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Offers the full story of a fateful alliance between past and future mortal enemies--long preceding the well-known Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact--whose dimensions were kept secret from the outside world and yet which set the stage for World War Two and its outcome.
List of contents
- PART I: Sowing the Wind
- Chapter One: The Bolshevik's Army
- Chapter Two: Revolution and Reaction
- Chapter Three: The Treaty of Versailles
- Chapter Four: The Polish-Bolshevik War
- Chapter Five: The Corporate Program
- Chapter Six: The Road to Rapallo
- Chapter Seven: Poison Gas
- Chapter Eight: Coups and Countermeasures
- Chapter Nine: Partners in Mass Destruction
- Chapter Ten: From Fili to Lipetsk
- Chapter Eleven: The Military Futurists
- Chapter Twelve: The Junkers Scandal
- Chapter Thirteen: Resetting Relations
- Chapter Fourteen: Fires and Scandals
- Chapter Fifteen: Chemical Weapons and Fighter Pilots
- Chapter Sixteen: The Tanks ARrive
- Chapter Seventeen: Winter of Crisis
- Chapter Eighteen: Machines of the Future
- Chapter Nineteen: Yellow Cross
- Chapter Twenty: Hunger
- PART II: Reaping the Whirlwind
- Chapter Twenty-One: Schliecher
- Chapter Twenty-Two: Rearmament Begins
- Chapter Twenty-Three: The End of the Republic
- Chapter Twenty-Four: Enemies Again
- Chapter Twenty-Five: Long Knives
- Chapter Twenty-Six: The End of Versailles
- Chapter Twenty-Seven: War Returns to Europe
- Chapter Twenty-Eight: Purges and Panic
- Chapter Twenty-Nine: Storm Clouds
- Chapter Thirty: Fulfillment
- Chapter Thirty-One: From Winter to Phony War
- Chapter Thirty-Two: Whirlwind
- Conclusion
- Notes
- Index
About the author
Ian Ona Johnson is the P.J. Moran Family Assistant Professor of Military History at the University of Notre Dame. His work has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, The National Interest, and the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, among other publications.
Summary
When Nazi Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, launching World War Two, its army seemed an unstoppable force. The Luftwaffe bombed towns and cities across the country, and fifty divisions of the Wehrmacht crossed the border. Yet only two decades earlier, at the end of World War One, Germany had been an utterly and abjectly defeated military power. Foreign troops occupied its industrial heartland and the Treaty of Versailles reduced the vaunted German army of World War One to a fraction of its size, banning it from developing new military technologies. When Hitler came to power in 1933, these strictures were still in effect. By 1939, however, he had at his disposal a fighting force of 4.2 million men, armed with the most advanced weapons in the world. How could this nearly miraculous turnaround have happened?
The answer lies in Russia. Beginning in the years immediately after World War One and continuing for more than a decade, the German military and the Soviet Union--despite having been mortal enemies--entered into a partnership designed to overturn the order in Europe. Centering on economic and military cooperation, the arrangement led to the establishment of a network of military bases and industrial facilities on Soviet soil. Through their alliance, which continued for over a decade, Germany gained the space to rebuild its army. In return, the Soviet Union received vital military, technological and economic assistance. Both became, once again, military powers capable of a mass destruction that was eventually directed against one another.
Drawing from archives in five countries, including new collections of declassified Russian documents, The Faustian Bargain offers the definitive exploration of a shadowy but fateful alliance.
Additional text
This is a well-written and extremely well-documented treatment of the subject.
