The Incompatible Allies

In collaboration with Alfred G. Meyer, an American scholar well trained in the modern history of Germany and Russia, Gustav Hilger has produced a memoir-history of German-Soviet relations from 1918 to 1941 that deserves the close attention of the student of Russian and German affairs. Mr. Hilger, who served in the German Embassy in Moscow from 1923 to 1941, has perhaps a uniquely long record of diplomatic experience with the Soviet Union. These memoirs concerning inter-war German-Soviet relations, while containing no great revelations, are quite valuable in illuminating a number of phases of that relationship, especially the Rapallo connection and the strained amicability preceding the onslaught of June 1941.