German economic diplomacy in northeast Asia, 1917-1936

This dissertation uses archival sources to demonstrate how Germany's reliance on imported fats and oils shaped German diplomatic and business initiatives in northeast Asia during the interwar period. Resource-acquisitions strategy under the Weimar Republic tried to balance soybean purchases from Manchuria with efforts to obtain Russian fats and oils. German procurers initially pursued the Russian option, and forays into the Ukraine and Siberia after the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk established the priority of commerical objectives in diplomatic affairs that later charactarized the German presence in northeast Asia. By 1933, however, failed operations in the Soviet Union inclined Berlin to work more closely with Tokyo to obtain Manchurian soybeans.; Although the loss of Russian alternatives favored cooperation with Japan, German economic diplomacy retained its primacy over far less substantial political and military postures in northeast Asia under the Third Reich. Furthermore, continuities in field personnel, as well as methods that blurred the distinction between commercial enterprise and diplomatic representation, reinforced consistent German economic priorities in the region. Among the northeast Asian diplomatic corps, these continuities of purpose, expertise, and method also fostered a remarkable degree of autonomy from state and National-Socialist organs on the eve of World War II.; A student grant from the United States Fulbright Commission permitted extensive use of materials from the German Foreign Office Archive in Bonn; German Federal Archives in Potsdam, Coswig, and Koblenz; the Hamburg Chamber of Commerce Library; and the World Economic Archives in Hamburg and Kiel.