Although it might be tempting to assume that the accession of the Hitler regime marked a watershed in Soviet-German relations between the wars, a closer look at the evidence, and in particular at developments during the final phase of the Weimar Republic, suggests that this is not necessarily the case. It is certainly undeniable that the rise of the National Socialists contributed significantly to the sharp deterioration of those relations after 1933, and that within 12 months of Hitler's accession as chancellor the German-Soviet partnership that had been forged during the 1920s had been transformed into an overt and very public mutual hostility. Nevertheless, by the early 1930s there were already distinct signs that the collaboration established at Rapallo in 1922 and confirmed four years later through the Treaty of Berlin had outrun its usefulness and that consequently each party was seeking alternative sources of international support.

Stresemann's successors fully realized what advantages had accrued to Germany through the association with the USSR, not least in terms of the opportunities it had afforded the Reichswehr to engage in illicit rearmament and military training. However, although Soviet-German relations appeared on the surface to remain cordial, Germany's acceptance of the Young Plan and the heightened expectations of further concessions from the West, which it had generated, coupled with Bruning's ill-conceived scheme to turn the post-1929 economic crisis to German advantage, meant that by the turn of the decade German leaders' attention was becoming increasingly focused on their relations with Britain and the USA.1 As for the USSR, not only was it engaged in the initial phase of large-scale modernization occasioned by the first five-year plan, but Stalin, concerned at the obviously pro Western stance of the later Weimar cabinets, and with the Nazi threat looming in the background, had already begun to explore how to contain rather than exploit the forces of German nationalism.2

It was thus understandable that the advent of the Hitler regime should have produced considerable anxiety in Soviet government circles where the Nazi leaders' anti-Bolshevik and expansionist philosophy was well understood.3 Despite the efforts of the Wilhelmstrasse to assuage Russian fears in this respect, and in particular to differentiate between the Nazis' persecution of German communists, explained as a purely domestic affair, and the maintenance of amicable relations with the USSR, the Soviet regime found it difficult to reconcile Hitler's public denunciations of the Soviet system, of which his Sportpalast speech of 2 March 1933 was perceived as a particularly offensive example, with Germany's professed desire to remain on friendly terms.4 This was all the more so given that Rosenberg's Zukunftsweg deutscher Aussenpolitik and Hitler's Mein Kampf, which contained, in Soviet eyes, the most bitter and most predatory anti-Soviet sentiments ever committed to paper, remained unexpurgated and on open sale.5 It was up to the Reich government, suggested Karl Radek in an article in Isvestia of 22 March entitled 'Where is Germany going?', to demonstrate through its present conduct that it had absolved itself of any and all responsibility for the previous literary productions of some of its members, adding with some point that while the Soviet press had certainly had cause to criticize recent developments in Germany, it had never gone so far as to advocate carving up the German state.6

If Hitler's public utterances were sufficient to cause alarm and offence to the authorities in the Kremlin, his private remarks served to demonstrate the essential consistency of aim that lay at the root of his foreign political plans. On the evening of 3 February, less than a week after taking office, the new chancellor addressed senior officials of the German armed forces at the home of the commander in-chief of the army General von Hammerstein, and instructed them on his plans for the conquest of Lebensraum in eastern Europe and its 'ruthless Germanization'.7 Five days later Hitler announced to his cabinet that all resources for the next four to five years were to be channelled into rebuilding the armed forces on which depended Germany's future position in the world.8 To those present on either occasion Hitler's words were surely sufficient to dispel any doubts, or indeed hopes on the part of the more conservative minded, that the responsibilities of government would curb the radical nature of the party programme as it had evolved during the Kampfzeit. At the very least, Hitler's statements to the military leaders on 3 February indicated that the new administration would not give priority to the promotion or even maintenance of close relations with the USSR, which had since 1922 served the German army so well. Although, as will become apparent, some limited gestures of conciliation were made to the Soviet Union during the first months of Nazi rule, these were never followed up or developed through either regular or unofficial diplomatic channels. Given Hitler's preferred method of conducting his diplomacy through the medium of unofficial intermediaries, and 'man to man' conversations, particularly in his early dealings with Britain, the absence of any such initiatives in his relations with the USSR might be taken as a guide to his sincerity and seriousness in seeking to retain Soviet friendship.

During the early stages of his rule, however, amid talk of preventive war and the largely negative reaction produced abroad by the first measures taken by the regime, Hitler was obliged to tread a cautious path in foreign policy. Reassurance and moderation became the order of the day, even towards Jewish-Bolshevik' Russia, the intended target of future German aggression. Thus, partly because it suited him for tactical purposes, partly because of the Soviet reaction to his speech of 2 March, and partly, it would appear, as a consequence of the advice of his foreign minister, Constantin von Neurath, who had been alarmed at the sharp deterioration of relations with Russia since 30 January, Hitler made a half-hearted attempt publicly to reassure the USSR during his address to the Reichstag on 23 March with his passing reference to Germany's determination to 'cultivate friendly relations' with the Soviet Union.9 Interestingly, guidelines for the section of the speech dealing with Russia had been drafted in the Wilhelmstrasse, where the Rapallo policy had enjoyed much favor, and included a public affirmation, also articulated on 23 March, that the Nazi campaign against communism was a domestic matter and would not affect German relations with other states.1O Yet, at other points in the speech, where the Wilhelmstrasse had clearly had no input, some uncompromising language about the threat communism posed not only to Germany but, in words reminiscent of the electioneering years, to Europe as a whole appeared to negate these conciliatory messages. For, while the elimination of communism in Germany might be a purely internal affair, it was nonetheless the 'utmost goal of the National Government to stamp out and eliminate every trace of this phenomenon', for 'the outbreak of Communist chaos in the densely populated German Reich would lead to political and economic consequences particularly in the rest of Western Europe, the proportions of which are unfathomable'. Hitler's words of welcome for the Four Power Pact proposal recently advanced by Mussolini in which he registered Germany's willingness to 'cooperate with absolute sincerity ... in order to unite the four great powers, England, France, Italy and Germany in peaceful cooperation to courageously and determinedly approach those tasks upon which the solution of Europe's fate depends' provided another jarring and ominous note.11

