In November 1934, at the Soviet embassy in Berlin, Hitler's War Minister Werner von Blomberg raised a glass of sparkling Crimean wine in a toast: "Never shall we forget what the Soviet army did for Germany. I drink to the well-being and to the future of the great and glorious Soviet army, to faithful comradeship in arms, today and in the future!" The toast marked the end of the military-training deal which Germany and Bolshevik Russia secretly made after World War I. Germany had needed arms and space to train; Russia, know-how....
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