When Nazi Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, launching World War Two, its
military might was literally overwhelming. The Luftwaffe bombed towns and cities across
the country; 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
had reduced its vaunted army 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 seemingly miraculous turnaround have happened?
As Ian Ona Johnson establishes beyond question in Faustian Bargain, the answer lies in
Soviet Russia. Beginning in the years immediately after the First World War and continuing
for more than a decade, the German military and the Soviet Union, despite having been
bitter 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, away from the
oversight established by Versailles. 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 military powers
capable of mass destruction—one that was eventually directed against the other.
Drawing from archives in five countries, including new collections of declassified Russian
documents, Faustian Bargain offers the most authoritative exploration to date of this
secret pact and its cataclysmic results.
