German-Polish war without the intervention of France or the other powers" was very unlikely. Dirksen had to advise Blomberg politely that his belief that the "spirit of Locarno" had improved Franco-German relations to such an extent that France would disregard its alliance with Poland if Germany invade it was an illusion. Later in 1928, Foreign Minister Gustav Stresemann appointed Dirksen as Germany's Ambassador to the Soviet Union. In his memoirs, Dirksen wrote that the Soviet Union and Germany "shared the same fate": "Both had been vanquished in the war, both were being treated as outcasts by the Allied powers. Both felt resentment or enmity to their new neighbor Poland...Both were convinced that a give-and-take was mutually adventurous". However, Dirksen's views towards the Soviets were entirely pragmatic, as he went on to write that as a German and therefore a "civilized European", he felt only "contempt and abhorrence" towards communism and Russians. Dirksen supported Soviet efforts to help Germany break the terms of the Treaty of Versailles by developing weapons that Versailles had forbidden. Germany was to have such as tanks and aircraft, but he wanted German-Soviet military co-operation kept within its "proper limits". Since 1926, when the secret German-Soviet co-operation had become public knowledge following an exposé by The Manchester Guardian, the subject was a contentious one that had strained relations with France, which did not appreciate Germany breaking Versailles to develop forbidden weapons that would one day be used against it. Dirksen wanted the development of weapons in the Soviet Union to be handled by private German companies, working for the German state as much as possible. He feared that more revelations of German covert rearmament in the Soviet Union would cause too many difficulties with the French and hinder German efforts to have Versailles revised in its favour. From the German view, convincing France that Germany did not plan to start another world war was the key to the efforts to revise Versailles, and the fact that covert rearmament went on in the Soviet Union was not helpful to that campaign. In his first speech in Moscow, in January 1929, Dirksen hailed the First Five-Year Plan and promised that Germany would do everything within its power to help the Soviets achieve the targets set out by the plan. Dirksen's relations with the Soviet Commissar for Foreign Affairs Georgy Chicherin were good, as Dirksen regarded Chicherin as pro-German. However,