Chapter 148 Deepening Cooperation

At a newly opened civil aviation airport on the banks of the Moscow River, the wind was blowing hard and the weather was colder. There are about 10 Fokker aircraft on the tarmac of the airport. F5 and Junkers J.23, there are passenger aircraft models, and there are transport aircraft models.

The planes belonged either to the Soviet Directorate of Civil Aviation or to Lufthansa, an airline formed by the merger of Lloyd's Aviation, founded by Milch, and Junkers, a subsidiary of Junckers, and with the support of the German government and military, the airline expanded rapidly, even during the years of the rapid depreciation of the mark, and now has more than 180 aircraft of all types, with routes across Europe.

The Hersmanns arrived in Moscow on a Lufthansa plane, and at the exit of a special passage in the newly built airport terminal, Hersmann saw at a glance a tall and plump Natalie in a green wool coat and a small round hat. Lesinskaya.

"Natalie, are you here to meet us at the airport?" Hersman said, taking a few steps forward. "I heard that you have been transferred back to the country, and now you are working in the People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs?"

Natalie. Lesinskaya was originally based in Riga, the capital of the Baltic Republic, as an assistant to Madame Kollentai. The Soviet Union set up a large foreign trade company there, and in addition to cooperating with the economic promotion company controlled by Hirschmann, it also did business with British and American trading companies. However, its main business was the export of oil, timber and grain to Germany, which was used to pay for the repatriation of machinery, equipment, spare parts and technical drawings exported by Germany to the Soviet Union, as well as the repatriation of profits from Soviet-German cooperative enterprises.

According to the earlier agreement between Hersman and the Soviet Union, trade and cooperation between the Soviet Union and Germany were settled on the basis of barter, as far as possible, without the need for cash payments between countries, and in the case of German private enterprises, the sales revenues and profits they made in the Soviet Union would become receivables from the Economic Promotion Corporation, which would receive cash after the Economic Promotion Company sold the raw materials recovered from the Soviet Union.

In order to smoothly sell the raw materials (mainly oil) obtained from the Soviet Union, the economic promotion company has also cooperated with German chemical giants BASF and Bayer Chemie in the past few years to open several large refineries in Germany specializing in refining Baku crude oil, and plans to build thousands of gas stations in Germany and the Baltics.

Because after the implementation of the New Economic Policy in the Soviet Union, the economic strength increased rapidly, especially the output of grain, timber and oil increased significantly, and the Soviet Union had a strong ability to make foreign payments, which made the scale of Soviet-German cooperation expand rapidly.

This is, of course, also due to the fact that there are not many countries willing to do business with the Soviet Union, mainly Germany and the United States. Britain, France and other countries imposed certain trade sanctions on the Soviet Union because of debt and investment disputes with the Soviet Union (the Soviet Union's nationalization policy caused Britain and France heavy losses).

Perhaps because of her success in foreign trade activities, Natalie. Lesinskaya was transferred back to the Soviet Union at the end of 1923 and, according to others, was promoted.

But today Natalie. Leshinskaya still looked a little sad, probably sad for Lenin, and only barely squeezed out a smile when he saw Hersman: "No, I still work in the Foreign Trade Company, and I am now the deputy general manager in charge of the automobile and aircraft business. ”

"Natalie, it's a pleasure to see you." Chloe pulled little Rudolph over, hugged Natalie, and then introduced her three-year-old son to Natalie, "This is my son Rudolph and Hersman...... Now he pesters me all day long, so he has to take him with him to the Soviet Union. ”

"It's so cute," said Natalie, touching the face of the little oneβ€”he looked like Chloe, very pretty, and looked at Natalie a little shylyβ€”and said with some emotion, "I want to have a child too, but unfortunately I never had the chance." ”

No chance? This woman doesn't look like she can't get married. Hersman glanced at Natalie and saw that the other party was also looking at him. The two of them met their gazes, then turned away from each other.

"How is Lenin?" Hersman asked quietly.

Natalie looked around and found no civil aviation staff.

