Kama tank school

The Treaty of Versailles, signed on 28 June 1919, prohibited Germany from operating any form of tank or air force after the country had lost the First World War. ==School operations==

After its opening, the school accommodated up to a dozen German officers at a time, training there for up to two years. Apart from training officers, the school served German companies like Krupp, Daimler, and Rheinmetall as a development ground for new tank designs. Technicians worked on the designs that later became the Panzerkampfwagen I and II. Many of the officers training, instructing or visiting Kama later became high-ranking commanders in the Wehrmacht or its Panzerwaffe, among them Ernst Volckheim, Werner von Blomberg, Walter Model, Wilhelm Ritter von Thoma, Heinz Guderian It is claimed that a number of Soviet tank officers were also trained there. However from the declassified German and Soviet documents one may conclude that the Soviet officers were mainly observers or assistants. ==Closure==

In the early 1930s, the political situation for the tank school began to change. The Soviet Union opened itself to the West while Germany attempted a closer approach to France. In December 1932, Germany achieved being viewed as an equal at the Geneva Conference, making the secret schools somewhat unnecessary. With the rise of the Nazis to power in January 1933, the ideological gap between fascist Germany and the communist Soviet Union became too large and the tank school at Kazan was closed in late 1933. ==See also==