“Only in firm co-operation with a Great Russia will Germany have the chance of regaining her position as a world power…Britain and France fear the combination of the two land powers and try to prevent it with all their means—hence we have to seek it with all our strength…Whether we like or dislike the new Russia and her internal structure is quite immaterial. Our policy would have had to be the same towards a Tsarist Russia or towards a state under Kolchak or Denikin. Now we have to come to terms with Soviet Russia—we have no alternative…In Poland France seeks to gain the eastern field of attack against Germany and, together with Britain, has driven the stake which we cannot endure into our flesh, quite close to the heart of our existent a a state. Now France trembles for her Poland which a strengthened Russia threatens with destruction, and now Germany is to save her mortal enemy! Her mortal enemy, for we have none worse at this moment. Neva can Prussia-Germany concede that Bromberg, Graudenz, Thorn, (Marienburg), Posen should remain in Polish hands, and now there appears on the horizon, like a divine miracle, help for us in our deep distress. At this moment nobody should ask Germany to lift as much as a finger when disaster engulf Poland.”

Memorandum (4 February 1920), quoted in F. L. Carsten, The Reichswehr and Politics 1918 to 1933 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966), p. 68.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Only in firm co-operation with a Great Russia will Germany have the chance of regaining her position as a world power…B…" by Hans von Seeckt?
Hans von Seeckt photo
Hans von Seeckt 9
German general 1866–1936

Related quotes

Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg photo

“We must keep France in check through a cautious policy towards Russia and England. Naturally this does not please our chauvinists and is unpopular. But I see no alternative for Germany in the near future.”

Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg (1856–1921) German chancellor during World War I

Letter to Eisendecher (23 March 1913), quoted in Konrad H. Jarauschl, ‘The Illusion of Limited War: Chancellor Bethmann Hollweg's Calculated Risk, July 1914’, Central European History, Vol. 2, No. 1 (Mar., 1969), p. 53

Hans von Seeckt photo
Edward Wood, 1st Earl of Halifax photo
Alfred von Waldersee photo

“I see a future for us only in a Great War in which we lastingly cripple an opponent, France or Russia. Unless there should be a great war, the only way out of our dilemma will be through internal commotion, preferably revolutions in France or Russia.”

Alfred von Waldersee (1832–1904) Prussian Field Marshal

Waldersee in his diary, 15 October 1885, quoted in Scott A. Silverstone, From Hitler's Germany to Saddam's Iraq

John Morley, 1st Viscount Morley of Blackburn photo
Gustav Stresemann photo
Gleb Pavlovsky photo

“Today Putin's system of power and Russia — are the same. Putin accustoms the world to the fact disguisting for it, the world, the fact of existence of strong national Russia, "Putin's Russia". Russia without Putin is geopolitically impossible today, it would be just no one's land. All other details should be considered in this context.”

Gleb Pavlovsky (1951) Russian political scientist

"Сегодня система власти Путина и Россия — это одно и то же. Путин приучает мир к отвратительному для него, мира, факту существования сильной национальной России, «путинской России». Россия без Путина сегодня геополитически невозможна, это будет просто ничья территория. Все остальные детали стоит рассматривать в этом контексте."

Enoch Powell photo
Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston photo
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn photo

Related topics