Russia collaborated with Weimar Germany and later Nazi Germany in defiance of treaty of versailles
Executive summary
Germany and Soviet Russia began formal rapprochement with the 1922 Treaty of Rapallo and engaged in covert military collaboration in the 1920s that circumvented Versailles’ disarmament rules [1] [2]. In 1939 Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop non‑aggression pact with a secret protocol dividing Eastern Europe, creating a temporary strategic cooperation that ended when Germany invaded the USSR in 1941 [3] [4] [5].
1. A surprising partnership: Rapallo and the Weimar–Soviet thaw
The Treaty of Rapallo (April 1922) normalized diplomatic relations and trade between Weimar Germany and Soviet Russia and opened the door to a decade of cooperation; contemporaries and later historians note Rapallo set the political framework for deeper, largely secret, military and technical exchanges [1] [6]. British and French diplomats at Genoa were alarmed; both Berlin and Moscow were, in different ways, international pariahs after World War I, which pushed them toward rapprochement [7] [8].
2. Secret rearmament: how Germany circumvented Versailles on Soviet soil
Scholars and archival work document that the Reichswehr used Soviet territory to train officers, test weapons and develop banned technologies—practices that explicitly sidestepped the Treaty of Versailles’ military clauses [2] [9]. German officers and theorists taught and tested armored warfare and other systems at covert bases in the USSR during the 1920s, allowing Germany to preserve and modernize expertise away from Allied inspectors [9] [10].
3. Motives on both sides: opportunity over ideology
Multiple sources emphasize that cooperation was transactional: Germany sought ways to rebuild military capacity suppressed by Versailles; the Soviets sought technology, investment and diplomatic relief from isolation [2] [11]. Weimar generals such as Hans von Seeckt pursued a pragmatic policy of military collaboration with the Red Army even while keeping a wary eye on Bolshevik politics [8] [11].
4. From covert contacts to overt bargain: the 1939 pact
After years of fluctuating relations, Berlin and Moscow concluded the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact on August 23, 1939, a public non‑aggression treaty with a secret protocol dividing spheres of influence in Eastern Europe; historians and institutions record it as a short‑term alignment of convenience that enabled the partition of Poland and economic exchanges [3] [4] [5]. Contemporary records and later revelations show the secret protocols were denied by the Soviet government until 1989 [12] [5].
5. Two eras, one throughline: treaty‑breaking and realpolitik
The pattern is consistent: first Weimar Germany and Soviet Russia used Rapallo and covert bases to bypass Versailles’ military limits [1] [2]; later, Nazi Germany and the USSR concluded the Molotov–Ribbentrop arrangements that together reshaped Eastern Europe on the eve of World War II [3] [4]. Allied and postwar legal bodies cited Versailles violations by Germany as part of wider findings about the causes and conduct of revisional German policy [13].
6. What contemporary sources disagree about — and what they do not say
Scholars agree on the existence of covert Weimar–Soviet military cooperation and on the 1939 pact’s terms, but they debate the depth of ideological convergence and responsibility for escalation to wider war: some portray the interwar ties as pragmatic and limited, others trace a causal line from the 1920s cooperation to Nazi Germany’s later power [9] [14] [11]. Available sources do not mention any single, universally accepted causal chain that turns the Rapallo‑era cooperation into the sole root cause of World War II [14] [11].
7. Hidden agendas and incentives in the archives
Archive-based studies emphasize military and economic incentives: German military leaders openly saw Russia as a place to “break” Versailles, while Moscow sought industrial know‑how and diplomatic partners after diplomatic isolation [10] [11]. Contemporary statements and later denials—especially Soviet reticence about secret protocols until the late 1980s—reveal that both sides had strong incentives to conceal aspects of their deals [12] [15].
8. Takeaway for readers: complexity, not simple betrayal
The record shows deliberate, pragmatic collaboration across different regimes and years: Weimar Germany and the Soviet Union cooperated covertly to evade Versailles [1] [2], and Nazi Germany later struck an explicit and consequential bargain with the USSR in 1939 [3] [4]. These facts complicate any simple narrative that reduces interwar and early‑WWII diplomacy to single motives; competing perspectives in the scholarship show both opportunity and mistrust shaped the choices on every side [8] [14].
Limitations: this analysis uses the supplied sources only; further archival detail and monographs expand on operational specifics and historiographical debates not fully captured in the excerpts cited here [9] [11].