The Soviet reaction to Hitler's declarations mirrored to some extent the speech itself in that it was both mixed and in some respects contradictory. While the German ambassador in Moscow, Herbert von Dirksen, wrote of a temporary relaxation of tension and Soviet gratification at the distinction that had been drawn between domestic opposition to communism and Russo-German relations,12 the Soviet press equally drew its own distinction between words and deeds and pointedly asked what positive steps Hitler was prepared to take to translate his sentiments into action. Moreover, attention was also drawn to Hitler's reference to the Four Power Pact, which made it quite clear that the German leader believed that Soviet-German relations had no role to play in deciding the fate of Europe. 13 Any hope that the speech had marked the opening of a new and more conciliatory phase in Soviet German relations was dashed when, within days, a series of incidents in Germany, largely involving the victimization and arrest of Soviet citizens engaged in commercial enterprises, served to poison the atmosphere further. By early April Dirksen was warning that unless steps were taken to improve the situation a conflict with the Soviet government was inevitable, 'the consequences of which will be very severe in a political and economic respect'.14

It is in this context that the decision finally to ratify the extension of the Treaty of Berlin, a decision that had been taken in principle almost two years earlier, should be viewed. Alarmed by the drift of Dirksen's reporting, and after a stormy interview on 3 April between the ambassador and the Soviet foreign minister Maxim Litvinov, Neurath raised the ratification issue as a matter of urgency at the cabinet meeting in Berlin on 4 April. While the foreign minister intended this step as a major brake on any further downturn in relations with the USSR, which he persisted in viewing as 'cover for our rear with respect to Poland', 15 for Hitler it was merely an inexpensive act of gesture politics to extricate the Reich from a temporarily difficult situation. As subsequent developments would demonstrate, the chancellor was uninterested in reviving the spirit of Rapallo. Hitler agreed with his foreign minister that the cabinet's decision should not yet be revealed to the Russians, but, unlike Neurath, who feared that such knowledge would strengthen Russia's hand in negotiations over other issues, Hitler wished to avoid giving any impression of concessions to the USSR at a time when Anglo-Soviet relations were still reeling from the MetroVickers affair.16

Those who may have hoped for a genuine improvement in the atmosphere between Berlin and Moscow from the subsequent ratification of the extension of the Treaty of Berlin on 5 May and the German-Soviet Conciliation Agreement of 1929 were to be sorely disappointed. The following month, during the World Economic Conference in London, the German economics minister, Dr Alfred Hugenberg, produced a memorandum, which, in Soviet eyes at least, not only set out the case for German expansion in eastern Europe but also called on other powers to participate in a crusade against the USSR, which, along with other 'large parts of the east', Hugenberg described as a breeding ground for 'war, revolution and internal decay'.18 Although the Germans immediately protested that Hugenberg had acted on his own initiative, the widespread opinion was that Hitler had tacitly approved his actions. As Dirksen later reflected, it was difficult to believe that in an authoritarian state a responsible minister would dare take such a step without his superiors' knowledge.19 The explanation that Hugenberg had  allowed Rosenberg to influence him offered cold comfort to the Soviet regime, not least because Rosenberg had recently been appointed head of a Nazi Party foreign policy department, the Aussenpolitisches Amt der NSDAP. At the very worst this meant that the individual whom the Germans admitted had been the real inspiration behind Hugenberg's memorandum, and who was already highly suspect to the Soviets in view of his contacts with Ukrainian separatist groups, might soon emerge as the real director of the Reich's foreign policy.19

By September 1933 the catalogue of abuse and persecution of Soviet citizens, commercial enterprises and other institutions in Germany, coupled with the sustained contradiction between the Reich government's conciliatory words on the one hand and the hostile acts of its representatives on the other, had convinced senior officials in the Soviet foreign ministry that Germany's leaders were determined not to contribute to an improvement in the situation and had, as Litvinov remarked on 14 September, actively 'entered upon an anti-Soviet course'. Several days later David Stern, head of the German department in the Soviet foreign ministry, made the logical observation to the German charge d'affaires, Fritz Twardowski, that the only 'reasonable inference' to be drawn from Germany's failure to act on the numerous warnings and complaints that had emanated from Moscow in recent months was to conclude that 'there was simply no interest in having friendly relations with the Soviet Union'.20

At a conference of departmental heads held in Berlin on 26 September this bleak appreciation of the situation was all but confirmed when the discussion turned to the current state of German-Soviet relations. On this occasion the state secretary at the Wilhelmstrasse, Bernhard von Bulow, warned that a further crisis point was approaching in those relations, not least because the Soviets appeared finally to have lost patience with the continued German provocation and were now resolved to alter their policy accordingly. One manifestation of this reorientation had been the recent expulsion of German journalists in retaliation for the arrest of Soviet correspondents who had sought access to the trial in Leipzig of the Reichstag fire suspects. Although Bulow was not renowned for his affection for the Russians, or indeed for the Rapallo policy, he nonetheless felt that Germany had nothing to gain from an open breach with the USSR at present, not least in view of economic considerations whose importance for the Soviet German relationship between 1933 and 1941 should not be underestimated.2l He thus suggested that, to ease the situation and avert the threatened crisis, it would be advisable to make concessions to the USSR. Most usefully these concessions could take the form of a conciliatory message from the head of the Wilhelmstrasse to the Soviet ambassador, a course of action the Russians had already requested, and, more importantly perhaps, a willingness on the part of Hitler to receive the deputy Soviet foreign minister, Nikolai Krestinsky, who was shortly due to pass through Berlin.