"Most of the time he couldn't wake up, and the doctors said he didn't have much time," she said, "and he was in his last moments, so I brought in an old friend like you to see him one last time when he woke up." ”

"That's right......," Hesman thought, "his position in the hearts of the leaders of Soviet Russia is not low, and this will be very beneficial for future cooperation between the two sides.

Natalie said: "This time I arranged for you to stay in the Minzu Hotel, which has just been renovated and is very beautiful. ”

It was renovated for the funeral of Comrade Lenin...... It was expected that many foreign friends and leaders of fraternal parties would come to the Soviet Union. So it is necessary to make a good impression on them - Moscow must appear to be thriving in all respects.

Outside the airport's terminal, three black Mercedes-Benz 6 sedans were parked on the side of the road one after another. The driver, wearing a black uniform, stood next to the car, saw Natalie coming, and immediately opened the door.

"Get in the car." Natalie smiled and said to Chloe, "You don't mind riding in a car with Comrade Huang Fuxing, do you?" ”

Huang Fuxing is Vasily. Huang, he also has a font name called Zhisheng.

"Of course, of course I don't mind." Chloe smiled and picked up her son, nodded at Hersman, and then talked to Vasily. Huang got on the front of the car.

Natalie and Hersmann have always been close, and often visited Hirschmann in Berlin when she was working at the Soviet Foreign Trade Corporation. If Hersman goes to Riga, they'll have a meal at the meeting. And this kind of relationship, Chloe knew it all, and she didn't mind, because she knew that Hersman was a very decent man and loved her very much. Socializing with Natalie is just a need for work.

Hersman and Natalie got into the second Mercedes, while his aide-de-camp, Captain Paulus, got into the third car with two suitcases of luggage.

"Ludwig," Natalie didn't whisper to Hersmann in the car, but talked about the car, "what do you think of the car?" ”

"It's already as good as it is produced in Germany." Hersman replied with a smile.

He knew that this Mercedes-Benz 6 was assembled in Petrograd, it was assembled in whole parts, and the technical term of later generations was called CKD - this was a form of German technology export to the Soviet Union, whether it was an airplane or an airplane, it started with CKD, and then gradually transferred the production of parts to the Soviet Union.

Historically, the Soviet auto industry received technology transfer from the United States, and it was Ford that first set up factories in the Soviet Union.

At this time, Mercedes-Benz replaced Ford and opened large automobile assembly plants in Petrograd and Moscow in joint ventures with the People's Commissariat of Heavy Industry of the USSR. Not only the production of Mercedes-Benz 6 sedans, but also the production of two trucks, can be regarded as robbing Ford's business!

"But at the moment, we can only assemble cars and airplanes from German parts, and the progress of localization is slower than expected......

Natalie and Hersman got down to business. Soviet-German cooperation has been the only reliable driving force for the German economy in the past few years when Germany has faced an economic crisis.

Companies that have been able to grow in the midst of hyperinflation, such as Krupp, Mercedes-Benz, Rheinmetall, Junkers, BASF, Bayer Chemie, Siemens, FK-BF, BMW, M.A.N., and many others, have almost all benefited from cooperation with the Soviet Union – and historically, too!

For example, the famous Krupp company provided a large number of machinery and equipment to the Soviet Union, helping them to build the Tula, Leningrad and Schlyssel artillery shell factories with an annual output of 300,000 shells.

Junkers, the FK-BF joint company, and BMW jointly participated in the Soviet-German cooperation project codenamed "Plan R", and exported aircraft assembly technology and production lines to the Soviet Union. Through the CKD, it helped the Soviet Union to produce at least three "state-of-the-art" military aircraft. A large number of military and civilian aircraft were also exported to the Soviet Union through barter.

BASF and Bayer Chemicals, on the other hand, exported poison gas plants and oil refineries to the Soviet Union. Siemens, on the other hand, built a lot of oil-fired and coal-fired power plants -- the Soviet Union's coal production has not been able to rise, but there has always been a lot of oil, so many heavy oil power plants have been built, so the Soviet industry is very dependent on the Baku and Grozny oil fields.

However, when it comes to the transfer of key technologies, the progress is not as fast as imagined.

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