ABSTRACT
The German Federation of Labor founded the Arbeiter-Bank, intended to finance trade-union expansion through union investments. One of the best guarded secrets of the Russian Politburo was the collusion between Red Army and Reichswehr. Opposition to the Reichswehr and its illegal divisions was the solid base on which militant German labor policy was built, and if the contacts that have since come to light had been known at the time it would have been utterly impossible to build a German Communist Party. Any discussion of the Reichswehr’s attempts to circumvent the Versailles prohibitions was regarded as high treason. In Berlin, one of the outspoken sponsors of German-Russian military collaboration at this time was Reichswehr Minister Otto Gessler. Late in 1926, three German-owned ships—the Gothenburg., Artus- hofff and Kolberg—arrived at Stettin from Russia with a cargo of grenades for the Reichswehr.