 

Hitler's response to Bulow's exposition was brief but instructive.

The Russians, he averred, would never forgive the NSDAP for having smashed communism in Germany, adding somewhat cryptically that 'the fate of Soviet Russia has been decided by our revolution'. It would, he agreed, be unwise at present to provide the Soviets with a pretext for breaking off relations with Germany and to that end he was prepared to permit Bulow to make some reassuring statements to the Russian ambassador and, 'distasteful though it would be for him', even personally to receive Krestinsky. There should be no illusions, however, for 'German-Russian relations could not in practice be maintained in the long run'. 22

Indeed, as subsequent developments demonstrated, it soon became clear that they could not even be maintained for the duration. By early October, shortly before the German withdrawal from the League of Nations and the Disarmament Conference rocked the world, a senior Russian diplomat, far from registering any improvement as a result of Soviet representations, pronounced the atmosphere between the two countries 'as bad as one could imagine'23 As a result, Krestinsky failed to appear in Berlin on the pretext that because he was insufficiently well versed in the key questions affecting Germany and the USSR, there would be little prospect of a fruitful discussion. Meanwhile, their common hostility towards and fear of Germany drew France and the USSR ever closer together, while on 29 December Litvinov delivered a speech in Moscow sharply attacking Germany, branding it a disturber of the peace and placing it on a par with Japan, Russia's antagonist in the Far East. During a highly charged and in part 'unfriendly' interview on 4 January 1934 the Soviet foreign minister informed the new German ambassador, Rudolf Nadolny, that relations could only be improved if Germany adjusted its policy and 'refrained from what she was now doing'. As matters stood, however, the Soviet leaders had no faith in German sincerity, particularly as they were in possession of material 'that proved that Germany had by no means given up the Ukraine and plans for a crusade'. No doubt certain foreign powers had an interest in fuelling these fears, 'but on the other hand the material was so varied and so unanimous that certain information had to be taken seriously'. 24

By this point the pattern of wholesale political antagonism on the one hand and limited economic cooperation on the other, which would govern German-Soviet relations over the next five years or so, had been firmly established. The responsibility for this development rested firmly on the German side and thus principally with Hitler who, as Gottfried Schramm rightly emphasizes, deliberately caused and permitted relations with the USSR to 'cool if not to say freeze' during the course of 1933.25 As the Soviets pointed out on more than one occasion, the nature of the German state under the NSDAP leadership meant that, had the German leader so wished it, the trend towards political hostility and ideological confrontation, inaugurated immediately after Hitler swept to power, could have been reversed overnight. Instead, no genuine effort had been made to arrest the slide into mutual recrimination and acrimony. There had been grudging gestures towards the USSR when the occasion demanded it; in April 1933 Hitler had even received the Soviet ambassador, Leo Khinchuk, to whom he had pledged his continued efforts to maintain Soviet-German relations on a 'permanently friendly basis'.26 Whatever Hitler promised Khinchuk, however, Soviet-German relations during 1933 and the Nazi leadership's handling of those relations told a different story. A much more reliable guide to German intentions to the USSR than any number of platitudes exchanged between Hitler and a Soviet diplomat were the systematic campaign against Soviet interests in Germany, which, according to a foreign ministry survey of October 1933, had been 'without precedent in the history of Soviet-German relations'.27 the promotion of Mein Kampf as the movement's basic creed and the mainstay of education in schools and the army; the encouragement of anti-Bolshevik sentiment to the point of promoting songs calling for war against the USSR among the party's paramilitary formations; a steadfast refusal to permit any meaningful improvement of the political atmosphere between Berlin and Moscow; the employment of anti-Bolshevik and anti-Soviet arguments in German dealings with Western powers, and not least the public references, most notably in Hitler's speech at the Nuremberg rally on 3 September, to the 'European' nature of Germany's mission to combat Bolshevism. Clearly, Russo-German relations were not allowed to plunge such depths as they did in 1933 simply for the sake of it. There was a clear and positive purpose to all these developments, each of which must be viewed as intimately connected to a higher goal. As Klaus Hildebrand has argued, it is clear that statements of the kind made by Hitler at Nuremberg had much more than a purely 'functional significance'. Indeed, they revealed that part of his long-term 'programme' sought a basis for agreement with Italy and the West in order to proceed unhindered against the Soviet Union.28

The tone the Germans set in their relations with the USSR during the course of 1933 persisted virtually uninterrupted until spring 1939 when each side suddenly found it expedient to accommodate the other in the Nazi-Soviet Pact. Before that time, despite some Soviet attempts to engineer an improvement in political relations through the medium of their economic ties with Berlin, Hitler showed no interest in altering his fundamentally hostile and antagonistic attitude to the USSR. As Khinchuk's successor, Jacob Suritz, informed Litvinov in late 1935, it was futile to hope for any change in the German attitude because Hitler and his entourage are firmly convinced that only if it adheres to its anti-Soviet course can the Third Reich realize its aims and gain allies and friends. Tile calculation here assumes that the further development of the world crisis will inevitably lead to a deepening of the contradictions between Moscow and the rest of the world ... I repeat that it's [sic] more obvious to me now than at any time before that Hitler and his entourage will not voluntarily change their course as far as relations with us are concerned.29

On the basis of this report Litvinov subsequently submitted a memorandum to Stalin speaking of the 'utter hopelessness' of any improvement in political relations and the fact that the NSDAP's campaign against the USSR had now assumed 'Homeric dim ensions'.30 If possible this situation was rendered even more hopeless and, as far as the USSR was concerned, more dangerous the following year when the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War and the conclusion of the Anti-Comintern Pact introduced further elements of crisis and tension into German relations with the USSR, the significance of which will be examined at a later stage of this study. Suffice it to say that if blame were to be apportioned for the breakdown between Berlin and Moscow after January 1933, then the lion's share, if not the entirety, would rest with the German chancellor.

