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Credit agreement between Nazi Germany and Soviet Union

The German–Soviet Credit Agreement (also referred to as the German–Soviet Trade and Credit Agreement) was an economic arrangement between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union whereby the latter received an acceptance credit of over seven years with an effective interest rate of 4.5 percent. The credit line was to be used during the next two years for purchase of capital goods (factory equipment, installations, machinery and machine tools, ships, vehicles, and other means of transport) in Germany and was to be paid off by means of Soviet material shipment from 1946 onwards. The economic agreement was the first step toward improvement in relations between the Soviet Union and Germany. On 11 May 1939, the day after the Credit Agreement, the Soviet Union went to war against Japan in a successful four week military campaign in the Far East. The Nazi Soviet Pact was signed four days after the Credit Agreement. The 1939 German–Soviet Commercial Agreement renewed declined German–Soviet economic relations and was adjusted and expanded with the larger German–Soviet Commercial Agreement in February 1940 and January 1941 German–Soviet Border and Commercial Agreement. German shipments to the Soviets became tardy and failed to provide all that was promised the closer the date of Barbarossa came. The Soviets fulfilled their obligations to the letter right up until the invasion, wanting to avoid provoking Germany. All these agreements were terminated when Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, in violation of the treaties between the two countries. Soviet trade with Germany in the pre invasion period ended up providing the Germans with many of the resources they needed for their invasion of the Soviet Union.

Germany lacks natural resources, including several key raw materials needed for economic and military operations. Before World War I, Germany imported 1.5 billion Reichsmarks of raw materials and other goods per year from Russia. In the early 1930s, Soviet imports decreased as the more isolationist Stalinist regime asserted power and dwindling adherence to the disarmament requirements of the Treaty of Versailles decreased Germany's reliance on Soviet imports.

The rise to power of the Nazi Party increased tensions between Germany and the Soviet Union, with Nazi racial ideology casting the Soviet Union as populated by "untermenschen" ethnic Slavs ruled by their "Jewish Bolshevik" masters. Even with rising tensions, in the mid 1930s, the Soviet Union made repeated efforts to reestablish closer contacts with Germany., which were rebuffed by Hitler, who wished to steer clear of such political ties. Relations further declined in 1936, when Germany supported the Fascist Spanish Nationalists in the Spanish Civil War, while the Soviets supported the partially socialist led Spanish Republic opposition. The same year, Germany and Japan entered the Anti Comintern Pact. Stalinist purges also disrupted Soviet diplomacy.

By the late 1930s, because an autarkic economic approach or an alliance with Britain were impossible, Germany needed to arrange closer relations with the Soviet Union, if not just for economic reasons alone. Soviet imports of Ukrainian grains or Soviet transshipments of Manchurian soybeans could make up the shortfall. However, German needs for military supplies and Soviet needs for military machinery increased after the Munich Agreement. The Soviets were willing to engage in talks discussing a new German offer in February and March 1939 in Moscow. Germany put the talks on hold in mid March. A few days thereafter, Germany occupied Czechoslovakia and then the Klaipėda Region (Memel), making a German war with Poland far more likely. Germany and the Soviet Union discussed entering into an economic deal throughout early 1939. During spring and summer 1939, the Soviets negotiated a political and military pact with France and Britain, while at the same time talking with German officials about a potential political Soviet–German agreement. On April 7, Soviet diplomat Georgii Astakhov stated to the German Foreign Ministry that there was no point in continuing the German–Soviet ideological struggle and that the two countries could come to an agreement. Ten days later, Soviet ambassador Alexei Merekalov met with German State Secretary Ernst Weizsacker and presented him a note requesting speedy removal of any obstacles for fulfillment of military contracts signed between Czechoslovakia and the USSR before the former was occupied by Germany. According to German accounts, at the end of the discussion the ambassador stated "there exists for Russia no reason why she should not live with us on a normal footing. And from normal the relations might become better and better." Other sources claim that it could be an exaggeration or inaccurate recounting of the ambassador's words. Immediately after the meeting, the Soviet ambassador had been withdrawn to Moscow and never returned to Germany. German planners in April and May 1939 feared that a cessation of Swedish trade would cut key iron ore supplies. Germany already faced severe rubber shortages because of British and Dutch refusals to trade. On May 8, German officials estimated that Germany had oil reserves for only 3.1 months. Three days later, on May 20, Molotov told the German ambassador in Moscow that he no longer wanted to discuss only economic matters, and that it was necessary to establish a "political basis", which German officials saw an "implicit invitation" On May 30, Germany directed its diplomats in Moscow that "we have now decided to undertake definite negotiations with the Soviet Union." The ensuing discussions were channeled through the economic negotiation, because the economic needs of the two sides were substantial and because close military and diplomatic connections had been severed in the mid 1930s after the creation of the Anti Comintern Pact and the Spanish Civil War, leaving these talks as the only means of communication. The Soviet ambassador explained that a deal with Germany better suited Soviet needs than a deal with Britain and France or inconclusive negotiations resulting in no deal. Thereafter, official talks were started in Berlin on July 22. Meanwhile, hoping to stop the German war machine, in July, Britain conducted talks with Germany regarding a potential plan to bail out the debt ridden German economy at the cost of one billion pounds in exchange for Germany ending its armaments program. The British press broke the story and Germany eventually rejected the offer. On July 26, over dinner, the Soviets accepted a proposed three stage agenda which included the economic agenda first and "a new arrangement which took account of the vital political interests of both parties." and that "there was no problem between the Baltic and the Black Sea that could not be solved between the two of us." The Germans discussed prior hostilities between the countries in the 1930s. They addressed their common ground of anti capitalism, stating "there is one common element in the ideology of Germany, Italy and the Soviet Union: opposition to the capitalist democracies," "neither we nor Italy have anything in common with the capitalist west" and "it seems to us rather unnatural that a socialist state would stand on the side of the western democracies." Astakhov characterized the conversation as "extremely important." By August 10, the countries worked out the last minor technical details, but the Soviets delayed signing the economic agreement for almost ten days until they were sure that they had also reached a political agreement. Meanwhile, every internal German military and economic study had argued that Germany was doomed to defeat without at least Soviet neutrality.

