Abstract
This revealing study sheds new light on the long-term relationship between Germany and the USSR, stretching from the early years of the Weimar Republic to the cataclysmic events of 1941. Nekrich explores how Germany and the Soviet Union - as "pariah" states, condemned and ostracized by the Great Powers - collaborated to regain their political and, especially, military power. He demonstrates, in particular, Stalin's abiding interest in the "German card," and the diplomacy of "predation," by which in 1939-1941, the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany set about a methodical dismemberment and annexation of the smaller states of east-central Europe.