While under Hitler's guidance the development of German policy towards the Soviet Union had hastened and encouraged the demise of the Soviet-German collaboration of the Weimar era, equally radical developments in German relations with Poland completed the reorientation of the Reich's Ostpolitik. The pro-Russian trend of German diplomacy during the 1920s had been shaped by prominent groups in the Wilhelmstrasse and the Reichswehr who had focused primarily on the revision of the Treaty of Versailles in eastern Europe. For most Germans the Polish state, much of which had been established on former German territory, was an abomination, a fundamental enemy in all calculations of foreign policy, which would be destroyed as soon as the Reich had recovered its strength.3l As a consequence, not only were German-Polish relations extremely strained during the 1920s, but influential Germans viewed the Soviet Union, which had suffered substantial territorial loss to Poland, as a natural ally against Warsaw. Indeed, it was this common bond of hostility towards Poland that had to some degree underpinned the Soviet-German treaties of Rapallo and Berlin.

These views, propounded most vociferously by the Prussian Junker caste and the national-conservative elites, stood in stark contrast to those of Hitler, whose Austrian origins, it has been suggested, spared him at least the burden of ingrained hostility towards Poland.32 Although Hitler's writings of the 1920s contain very few references to Poland, there is in fact no expression of hostile intent towards that country. Indeed, it has recently been suggested that the Zweites Buch foreshadows a possible future alliance with the Poles.33 The central aim of Hitler's foreign policy was the acquisition of Lebensraum in Jewish-Bolshevik' Russia and its 'vassal border states', among which, given the post-1919 situation in eastern Europe, Poland could hardly be counted. Precariously sandwiched between Germany and the USSR, Poland would necessarily occupy a crucial role in Hitler's plans to organize and launch a war against the Soviet Union. A combination of sheer geographical realities, traditional Russo-Polish enmity, which the recent war and subsequent Treaty of Riga accentuated, and Poland's vigorous opposition to Bolshevism meant that the Poles could either cooperate in or seek to thwart Hitler's aims against the USSR. As events during the summer of 1939 would demonstrate, equanimity on this issue was not a viable option.

Hitler's readiness to place German-Polish relations on a more reasonable basis was to some extent reciprocated by the Polish leader, the staunchly anti-communist Marshal Josef Pilsudski, a man who, in Hitler's eyes, was essential to any plans for a German Polish rapprochement.34 In 1930 an emissary from Pilsudski appeared at Nazi headquarters in Munich professing the marshal's sympathy for the nationalist struggle being waged by the NSDAP, but also registering his concern that the 'chauvinism' that inevitably accompanied a process of 'national rebirth' might cause complications if and when the Nazis came to power. To avert such an unwelcome contingency pilsudski proposed that a Nazi triumph in Germany should be followed by a treaty of peace and friendship between the two nations.

For Poland, the emissary explained, 'Russia posed the greatest danger, since Poland could expect no effective protection against Russia from the Western powers'. Since Pilsudski fully understood this, he had therefore 'turned his eyes toward Germany'.35 Hitler's response was positive and enthusiastic, for not only would a friendly arrangement with Poland suit Germany's needs on a tactical plane, but it would also symbolize the beginnings of the planned mobilization of the European powers against Bolshevik Russia. Moreover, such an arrangement, it was considered, would not be without effect upon Britain which in turn would help further Germany's broader aims in foreign policy. As Hitler explained to Wagener, a treaty with Poland would be a 'good beginning for our foreign policy' as it would represent the 'first step toward the consolidation of Central Europe. And you will see that England will even then offer us help, in order to remove the universal danger represented by Bolshevism'.36

It was thus hardly surprising, and by no means due purely to tactical considerations, that during his first months in power Hitler repeatedly expressed his readiness for improved relations with Poland. For their part, although they were still concerned about the aggressive nationalism of the Nazis, outbreaks of which had caused them particular anxiety during the German election campaigns of 1932, the Poles certainly welcomed the NSDAP's stance against communism, both for its own sake and because it was assumed that the deterioration in Soviet-German relations that was bound to result from the advent of the Hitler regime would finally draw a line under the Rapallo partnership. Indeed, despite rumours of a possible Franco-Polish preventive strike against Germany, by mid1933 the Poles were becoming increasingly interested in some form of arrangement with Hitler in view of renewed doubts about the value of their French alliance, which France's support for the proposed Four Power Pact had occasioned. This Italian-sponsored scheme threatened not only to marginalize Poland's importance as a European power but also to bind it to the decisions, including those bearing on treaty revision, of a directorate consisting of Italy, Britain, France and Germany. On the German side the need for a measure of reassurance to the other powers following the withdrawal from the League of Nations and the Disarmament Conference in the autumn of 1933 provided the final impetus to a formal arrangement with Poland.

