Nazi Germany helped China ultimately prevail against the invading Japanese.
Yes that does sound strange because Germany and Japan were part of the Axis. Let me explain.
Germany and China cooperated politically and economically between 1926 until 1941. In the 1920s Germany and China were in absolute shambles. Germany had a crippled economy due to repercussions from World War 1. China a couple years prior had brought an end to the Qing dynasty and the fledging Kuomintang struggled to maintain control. Large areas were ruled by warlord factions and the looming Imperial Japan threat grew by the day. Poverty was rife in both countries.
Chinese propaganda celebrating the cooperation
The Treaty of Versailles heavily limited Germany’s industrial output especially in the weapons industry. China did not sign the Treaty of Versailles so Germany was technically allowed to legally export manufactured weapons to China. While there was cooperation in the 1920s, it was heavily ramped up following the Nazi party taking power in 1933. The Kuomintang desperately needed to modernize its army against the threats of Japan and the rising Communist party. Germany needed resources for rearmament. In 1934 a treaty was signed between the two nations where China would send raw materials in exchange for German industrial products and developments.
China’s railway rapidly improved and expanded under the cooperation. The Three Year Plan was created by the Kuomintang for China to build up industrially in order to resist Japan. Many steel factories, power plants, and chemical plants were constructed under this. Mostly importantly, China’s military strength vastly improved under this cooperation. German General von Falkenhausen trained around 8 Chinese divisions of around 80,000 soldiers. These soldiers were among the elite troops of the Nationalist forces, on par in skill and equipment as the German Wehrmacht. In addition the Nationalist army was supplied with German weaponry like Mauser K98 rifles, MG-34 machine guns, Krupp artillery, Pak anti-tank guns, and Panzer tanks.
Picture of the Chinese army. Note their helmets are the same as the German ones.
The elite German trained forces of the Chinese army
Following the start of the Second Sino Japanese War in 1937 between China and Japan, cooperation died down. However numerous German businesses were still in China including some that oversaw factories. The cooperation officially ended in 1941 when the Tripartite Pact was formed between Germany, Italy and Japan. In that same year China joined the Allied powers.
While the cooperation was short, the impact was absolutely instrumental in China’s efforts against the Japanese. The Imperial Japanese Army originally had the plan to conquer Shanghai in 3 days and China in 3 months. Instead the Battle of Shanghai turned out to be one fiercest engagements in all of World War 2. The battle is often regarded as the Stalingrad of the East. What was meant to be a roll over instead turned into three months of bloody fighting with the Chinese Nationalist forces inflicting unexpectedly high casualties among the invading Japanese army. This was largely due to Chiang Kai Shek stationing his elite German trained divisions there and they held up the Japanese forces for quite a bit before Japan ramped up the invasion with aerial, naval, and armored onslaught.
The 88th Division, one of the 8 German trained divisions, at the Battle of Shanghai
Despite ultimately losing Shanghai, China was able to launch counteroffensives in 1939 and 1945 to retake lost territories. Ultimately China was able to hold off the Japanese until 1941 when the United States joined World War 2. This meant Japan had to deal with a two front war and China started receiving aid and weaponry from the United States. The Chinese were also capable of keeping up the fight until 1945 when Japan officially surrendered and all territories previously annexed by Japan were returned to China. The Chinese German cooperation had a profound effect on the modernization of China and was invaluable in boosting China’s capability to resist Japan in World War 2. Had this cooperation never existed, China might very well have been completely subjugated by Japan. This meant significantly more casualties for the Chinese as well as Japan invading the Soviet Union. While it is up to debate as to whether the Axis would have won World War 2 had the Soviet Union been engaged in a two front war, it most definitely would have made Germany and Japan much, much tougher to defeat.
Additional note: Remember how in between 1939 to 1942 the German army was regarded as unstoppable because of blitzkrieg? Want to know how they built such a formidable army of mechanized infantry and arsenal of airplanes? You guessed it, through the resources China gave them.
