Using German and previously closed or underutilized Soviet archives, this work brings to date the historiography of one of the most important aspects of twentieth-century international relations: the steps by which Germany and Soviet Russia would find common ground and establish a relationship whose impact would be felt throughout World War II.

VASILIS VOURKOUTIOTIS completed his PhD at McGill University, and taught History and International Relations in Russian universities for three years, before taking up his current appointment as Assistant Professor of History at the University of Ottawa, Canada. He is the author of Prisoners of War and German High Command: the British and American Experience (Palgrave, 2003), and has contributed to several books and published in academic journals in Canada, the United States, Great Britain, Germany and Russia. He is also a Post Doctoral Scholar at the Université de Paris IV -Sorbonne, and Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.