When four weeks later Germany and Poland issued a declaration renouncing the use of force in their mutual relations British analysts questioned whether the move was intended to 'free Germany's hands, so far as Poland is concerned, for a more vigorous policy in Central Europe ... or in Russia' or simply to postpone any adventure for a period of years until 'the German domestic situation as regards armaments, finance and economics has been firmly established'.37 For Hitler a rapprochement with Poland was intended to serve both these purposes, and, with regard to the former, to lay the basis for future collaboration against the USSR. Only four days before the declaration was issued Hitler had told the new Polish minister in Berlin, Josef Lipski, that he viewed Poland as an outpost against the Bolshevik threat from Asia.38 Two months later the chancellor expatiated on the importance of improved German-Polish relations, the danger from the Soviet Union and Poland's pivotal role in resisting the Bolshevik onslaught. Poland, Hitler began, had a responsible task in eastern Europe, not least because of the industrial and military dangers posed by the USSR. Blocked by a 'dynamic' Japan in the Far East, Russia would make no headway in that region and would thus 'direct the full impact of its pressure westward'. In these circumstances Poland, as the 'last barricade of civilization in the east' had assumed a 'very momentous' position, so much so that the notion that Germans and Poles were always destined to be deadly enemies should be abandoned forthwith. He had declared to his followers at the outset of his political activities that the Polish nation must be considered a reality that was impossible to eradicate. 'Both nations have to live side by side,' Hitler concluded. There had admittedly been periods during which Germans and Poles had fought each other, but, he stressed, 'at other times we lived in friendship and collaboration'.39

The following day Germany and Poland concluded a nonaggression pact, which ushered in a new era in their mutual relations. European opinion was taken aback, having long since regarded German-Polish hostility as a constant feature of the international situation, while in Germany this abrupt reorientation of policy in eastern Europe was met with considerable and voluble hostility on the part of the national-conservatives. For Hitler, however, domestic popularity was never the primary issue; nor indeed, until circumstances dictated it several years later, was Danzig or the Corridor. To his critics the Fuhrer could point to the numerous tangible benefits of an agreement that had effectively cost the Reich nothing. Not only did the pact have considerable value in terms of propaganda, to which end it was represented as evidence of the new regime's peaceful and conciliatory policy, but in strictly power political terms it struck a hefty blow at both French and Soviet ties with Poland, thereby considerably enhancing German security. Beyond these immediate advantages, however, lay the further long-term goal of enlisting Polish support for a policy, which would persist until the early spring of 1939, designed to isolate Soviet Russia and confront it with a formidable combination of powers.

In the official diplomatic exchanges there was no mention of an active German-Polish combination against the USSR, but the nonaggression pact and the new basis for relations that it constituted provided a useful foundation on which to build. Shortly after the pact's conclusion, Poland was already being mooted in Nazi circles as a possible member of the grouping of powers that would eventually emerge as the Anti-Comintern Pact.40 For the time being it was sufficient that the new warmth in German-Polish relations had radically altered the position in eastern Europe and, in so doing, had given the Soviet leaders further cause for anxiety about Germany's ultimate intentions. Taken together with Hitler's writings in Mein Kampf and Rosenberg's fixation on the Ukraine, the evident disappearance of Polish-German hostility caused much anxiety in Moscow where there were fears that the new alignment might seek to exploit any future Russian complications in the Far East.41 This anxiety would hardly have been diminished by the fact that towards the close of 1933, during the launching of an exhibition celebrating the cultural aspects of Germany's eastern provinces, Rosenberg, who had previously called for the destruction of Poland, had welcomed the fact that those nations that had formerly suffered under the Russian yoke had not only 'nationally and politically emancipated themselves from the communist philosophy of life' but had also 'turned towards Europe', thus once more emphasizing the distinction drawn by the Nazis between 'Bolshevik' Russia and the community of 'European' nations.42

The German-Polish non-aggression pact ushered in a transformation of relations between Berlin and Warsaw as complete as the one that had taken place between Germany and the Soviet Union. There were of course still points of tension and difficulty between the former antagonists, but from January 1934 onwards every effort was made, on both sides, to deal with contentious issues relating to Danzig or minority and economic questions in a spirit of friendship and cooperation. In political terms the pact provided an additional stimulus to the developing Franco-Soviet schemes for the containment of Germany, the chief element of which, the proposed Eastern Pact, in turn provided the first fruitful field for German-Polish diplomatic collaboration against Bolshevik Russia. The so-called 'Eastern Locarno', which French and Soviet foreign ministers Louis Barthou and Maxim Litvinov devised during 1933-34, was essentially a scheme to base a multilateral security agreement around a Franco-Soviet alliance directed against Germany. Although Germany was invited to participate in the proposed agreement, which, in view of its fundamental aim made little sense without it, it held no attraction for Hitler, particularly as it was so transparently designed to restrict Germany's freedom of manoeuvre in eastern Europe and thus check any plans for territorial expansion in that region. From mid-1934 onwards, when the proposals were officially communicated to the interested powers, the Germans, backed by Poland, whose leaders were disillusioned with France and fearful of Soviet encroachments, continued to raise objections to the form of the pact when in essence it was the very principle they opposed.43 As Hitler told Sir John Simon in March 1935, to the German mind the Eastern Pact was superfluous in view of the security arrangements, such as the German-Polish agreement, which already existed between the states of central and eastern Europe. Moreover, the proposed pact was cumbersome and even dangerous as, unlike the Locarno treaties, it was 'intended for a large number of States with unpredictable interests and antagonisms, internal uncertainties and fluctuating Governments'. It might thus engender a 'much larger variety of conflicts', which equally might force him to 'lead the German people to the slaughter for territories in which they had no interest at all'.44

