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The '''Treaty of Rapallo''' was an agreement of
April 16,
1922 between
Germany (the Weimar Republic) and
Bolshevist Russia under which each renounced all territorial and financial claims against the other following the
Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and
World War I.
The two governments also agreed to normalise their diplomatic relations and to "co-operate in a spirit of mutual goodwill in meeting the economic needs of both countries".
The Treaty was signed during the
Genoa Conference by
Georgi Chicherin, foreign minister of the Russian Socialist Federal Soviet Republic, and his German counterpart
Walther Rathenau.
A supplementary agreement signed at Berlin on
November 5 extended the treaty to cover Germany's relations with Russian controlled Soviet republics of
Ukraine,
Belarus,
Georgia,
Azerbaijan,
Armenia and the
Far Eastern Republic.
A secret annex signed on
July 29 allowed Germany to train their military in Soviet territory, thus violating the
Treaty of Versailles.
The treaty ended the diplomatic isolation of both countries in the wake of
World War I and the
Russian Revolution of
1917. In
the West it was viewed with alarm as strengthening the international position of both governments.
Poland, the
Baltic states and
Finland were concerned by this prelude to revived Russian
imperialism, soon to be signified by the establishing of the
Soviet Union. The attempt to counter the Russian threat by closer cooperation on the fields of defence and foreign politics failed however, mainly due to resistance in the different parliaments.
Though reaffirmed on paper in the
Treaty of Berlin, 1926, the understanding between the two
powers waned with Germany's ''rapprochement'' with
Britain and
France in the middle years of the decade.
de:Vertrag von Rapallo
fr:Trait de Rapallo (1922)
nl:Verdrag van Rapallo (1922)
