Stalin's Great Raid: The Plundering of Germany and the Rise of the Soviet Union to a Superpower

A revelatory new history from one of Europe’s leading scholars, uncovering how Stalin’s systematic plunder of Germany after World War II fueled the Soviet Union’s rise to superpower status.

The Soviet Plunder of Germany: A Turning Point in History

When the Red Army advanced into Central Europe in 1944–45, its battlefield victory marked only the beginning of a vast Soviet project of domination and extraction. Behind the language of “reparations,” Stalin and his planners initiated one of the most sweeping programs of industrial plunder in modern history.

• What was taken?
  • Entire factories
  • Whole industries
  • Research institutes
  • Rail networks
  • Cultural infrastructure
• Who was taken?
  • Tens of thousands of German engineers and specialists
  • Millions of German prisoners turned workers

All of this constituted the material and human basis for the USSR’s transformation from a ravaged wartime power into an industrial and military superstate.

A Unique Perspective from Declassified Archives

In Stalin’s Great Raid, distinguished Polish-German historian Bogdan Musial draws on never-before-seen declassified Soviet and Polish archives, offering the first comprehensive reconstruction of this vast transfer of wealth and technology.

Musial situates the looting of Germany within the grim historical cycle that began with Germany’s sponsorship of Lenin’s revolution and continued through the industrial cooperation that had armed the very Soviet power which would ultimately devour its creator.

A Major Contribution to Understanding History

A major work of archival history, Stalin’s Great Raid reframes the entangled destinies of Moscow and Berlin, transforming our understanding of:

• How the Second World War ended
• How the Soviet Union rose from the ruins

This groundbreaking account sheds new light on the events that shaped the modern world.