Above all, however, the sheer impossibility of entering into any form of mutual assistance arrangements with the USSR, let alone a complicated and cumbersome multilateral security agreement designed to protect the intended victim, ruled out any possibility of German accession to the Eastern Pact. To that extent there was a good deal of sincerity in Hitler's remark to the visiting Polish foreign minister in July 1935 that the German people would for the first time be at a loss to understand him if he, 'whose political career had been taken up with the struggle against Bolshevism, were to conclude a treaty for the protection of the Soviet state'.45 Although it was obvious that this crucial determining factor could not be articulated with any great frankness during official negotiations, there were enough hints in Hitler's statements to a series of British visitors in early 1935 to demonstrate that any hope of a German signature appearing under the Eastern Pact was quite illusory, and that what he at heart desired was not collaboration with Russia but cooperation against it.

Apart from their cooperation with the Poles over the Eastern Pact, the position of Poland in German schemes against the USSR began to crystallize when, during his visit to Warsaw in early 1935, and on several subsequent occasions, Goring made soundings about the possibility of a German-Polish alignment against Russia.46 Despite the Polish response being not especially encouraging, Hitler did not abandon his efforts to persuade Poland to join an anti Soviet combination and in later years Berlin actively sought its participation in the Anti-Comintern Pact. In August 1935, during a general outline of his foreign policy plans, the chancellor spoke of an 'eternal' alliance with Britain, German expansion to the east and the maintenance of a 'good relationship' with Poland, thus registering once more that, if Poland played its part, it had nothing to fear from Germany, but might, by inference, gain substantially from its association with the Reich.47 That was certainly the impression of the American military attache in Berlin, Truman Smith, who in November 1935 noted that, provided future German conquests in the USSR were effected on a sufficiently grand scale, it might be possible to compensate Poland with territory in the Ukraine in return for which it might 'cede the Corridor and permit Germany a land empire in northern and central Russia'.48 These ideas were evidently less fanciful than they might now appear for this was more or less the scheme that Goring had been instructed to suggest to Pilsudski in January 1935.

By that stage the diplomatic revolution in German policy towards Poland and the USSR was complete. The German-Soviet combination of the Weimar era had collapsed, or, to be strictly accurate, had been deliberately laid to rest by the new regime in Berlin. Germany now had a new friend in eastern Europe, Pilsudski's Poland, 1933-34, was essentially a scheme to base a multilateral security' agreement around a Franco-Soviet alliance directed against Germany. Although Germany was invited to participate in the proposed agreement, which, in view of its fundamental aim made little sense without it, it held no attraction for Hitler, particularly as it was so transparently designed to restrict Germany's freedom of maneuver in eastern Europe and thus check any plans for territorial expansion in that region. From mid-1934 onwards, when the proposals were officially communicated to the interested powers, the Germans, backed by Poland, whose leaders were disillusioned with France and fearful of Soviet encroachments, continued to raise objections to the form of the pact when in essence it was the very principle they opposed.43 As Hitler told Sir John Simon in March 1935, to the German mind the Eastern Pact was superfluous in view of the security arrangements, such as the German-Polish agreement, which already existed between the states of central and eastern Europe. Moreover, the proposed pact was cumbersome and even dangerous as, unlike the Locarno treaties, it was 'intended for a large number of States with unpredictable interests and antagonisms, internal uncertainties and fluctuating Governments'. It might thus engender a 'much larger variety of conflicts', which equally might force him to 'lead the German people to the slaughter for territories in which they had no interest at all'. 44

Above all, however, the sheer impossibility of entering into any form of mutual assistance arrangements with the USSR, let alone a complicated and cumbersome multilateral security agreement designed to protect the intended victim, ruled out any possibility of German accession to the Eastern Pact. To that extent there was a good deal of sincerity in Hitler's remark to the visiting Polish foreign minister in July 1935 that the German people would for the first time be at a loss to understand him if he, 'whose political career had been taken up with the struggle against Bolshevism, were to conclude a treaty for the protection of the Soviet state'.45 Although it was obvious that this crucial determining factor could not be articulated with any great frankness during official negotiations, there were enough hints in Hitler's statements to a series of British visitors in early 1935 to demonstrate that any hope of a German signature appearing under the Eastern Pact was quite illusory, and that what he at heart desired was not collaboration with Russia but cooperation against it.

Apart from their cooperation with the Poles over the Eastern Pact, the position of Poland in German schemes against the USSR began to crystallize when, during his visit to Warsaw in early 1935, and on several subsequent occasions, Goring made soundings about the possibility of a German-Polish alignment against Russia.46 Despite the Polish response being not especially encouraging, Hitler did not abandon his efforts to persuade Poland to join an anti Soviet combination and in later years Berlin actively sought its participation in the Anti-Comintern Pact. In August 1935, during a general outline of his foreign policy plans, the chancellor spoke of an 'eternal' alliance with Britain, German expansion to the east and the maintenance of a 'good relationship' with Poland, thus registering once more that, if Poland played its part, it had nothing to fear from Germany, but might, by inference, gain substantially from its association with the Reich.47 That was certainly the impression of the American military attache in Berlin, Truman Smith, who in November 1935 noted that, provided future German conquests in the USSR were effected on a sufficiently grand scale, it might be possible to compensate Poland with territory in the Ukraine in return for which it might 'cede the Corridor and permit Germany a land empire in northern and central Russia'. 48 These ideas were evidently less fanciful than they might now appear for this was more or less the scheme that Goring had been instructed to suggest to Pilsudski in January 1935.

