Why Did Hitler Arm China Against Japan?

In 1937, Japanese marines attacking Shanghai ran into something they had not been trained to expect — a Chinese army in German helmets, fighting like a European one. For five years, Hitler's largest military partner in Asia was not Japan. It was China. German generals were training Chiang Kai-shek's elite divisions. Chinese tungsten was hardening Hitler's tank shells. And then, in February of 1938, Hitler made the trade that would help cost him the Second World War. This is the story of the Sino-German military partnership of the 1930s — why Berlin and Nanjing found each other, what their alliance did to the Imperial Japanese Army at Shanghai, and how Hitler talked himself into one of the worst strategic decisions of his career. Featuring General Alexander von Falkenhausen, Hans von Seeckt, the eight elite German-trained divisions of Chiang's army, the HAPRO Agreement, the Battle of Shanghai, the Sihang Warehouse stand, and the diplomatic earthquake of February 1938 that ended it all. SOURCES (selected) Peter Harmsen, Shanghai 1937: Stalingrad on the Yangtze (Casemate, 2013) Peter Harmsen, Nanjing 1937: Battle for a Doomed City (Casemate, 2015) William C. Kirby, Germany and Republican China (Stanford University Press, 1984) John P. Fox, Germany and the Far Eastern Crisis 1931-1938 (Oxford, 1982) Stefan Berleb, "To Train the Yellow Race": German Military Advisors in China 1928-1938 (Queensland University of Technology, 2005) If you want more stories from the strange decade before everything became simple — the partnerships that became wars, the deals that broke, the road that led to 1939 and 1941 — subscribe. 00:00 The trade that cost Hitler the war 01:10 Four questions about a forgotten alliance 01:50 Why Berlin and Nanjing found each other 08:10 The Germans who built Chiang's army 15:40 Shanghai August to November 1937 28:15 How Hitler Destroyed His Own Investment 36:40 The strategic miscalculation 41:10 How wars begin #WW2 #SinoJapaneseWar #MilitaryHistory #BattleOfShanghai #Falkenhausen #ChiangKaiShek #Wehrmacht