf Hitler came to power on January 30, 1933, he began the suppression of the Communist Party of Germany. The Nazis took police measures against Soviet trade missions, companies, press representatives, and individual citizens in Germany. They also launched an anti-Soviet propaganda campaign coupled with a lack of good will in diplomatic relations, although the German Foreign Ministry under Konstantin von Neurath (foreign minister from 1932–1938) was vigorously opposed to the impending breakup.[34] The second volume of Hitler's programmatic Mein Kampf (which first appeared in 1926) called for Lebensraum (living space for the German nation) in the east (mentioning Russia specifically), and in keeping with his world view portrayed the Communists as Jews (see also Jewish Bolshevism) destroying a great nation.[40] This ambition, if implemented, would be a clear danger to the security of the Soviet Union.

Moscow's reaction to these steps of Berlin was initially restrained, with the exception of several tentative attacks on the new German government in the Soviet press. However, as the heavy-handed anti-Soviet actions of the German government continued unabated, the Soviets unleashed their own propaganda campaign against the Nazis, but by May the possibility of conflict appeared to have receded. The 1931 extension of the Berlin Treaty was ratified in Germany on May 5.[34] In August 1933, Molotov assured German ambassador Herbert von Dirksen that Soviet-German relations would depend exclusively on the position of Germany towards the Soviet Union.[41] However, Reichswehr access to the three military training and testing sites (Lipetsk, Kama, and Tomka) was abruptly terminated by the Soviet Union in August–September 1933.[34] Political understanding between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany was finally broken by the German-Polish Non-Aggression Pact of January 26, 1934 between Nazi Germany and the Second Polish Republic.[42]

Maxim Litvinov, who had been People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs (Foreign Minister of the USSR) since 1930, considered Nazi Germany to be the greatest threat to the Soviet Union. However, as the Red Army was perceived as not strong enough, and the USSR sought to avoid becoming embroiled in a general European war, he began pursuing a policy of collective security, trying to contain Nazi Germany via cooperation with the League of Nations and the Western Powers. The Soviet attitude to the League of Nations and international peace had changed. In 1933–34 the Soviet Union was diplomatically recognized for the first time by Spain, the United States, Hungary,

Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Bulgaria, and ultimately joined the League of Nations in September 1934. It is often argued that the Soviet foreign policy change happened around 1933–34, and was triggered by Hitler's assumption of power. [43][44] However, the Soviet turn towards the French Third Republic in 1932, discussed above, could also have been a part of the policy change.[3]

Nevertheless, in 1934 Hitler spoke of an inescapable battle against both Pan-Slavism and Neo-Slavism:[45]

We cannot in any way evade the final battle between German race ideals and pan-Slav mass ideals. Here yawns the eternal abyss which no political interests can bridge. We must win the victory of German race-consciousness over the masses eternally fated to serve and obey. We alone can conquer the great continental space, and it will be done by us singly and alone, not through a pact with Moscow. We shall take this struggle upon us. It would open to us the door to permanent mastery of the world. That doesn't mean that I will refuse to walk part of the road with the Russians, if that will help us. But it will be only in order to return the more swiftly to our true aims.

—Adolf Hitler (1934)

Relations in the mid-1930s

On May 2, 1935, the five-year Soviet-French Treaty of Mutual Assistance was signed.[47]

The ratification of the treaty by France was one reason why Hitler remilitarized the Rhineland on March 7, 1936.[citation needed] The 7th World Congress of the Comintern in 1935 officially endorsed the Popular Front strategy of forming broad alliances with parties willing to oppose the fascists, a policy pursued by the Communist parties since 1934. Also in 1935, at the 7th Congress of Soviets (in a study in contradiction), Molotov stressed the need for good relations with Berlin[48]

On November 25, 1936, Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan concluded the Anti-Comintern Pact, joined by Fascist Italy in 1937.

Economically, the Soviet Union made repeated efforts to reestablish closer contacts with Germany in the mid-1930s.[49] The Soviet Union chiefly sought to repay debts from earlier trade with raw materials, while Germany sought to rearm, and the countries signed a credit agreement in 1935.[50] By 1936, raw material and foodstuff crises forced Hitler to decree a Four Year Plan for rearmament "without regard to costs."[51] However, even facing those issues, Hitler rebuffed the Soviet Union's attempts to seek closer political ties to Germany along with an additional credit agreement.[50]

Litvinov's strategy faced ideological and political obstacles. The Soviet Union continued to be perceived by the ruling class in Great Britain as no less a threat than Nazi Germany (some felt that the USSR was the greater threat), not least for its policy of supporting the elected government in the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939). At the same time, as the

Soviet Union was blindly stumbling about in the midst of the Great Purge, it was not perceived to be a valuable ally by the West.[4][42]

Further complicating matters, the purge of the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs, forced the Soviet Union to close down quite a number of embassies abroad.[52][53] At the same time, those purges made the signing of an economic deal with Germany less likely by disrupting the already confused Soviet administrative structure necessary for negotiations and giving Hitler the belief that the Soviets' were militarily weak.[54]

