Treaty of Rapallo

Treaty of Rapallo 1922, agreement signed by Germany and the USSR at Rapallo, Italy. It was reached by Walter Rathenau and G. V. Chicherin independently of the Conference of Genoa (see Genoa, Conference of ), which was then in session. Germany accorded the USSR de jure recognition (the first such recognition extended to the Soviet government), and the two signatories mutually canceled all prewar debts and renounced war claims. Particularly advantageous to Germany was the inclusion of a most-favored-nation clause and of extensive trade agreements. The treaty enabled the German army, through secret agreements, to produce and perfect in the USSR weapons forbidden by the Treaty of Versailles.

Rapallo, Treaties of Two treaties signed at Rapallo, a city in north Italy. The First Treaty of Rapallo (1920) established relations between Italy and the kingdom of Serbs, Croatians, and Slovenes (Yugoslavia). Italy obtained the Istrian peninsula while Dalmatia went to Yugoslavia. Fiume (Rijeka) became a free city. The Second Treaty of Rapallo (1922) was more important. It recorded an agreement between Germany and the Soviet Union. The two countries agreed to abandon any financial claims that each might bring against the other following WORLD WAR I. Secretly, in defiance of the VERSAILLES PEACE SETTLEMENT, German soldiers were to be permitted to train in the Soviet Union.