By that stage the diplomatic revolution in German policy towards Poland and the USSR was complete. The German-Soviet combination of the Weimar era had collapsed, or, to be strictly accurate, had been deliberately laid to rest by the new regime in Berlin. Germany now had a new friend in eastern Europe, Pilsudski's Poland, with which it shared a loathing for Bolshevik Russia and in collaboration with which it eventually succeeded in thwarting the proposed 'Eastern Locarno'. The focus of Hitler's plans for collaboration against the USSR, however, was fixed not so much on the minor powers of the east as on the great powers of western Europe, and concerned principally the British Empire.

 

1.     G. Hilger and A. G. Meyer, The Incompatible Allies: A Memoir-History of German-Soviet Relations, 1918-1941 (New York, 1971) pp. 250-1; M. Lee and W. Michalka, German Foreign Policy 1917-1933: Continuity or Break? (Leamington Spa, 1987) pp. 112ff. A useful and recent general overview of German-Soviet relations during the Weimar and Third Reich eras is A. M. Nekrich, Pariahs, Partners, Predators: German-Soviet Relations, 1922-1941, ed. and trans. G. L. Freeze (New York, 1997).

2.     ]. Haslam, The Soviet Union and Collective Security in Europe, 1933-39 (London, 1984) pp. 6--7; A. Ulam, Expansion and Co-existence: Soviet Foreign Policy 1917-1973 (London, 2nd edn, 1974) pp. 183ff, pp. 209ff.

3.     On the early Soviet reaction to the appearance of the Hitler cabinet see ADAP, CJI/l, no. 6, Dirksen to Bulow, 31 January 1933; ibid., no. 73, Dirksen to AA, 11 March 1933.

4.     A review of the scathing Soviet press reaction to this speech, delivered in the immediate aftermath of the Reichstag fire, can be found in BK, ZSg. 133/52, 'Die Rede Hitlers im Sportpalast', 8 March 1933.

5.     In this connection see ADAP, C/lVl, no. 161, unsigned memorandum [probably by Twardowski], 1 January 1934.

6.     PAB, R83394, Dirksen to AA, 22 March 1933.

7.     Weinberg, Foreign Policy, 1, p. 27.

8.     ADAP, CJI/l, no. 16, memorandum by Vogels of a Conference of Ministers, 8 February 1933.

9.     Domarus, VI, 23 March 1933, speech to the Reichstag, p. 236.

10.   For the guidelines see PAB, R83394, unsigned memorandum, 18 March 1933.

11.   Domarus, VI, 23 March 1933, speech to the Reichstag, pp. 231, 236. On the Soviet reaction to the Four Power Pact see ADAP, CJI/l, no. 136, Dirksen to AA, 4 April 1933.

12.   ADAP, CJI/l, no. 137, Dirksen to Bulow, 4 April 1933; ibid., no. 212, Dirksen to AA, 5 May 1933.

13.   PAB, R83395, Dirksen to AA, 28 March 1933.

14.   ADAP, C/I/l, no. 137, Dirksen to Bulow, 4 April 1933 (emphasis in the original).

15.   Ibid., no. 142, memoranda by Thomsen, 7 April 1933, and Willuhn, 12 April 1933.

16.   Ibid., no. 140, Neurath to the German embassy in Moscow,S April 1933, note 5.

17.   Ibid., no. 312, unsigned memorandum, 14 June 1933. For the Soviet reaction see ibid., no. 325, Dirksen to Bulow, 19 June 1933; ibid., no. 331, memorandum by Bulow, 22 June 1933.

18.   H. von Dirksen, Moscow Tokyo London: Twenty Years of German Foreign Policy (Oklahoma, 1952) p. 115. For Litvinov's views on the involvement of the German leadership see Soviet Documents on Foreign Policy. Selected and edited by]. Degras, 3 vols (London, 1951-3) [hereafter SDFP] 3, speech by Litvinov to the Central Executive Committee, 29 December 1933, pp. 48-61, here p. 56.

19.   On Rosenberg's association with Ukrainian separatists immediately after the Nazi assumption of power see BK, ZSg. 133/52, Aktenvermerk Leibbrandt, 7 December 1933. Moscow fully realized that Rosenberg was hoping to incite these groups to action against the USSR, to which end he sought to encourage them with promises of a forthcoming antiBolshevik crusade that a coalition of powers comprising Germany, Britain, France, Italy and possibly Poland would carry out.

20.   ADAP, C/I/2, no. 438, Twardowski to AA, 19 September 1933. Some three years later Hitler effectively confirmed these suspicions by telling the Estonian foreign minister that 'we were separated from Bolshevik Russia by so great a gulf that for ideological reasons we desired no closer connections or treaty arrangements of any kind with that country'. Ibid., CN/2, no. 378, memorandum by Meissner, 17 June 1936.

21.   In this connection see the recent study by E. E. Ericson III, Feeding the German Eagle: Soviet Economic Aid to Nazi Germany, 1933-1941 (Westport, 1999).

22.   See ADAP, C/I/2, no. 456, memorandum by Thomsen, 26 September 1933; ibid., no. 457, memorandum by Bulow, 26 September 1933.

23.   Ibid., no. 487, Twardowski to AA, 10 October 1933.

24.   Ibid., ClIVI, no. 163, Nadolny to AA, 5 January 1934.

25.   G. Schramm, 'Basic Features of German Ostpolitik 1918-1939', in B.Wegner (ed.) From Peace to War: Germany, Soviet Russia and the World, 1939-1941 (Oxford, 1997) pp. 11-25, here p. 23. On this, see also A. Kuhn, 'Das nationalsozialistische Deutschland und die Sowjetunion', in Funke, Hitler, Deutschland und die Miichte, pp. 63953, here p. 646.

