Page 40 - The Chief Culprit

Stalin’s Role in the Rebirth of German War Power y 17

all that was necessary was to make sure the Versailles Treaty was not breached, that Germany
stayed disarmed and weak militarily. Germany was Russia’s main opponent in World War I
and her most likely opponent in any future conflict. Soviet Russia was not a signatory of the
Versailles Treaty, but the pact did give Russia, which turned into the Soviet Union, invaluable
advantages. e Soviet Union could produce any model of weapon or military technology.
Meanwhile, Germany not only stood still in terms of military progress, it fell far behind.
e Kremlin leaders should have used all the powers of the Soviet diplomacy and intel-
ligence services to uncover and root out all attempts to revive the German military machine.
Let Germany stay weak! If Germany does not have tanks, aviation, heavy artillery, poison
gases, submarines, if Germany has no trained panzer corps, pilots, navigators, if the German
generals are banned from developing new tactics and methods of conducting operations, if
German engineers do not have the ability to create new models of weapons, and factories do
not produce these weapons—then Germany would never start a new war.
But the Kremlin leaders did not order their intelligence services to undertake a mis-
sion for the strict execution of and adherence to the Versailles Treaty. ey did the opposite.
A secret reorganization of the German army began with the help of the Soviet government.
Moscow gave the German commanders all that they were forbidden to possess: tanks, heavy
artillery, war planes, training classes, and weapons testing and shooting ranges. Germany was
also provided with access to the Soviet factories that produced tanks and airplanes that were
the most advanced in the world so the Germans would be able to look, to memorize, to copy.
Stalin allowed the German government to create secret design bureaus and training centers
on Soviet territory.
On November 26, 1922, an agreement about the production of metal airplanes and
plane engines was signed with the German aviation firm Junkers Flugzeugwerke. It was this
agreement with Junkers that paved the way for large-scale Soviet-German military coopera-
tion. In July 1923 two new agreements were set out: one was about the production of muni-
tions and military equipment and the other about the construction of a chemical plant. On
April 15, 1925, an agreement was signed about the creation of a secret air force center in
the Russian city of Lipetsk for training German military pilots. One hundred D-XIII-type
military planes were bought by the Soviet government for Germans from the Dutch com-
pany Fokker. e preparations for the blossoming of the ird Reich’s airpower had begun.
Over the years, the German models Heinkel He-45, He-46, He-51, Arado Ar-64 and Ar-65,
Junkers K-47, and Dornier Do-11 were successfully developed and tested in the USSR for
the Germans. By the end of 1933, the school had prepared 450 fighter pilots, air reconnais-
sance observers, and members of bomber squads. Many of them later entered the core of
Reischsmarschall Hermann Goering’s command staff. It is safe to say that the Luftwaffe (the
German air force) was born in the Soviet town of Lipetsk.
Nobody was supposed to know that Stalin was preparing Germany for a new world
war. Planes, designed for training and testing, arrived by non-stop flights at high altitude.
All those Germans who headed to the German aviation school in Lipetsk were formally
discharged from the Reichswehr. eir names were changed. e return of bodies of those
who perished during the frequent training accidents was quite a challenge. ey were sent
by sea through Leningrad, in containers labeled “Mechanical Parts.” eir relatives were not
told of the true causes of death.