Germany and Europe 1919-1939 by John Hiden

Author:John Hiden [Hiden, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Europe, Germany, Modern, 20th Century, General
ISBN: 9781317896272
Google: l2OgBAAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2014-09-25T16:07:40+00:00

WEIMAR-SOVIET RELATIONS UNDER STRESEMANN

Far from being able to play the ‘Russian card’ to wrest concessions from the West, the connections with Moscow which Stresemann inherited made his western policies more rather than less difficult. Not that Stresemann wanted to abandon the Soviet Union, in spite of his antipathy to that country.38 The events of 1923 demonstrated conclusively the benefits to Germany of ties with East and West, and those in Germany in favour of continuing contacts with Russia were too influential to ignore. The Locarno strategy did, however, bring Germany nearer to the West and to the League of Nations, which the Soviets detested and reviled as an organ of the capitalist world. The constant German assurances to Russia during the ‘Locarno era’ could not still Soviet doubts. Stressmann’s untiring effort to explain and justify his western policy to the Soviet leaders never entirely convinced them. Economic and military co-operation helped of course to keep the two powers in some degree of harmony. There is some force to the suggestion that economic policies were used by Germany in the mid-1920s to preserve the political link. The clutch of trade treaties signed between Germany and the Soviet Union on the eve of Locarno were meant to reassure the Russians of Germany’s continuing friendship without endangering the coming security pact, which Moscow wanted to frustrate.39 But the economic prospects remained desirable in themselves, particularly to German heavy industry, which did not benefit so greatly from the increased financial dependence of Germany on the Western Powers after the Dawes Plan. The percentage of German exports going to Russia in 1925 was a mere 2.5 per cent of the overall total and German heavy industry, still hungry for export markets, could hardly be happy as, in 1924–25, America and Britain exceeded Germany’s share of Russian trade.40

As to the Soviet–German military relations, Brockdorff-Rantzau attempted in February 1924 to restrict these to a minimum and to divert German credits to the broader economic purposes of German undertakings on Soviet soil. Yet he subsequently developed better relations with Seeckt and, despite the worried reservations of German political leaders, Russo-German military collaboration in 1924–25 began to move into a new phase, ‘concerned not so much with production but with the testing of war materials and with the training of German military personnel in the use of weapons and equipment forbidden under the Treaty of Versailles’.41 If anything, this might be taken as evidence of ambivalence in Stresemann’s Soviet policies for it was not unconnected with Germany’s desire to restrict Poland. This aim alone gave Stresemann an additional interest in mending his Russian fences after the Locarno settlement, quite apart from Brock-dorff-Rantzau’s support of Soviet initiatives for a political agreement with Germany which would remove some of their worries about the Locarno treaties. The Soviets were not satisfied with Stresemann’s achievement at Locarno; namely in exploiting the argument about Germany’s exposed geographical position to relieve Berlin of the obligations of League members to impose sanctions against aggressors under Article 16 of the League covenant.

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