26.   ADAP, C/I/l, no. 194, memorandum by Neurath, 28 April 1933.

27.   BK, ZSg. 133/52, 'Einige Bemerkungen uber die deutsch-sowjetischen Beziehungen im Jahre 1933', undated, but internal evidence suggests that the paper was drawn up in the autumn of 1933.

28.   Hildebrand, German Foreign Policy from Bismarck to Adenauer, p. 137.
The relevant passage from the Nuremberg speech reads: 'If a single people were to fall prey to Bolshevism in Western or Central Europe, this poison would continue its corrosive work and devastate today's oldest and most beautiful cultural possessions on earth. In taking this fight upon itself, Germany is but fulfilling, as so often in its history, a truly European mission.' In February 1934 Hitler declared to a gathering of German students that the triumph of Bolshevism in Europe would mean the complete annihilation of that 'Aryan spirit' upon which all culture was based. See Domarus, 1/1, 3 September 1933, speech to the Party Congress, p. 299; ibid., 7 February 1934, speech to students in Berlin, p. 363.

29.   G. Roberts, The Soviet Union and the Origins of the Second World War: Russo-German Relations and the Road to War, 1933-1941 (London, 1995) p. 30, citing Suritz to Litvinov, 28 November 1935.

30.   Ibid., pp. 31-2, citing Litvinov to Stalin, 3 December 1935.

31.   For the views of the commander-in-chief of the German army during the 1920s, General von Seeckt, which were not untypical of German opinion at that time see J. Lipski, Diplomat in Berlin, 1933-1939: Papers and Memoirs of J6zef Lipski, Ambassador of Poland, ed. W. Jedrzejewicz (New York, 1968) p. 37.

32.   W. Michalka, Ribbentrop und die deutsche Weltpolitik 1933-1940: Aussenpolitische Konzeptionen und Entscheidungsprozesse im Dritten Reich (Munich, 1980) p. 270.

33.   Z. Shore, 'Hitler's Opening Gambit: Intelligence, Encirclement, and the Decision to Ally with Poland', Intelligence and National Security, 14 (1999) pp. 103-22, here p. no.

34.   Dirksen, Moscow Tokyo London, p. no.

35.   Wagener, Hitler: Memoirs of a Confidant, pp. 49-50.

36.   Ibid., pp. 51-2.

37.   DBFP, 2/VI, no. 83, memorandum on the German-Polish Declaration of 16 November 1933, 27 November 1933.

38.   Official Documents Concerning Polish-German and Polish-Soviet Relations, 1933-1939. Published by the authority of the Polish government (London, 1940) no. 6, Lipski to Beck, 12 November 1933.

39.   Lipski, Diplomat in Berlin, pp. 124-5.

40.   G. Krebs, Japans Deutschlandpolitik 1935-1941: Eine Studie zur Vorgeschichte des Pazifischen Krieges, 2 vols (Hamburg, 1984) I, p. 34.

41.   On Soviet fears of Polish-German collaboration see PAB, R83396, Nadolny to AA, n December 1933. Commenting on the visit to Italy of
Litvinov, the Soviet foreign minister, the German ambassador in Rome drew special attention to the fears Litvinov had expressed of a GermanPolish-Japanese combination against Russia. Ibid., Hassell to AA, 22 December 1933.

42.   Brotherton Library, University of Leeds. Confidential US State Department central files. Germany: foreign affairs, 1930-1939, Dodd to State Department, 13 December 1933.

43.   In August 1934 a Wilhelmstrasse circular summarizing the attitudes of the major powers towards the Franco-Soviet proposals revealed that the Polish objections were virtually identical with the German. BK, N1310/47, memorandum by Meyer, 16 August 1934. For the Polish position see also ADAP, ClIIl/2, no. 429, memorandum by Bulow, 14 January 1935; ibid., ClIVI 1 no. 190, record of a conversation between Hitler and Beck, 3 July 1933. On the general incompatibility of the proposals with Hitler's plans and intentions see Weinberg, Foreign Policy, I, pp. 171,183-4.

44.   ADAP, ClIIl/2, no. 555, record of a conversation between Hitler and Sir John Simon, 25 March 1935.

45.   ADAP, ClIVI1, no. 190, record of a conversation between Hitler and Beck, 3 July 1935.

46.   IMT, vol. IX, Goring testimony, 14 March 1946, p. 308; Weinberg, Foreign Policy, I, pp. 193-4. For a useful review of Goring's activities in Polish-German relations see A. Kube, Pour Ie merite und Hakenkreuz: Hermann Goring im Dritten Reich (Munich, 1986) pp. 103-18.

47.   TB]G, Samtliche Fragmente, II2, 19 August 1935.

48.   Hoover, Truman Smith Papers, Smith to the War Department, 25 November 1935. In his annual report for 1935 the British ambassador in Berlin also noted this possibility writing that Hitler's attitude towards Poland was 'no doubt influenced by the Russian peril and ... Germany's mission to defend Western civilisation against Bolshevism. To Germany, Poland as a spear-head, a "brilliant second" in the move against Bolshevik Russia, might be an ally well worth the corridor. For with friendship between Germany and Poland, with a German fleet in command of the Baltic and a German air force assuring connection with East Prussia, the objections to the corridor would appear smaller. Alternatively, the crusade against the Bolsheviks might provide the means for compensating Poland elsewhere.' PRO, FO 371/19938/Cl43, Phipps to the Foreign Office, 6 January 1936.

 

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