Collective security failures

Litvinov's policy of containing Germany via collective security failed utterly with the conclusion of the Munich Agreement on September 29, 1938, when the Britain and France favored self-determination of the Sudetenland Germans over Czechoslovakia's territorial integrity, disregarding the Soviet position.[55] However, it is still disputed whether, even before Munich, the Soviet Union would actually have fulfilled its guarantees to Czechoslovakia, in the case of an actual German invasion resisted by France.[56][57]

In April 1938, Litvinov launched the tripartite alliance negotiations with the new British and French ambassadors, (William Seeds, assisted by William Strang, and Paul-Emile Naggiar), in an attempt to contain Germany. However, for one reason or another, they were constantly dragged out and proceeded with major delays.[58]

The Western powers believed that war could still be avoided and the USSR, much weakened by the purges, could not act as a main military participant. The USSR more or less disagreed with them on both issues, approaching the negotiations with caution because of the traditional hostility of the capitalist powers. [59][60] The Soviet Union also engaged in secret talks with Nazi Germany, while conducting official ones with United Kingdom and France.[61] From the beginning of the negotiations with France and Britain Soviet position demanded occupation of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania[61][not in citation given]. Finland was to be included in Soviet sphere of influence as well.[62] While Britain refused to agree to occupation of the three buffer states by the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany accepted the proposal.

Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact

1939 needs and discussions

By the late 1930s, because a German autarkic economic approach or an alliance with England were impossible, closer relations with the Soviet Union were necessary, if not just for economic reasons alone.[22] Germany lacks oil, and could only supply 25 percent of its own needs, leaving Germany 2 million tons short a year and a staggering 10 millions tons below planned mobilization totals,[22] while the Soviet Union was required for numerous key other raw materials, such as ores (including iron and manganese), rubber and food fat and oils.[22][63][64][65] While Soviet imports into Germany had fallen to

52.8 million Reichsmarks in 1937,[37] massive armament production increases and critical raw material shortages caused Germany to turn to reverse their prior attitude, pushing forward economic talks in early 1939.[66] German planners in April and May 1939 feared that, without Russian supplies, Germany would fall critically short of manganese, oil and rubber.[63][not in citation given][67][not in citation given]

On May 3, 1939, Litvinov was dismissed and Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars (Prime Minister) Vyacheslav Molotov, who had strained relations with Litvinov, was not of Jewish origin, unlike Litvinov, and had always been sympathetic towards Germany, was put in charge of foreign affairs. The Foreign Affairs Commissariat was purged of Litvinov's supporters and Jews.[38][41] All this could well have purely internal reasons, but it could also be a signal to Germany that the era of anti-German collective security was past,[68] or a signal to the British and French that Moscow should be taken more seriously in the tripartite alliance negotiations[69][70][71] and that it is ready for arrangements without the old baggage of collective security, or even both.[59][60]

As evident from the German diplomatic correspondence, captured by the American and British armies in 1945 and later published, the reshuffle was warily perceived by Germany as a chance.[72][73]

It is sometimes argued that Molotov continued the talks with Britain and France to stimulate the Germans into making an offer of a non-aggression treaty and that the triple alliance failed because of the Soviet determination to conclude a pact with Germany. [74][75]

Another existing point of view is that the strive for the triple alliance was sincere and that the Soviet government turned to Germany only when an alliance with the Western powers proved impossible.[76][77][78][79]

Additional factors which drove the Soviet Union towards a rapprochement with Germany might be the signing of a non-aggression pact between Germany, Latvia and Estonia on June 7, 1939[80] and the threat from Imperial Japan in the East with the Battle of Khalkhin Gol (May 11 – September 16, 1939).[81][82] Molotov suggested that the Japanese attack might be inspired by Germany in order to hinder the conclusion of the tripartite alliance.[83]

In July open Soviet-German trade negotiations were under way.[84] In late July and early August, talks between the parties turned to a potential deal, but Soviet negotiators made clear that an economic deal must first be worked out.[84][85] After Germany had scheduled its invasion of Poland on August 25, and prepared for the resulting war with France, German war planners estimated that a British naval blockade would further exacerbate critical German raw material shortages for which the Soviet Union was the only potential supplier.[84]

Then, on August 3, German Foreign Minister Joachim Ribbentrop outlined a plan where the countries would agree to nonintervention in the others' affairs and would renounce measures aimed at the others' vital interests[85] and that "there was no problem between the Baltic and the Black Sea that could not be solved between the two of us." [86][87][88] The

Germans stated that "there is one common element in the ideology of Germany, Italy and the Soviet Union: opposition to the capitalist democracies of the West",[87][89] and explained that their prior hostility toward Soviet Bolshevism had subsided with the changes in the Comintern and the Soviet renunciation of a world revolution