Rapallo Treaty

Treaty of Rapallo

Chancellor of Germany Joseph Wirth (2.from left) with Krassin, Georgi Chicherin and Joffe from the Russian delegation.
Type	bilateral treaty
Signed	16 April 1922 (1922-04-16)
Location	Rapallo, Italy
Original signatories	Germany USSR
Ratifiers	Germany USSR

The Treaty of Rapallo was an agreement signed on 16 April 1922 between Germany and 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". Secretly the two sides established elaborate military cooperation, while publicly denying it.

It was a spinoff of the Genoa Conference, which included Germany and the Soviet Union. It had broken down when France demanded that the Soviets assume the prewar debt incurred by the Russian Empire and on immediate reparations by the Germans to the USSR. The German and Russian delegates quietly slipped away and met at Rapallo. The Treaty was negotiated by Georgi Chicherin, foreign minister of the Russian Socialist Federal Soviet Republic, and his German counterpart Walther Rathenau. Ratifications were exchanged in Berlin on January 31, 1923. It was signed at the Hotel Imperiale in the Italian town of Santa Margherita Ligure, and registered in League of Nations Treaty Series on September 19, 1923. The treaty did not include secret military provisions; however secret military cooperation soon followed.

A supplementary agreement signed in Berlin on November 5 extended the treaty to cover Germany's relations with Soviet republics of Ukraine, Belarus, Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan and the Far Eastern Republic. Ratifications were exchanged in Berlin on October 26, 1923, and the supplementary protocol was registered in League of Nations Treaty Series on July 18, 1924.