While the treaty was ready at 4 pm on August 19, the Soviets announced that they could not sign it that day, worrying German officials that the Soviets were delaying for political reasons. When TASS published a report that the Soviet–British–French talks had become snarled over the Far East and "entirely different matters", Germany took it as a signal that there was still time and hope to reach a Soviet–German deal. The agreement covered "current" business, which entailed Soviet obligations to deliver 180 million Reichsmarks in raw materials and German commitment to provide the Soviets with 120 million Reichsmarks of German industrial goods. Under the agreement, Germany also granted the Soviet Union a merchandise credit of over seven years to be financed by the German Gold Discount Bank. The credit was to be used to finance Soviet "new business" Schnurre also wrote "[a]part from the economic import of the treaty, its significance lies in the fact that the negotiations also served to renew political contacts with Russia and that the credit agreement was considered by both sides as the first decisive step in the reshaping of political relations." Molotov wrote in Pravda that the August 19 deal was "better than all earlier treaties" and "we have never managed to reach such a favorable economic agreement with Britain, France or any other country." It contained secret protocols dividing the states of Northern and Eastern Europe into German and Soviet "spheres of influence." At the signing, Ribbentrop and Stalin enjoyed warm conversations, exchanged toasts and further addressed the prior hostilities between the countries in the 1930s. They characterized Britain as always attempting to disrupt Soviet German relations, stated that the Anti Comintern pact was not aimed at the Soviet Union, but actually aimed at Western democracies and "frightened principally the City of London [i. e., the British financiers] and the English shopkeepers." In 2010, Timothy Snyder linked the improvement in Nazi Soviet relations in 1939 to Stalin's objective of disrupting the Anti Comintern Pact and waging war on Japan. Snyder said:

"On 20 August 1939, Hitler sent a personal message to Stalin, asking him to receive Ribbentrop no later than the twenty third. Ribbentrop made for Moscow, where, as both Orwell and Koestler noted, swastikas adorned the airport of the capital of the homeland of socialism. This, the final ideological shock that separated Koestler from communism, was really a sign that the Soviet Union was no longer an ideological state. The two regimes immediately found common ground in their mutual aspiration to destroy Poland the Soviet Union had agreed to attack Poland along with Germany. In August and September 1939, Stalin was reading maps not just of east Europe but of east Asia. He had found an opportunity to improve the Soviet position in the Far East. Stalin could now be confident that no German Polish attack was coming from the west The Soviets (and their Mongolian allies) attacked Japanese (and puppet Manchukuo) forces on 20 August 1939. Stalin's policy of rapprochement with Berlin of August 23, 1939, was also directed against Tokyo. The Molotov Ribbentrop Pact between Germany and the Soviet Union, signed three days after the offensive, nullified the Anti Comintern Pact between Germany and Japan. Even more than the battlefield defeat, the Nazi Soviet alliance brought a political earthquake to Tokyo. The Japanese government fell, as would several more in the coming months. Once Germany seemed to have chosen the Soviet Union rather than Japan as its ally, the Japanese government found itself in an unexpected and confusing situation if the union between Moscow and Berlin held, the Red Army would be able to concentrate its forces in Asia rather than in Europe. Hitler had given Stalin a free hand in Asia, and the Japanese could only hope that Hitler would betray his new friend. When the Red Army defeated the Japanese, on 15 September, Stalin had achieved exactly the result that he wanted. Stalin had replaced the phantom of a German Polish Japanese encirclement of the Soviet Union with a very real German Soviet encirclement of Poland, an alliance that isolated Japan."