ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses the influence of industrialists and economic issues on the relations between Soviet Russia and the Weimar Republic within the context of the world depression, the first Five Year Plan and the special connection between Moscow and the German Communist Party. The links between industrialising Russia and capitalist Germany made it seem unlikely that either Russia or the Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands had any immediate interest in the fall of the Weimar Republic. In contrast to several other studies, K. H. Niclauss has underlined the political importance of the German trade links with Russia. The development of German-Russian relations was reviewed and it was stated that, due to the lack of credits, ‘the peak of German-Russian friendship has undoubtedly passed in politics as well as economics’. General economic concerns continued to be important, but the special role industry had played in Germany’s foreign policy towards Russia was at an end.
