Hubungan Jerman dengan Rusia
Hubungan Jerman dengan Rusia merujuk pada hubungan kedua negara yang telah dimulai sejak abad ke-18. Kala itu Jerman masih bernama Prusia. Selama lebih dari 1000 tahun menjalin persahabatan, kedua negara telah memberikan pengaruhnya masing-masing. Menurut poling yang diadakan BBC pada 2014, 21% orang Jerman memandang pengaruh Rusia secara positif sedangkan 67% orang memandangnya negatif. Sebaliknya, 57% orang Rusia memandang Jerman telah memberikan pengaruh sedangkan 12% memandang negatif.
Over the centuries there was a steady movement of Germans eastward, often into mostly Slavic areas and areas near to or controlled by Russia. Flegel, points out that German farmers, traders and entrepreneurs moved into East and West Prussia, the Baltic region (Lithuania, Latvia and Estonian), the Danzig and Vistula River region, Galicia, Slovenia, the Banat, the Bachka, Bukovina, Transylvania, the Volga River district of Russia, Posen, the Duchy of Warsaw, Polish and Ukrainian Volhynia, Bessarabia, and the Mount Ararat region between the 17th and the 20th centuries. Often they came at the invitation of the Russian government. The Germans typically became the dominant factors in land owning and business
enterprise. Some groups, such as the Mennonites, migrated to North American 1860-1914. The Germans in the Baltic states returned home voluntarily in 1940. Some 12 to 14 million were brutally expelled from Poland, Czechoslovakia and other countries in Eastern Europe in 1944-46, with the death of 500.000 or more. When the Cold War ended Germany funded the return of hundreds of thousands of people of German descent, whether or not they spoke German. A number of Baltic Germans served as ranking generals in the Russian Imperial Army and Navy, including Michael Barclay de Tolly, Adam von Krusenstern, Fabian von Bellingshausen, Friedrich von Buxhoeveden, Paul von Rennenkampf, Ivan Ivanovich Michelson and Eduard Totleben.
Many Baltic Germans (such as Baron Roman von Ungern-Sternberg, Baron Pyotr Nikolayevich Wrangel, Yevgeny Miller, and Anatoly Lieven) sided with the Whites and related anti-Bolshevik forces (like the "Baltische Landeswehr" and the "Freikorps" movement) during the Russian Civil War.
They fought on opposite sides during the War of the Austrian Succession (1740-1748), but the war saw both grow in power. Russia defeated Sweden and Prussia defeated Austria. Russia and Prussia again were at odds during the Seven Years' War (1756-1763) and fought the battles of Gross-Jägersdorf, Zorndorf, Kay and Kunersdorf. However, when Russian Tsar Peter III came to power, he made peace with Prussia by signing the Treaty of Saint Petersburg, allowing Prussian King Frederick the Great to concentrate on his other enemies.
Both Russia and Prussia had absolute monarchies that reacted sharply when the French Revolution executed the king. They at first were part of the coalition against the new French regime during the French Revolutionary Wars and later the Napoleonic Wars. During the Napoleonic era (1799 to 1815) Austria, Prussia, and Russia were at one time or another in coalition with Napoleon against his arch-enemy Great Britain. In the end, the two German states of Austria and Prussia united with Russia and Britain in opposing Napoleon. That coalition was primarily a matter of convenience for each nation. The key matchmaker was the Austrian Chancellor Klemens von Metternich, who forged a united front that proved decisive in overthrowing Napoleon, 1813-1814.
Russia was the most powerful force on the continent after 1815 and played a major role in the Concert of Europe which included France, Russia, Austria and Britain, but not Prussia. The revolutions of 1848 did not reach Russia, but its political and economic system was inadequate to maintain a modern army. It did poorly in the Crimean war. As Fuller notes, "Russia had been beaten on the Crimean peninsula, and the military feared that it would inevitably be beaten again unless steps were taken to surmount its military weakness." The Crimean War marked the end of the Concert of Europe. Prussia was shaken by the Revolutions of 1848 but was able to withstand the revolutionaries' call to war against Russia. Prussia did go to war with Denmark, however, and was only stopped by British and Russian pressure. Prussia remained neutral in the Crimean War.
Prussia's successes in the Wars of German Unification in the 1860s were facilitated by Russia's lack of involvement. The creation of the German Empire under Prussian dominance in 1871, however, greatly changed the relations between the two countries.
Earlier on it seemed as if the two great empires would be strong allies. German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck formed the League of the Three Emperors in 1872 binding together Russia, Austria, and Germany. The League stated that republicanism and socialism were common enemies and that the three powers would discuss any matters concerning foreign policy. Bismarck needed good relations with Russia in order to keep France isolated. In 1877-1878, Russia fought a victorious war with the Ottoman Empire and attempted to impose the Treaty of San Stefano on it. This upset the British in particular, as they were long concerned with preserving the Ottoman Empire and preventing a Russian takeover of the Bosphorus. Germany hosted the Congress of Berlin (1878), whereby a more moderate peace settlement was agreed
to. Germany had no direct interest in the Balkans, however, which was largely an Austrian and Russian sphere of influence. In 1879, Bismarck formed a Dual Alliance of Germany and Austria-Hungary, with the aim of mutual military assistance in the case of an attack from Russia, which was not satisfied with the agreement reached at the Congress of Berlin. The establishment of the Dual Alliance led Russia to take a more conciliatory stance, and in 1887, the so-called Reinsurance Treaty was signed between Germany and Russia: in it, the two powers agreed on mutual military support in the case that France attacked Germany, or in case of an Austrian attack on Russia. Russia turned its attention eastward to Asia and remained largely inactive in European politics for the next 25 years.
Germany was somewhat worried about Russia's potential industrialization-it had far more potential soldiers-while Russia feared Germany's already established industrial power. In 1907 Russia went into a coalition with Britain and France, the Triple Entente.
The ultimate result of this was that Russia and Germany became enemies in World War I. The Eastern Front saw Germany successful, with victories at Tannenberg, First and Second Masurian Lakes and Lake Naroch. The czarist system collapsed in 1917. The Bolsheviks came to power in the October Revolution. The new regime signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk which was highly advantageous to Germany, although it was reversed when Germany surrendered to the Allies in November 1918.
After the peace treaties that ended the Great War, the newly created states of the Weimar Republic and the Soviet Union both found themselves outcasts in the international system and gravitated toward each other. The Treaty of Rapallo (1922) formalized their warming relationship. Until 1933 the Soviet Union secretly provided training camps for the German Armed Forces.