Carl Graap and the Formation of Weimar Foreign Policy Toward Soviet Russia from 1919 until Rapallo

Even though the conviction that Russia was evolving in a more moderate direction was an important underlying assumption of German policy in the months leading up to the Treaty of Rapallo, it has been essentially ignored in the scholarship on Rapallo. Equally ignored is the central role played by Carl Graap in promoting this assumption in Berlin. This article aims toward filling this gap and toward improving our understanding of the relationship between Germany and Russia in the twentieth century in general and in the period from 1919 to 1922 in particular.