Marx-Engels |  Lenin  | Stalin |  Home Page

  Selected Secret Documents from Soviet Foreign Policy Documents Archives - 1919 to 1941

Concentrated on 1st and  2nd WW Correspondence and Meetings related to Turkey, Balkans and Iran, with some additions from Afghanistan and India.

Download PDF
 

Telegram    of the  plenipotentiary representative of the USSR in Germany Merekalov to the peopleʹs commissariat of foreign affairs of the USSR

January 18, 1939 top secret

Today I paid a welcome visit to the Turkish ambassador  Arpag and Menemencioglu *.

On January 16, a Turkish‐German loan agreement was signed for 150 million marks for a period of 10 years out of 5% per annum. The loan must be realized by December 1941. 20% of the orders can go to cover the costs incurred in Turkey itself in Turkish lira. The agreement provides for the provision of benefits for the export of Turkish goods to Germany to cover a loan, preferential freight of German ships and cargo insurance in German companies. According to Menemencioglu’s assessment, chamberlainʹs trip seemed to end in nothing. He thinks that this ineffectuality is only external, in essence, both parties have made some kind of deal, and most likely at the expense of Spain. It is unlikely that the deal could have been made at the expense of France or Germany. France views pact obligations only in terms of its own personal benefits. The wrong policy of France, and especially after the defeat of the republicans in Spain, will transfer it to the category of minor powers in the Mediterranean, just as the refusal to support Czechoslovakia, deprived it of allies in central Europe. Menemencioglu, during his meetings with Stojadinovich *, allegedly twice developed the idea of the need for diplomatic rapprochement between Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union, that this would be a political factor in strengthening Turkish‐Yugoslav friendship. Stojadinovich in both cases reacted negatively, this is also a fact of negative French policy.

The Germans in conversations hide their next intentions and get off with only general phrases, the Italian‐German friendship is valid only in peacetime, thanks to it, both sides achieve their goals, it will not stand the military test. If it comes to a world war, then Italy will betray Germany, as in 1914, discontent is hidden behind the external GermanItalian prosperity. It is difficult to think that Mussolini is content with compensation from the Germans in the form of a telegram of thanks from Hitler. Germany is clearly seeking to penetrate the black or Mediterranean seas. In this case, one can expect a dramatic change and restructuring of German foreign policy. German ministers told Arpag that Germany would not allow the division of Carpathian Ukraine between Hungary and Poland, as Germany wants to maintain its hegemony over Carpathian Ukraine. The Germans also have a negative attitude towards the Hungarian claims in Romania. Menemencioglu did not raise questions about Germanyʹs attitude to the Montreux convention **.

I will send by mail a copy of the loan agreement received from them, which will enter into force after its ratification by the parties. Plenipotentiary of wua rf, 059, on. 1, p. 294, d. 2036, l. 18‐20.