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One big contention is that the Treaty of Versailles was much too harsh on Germany and contributed to WWII. My question is even had the treaty been the most fair and balanced treaty ever, in the end do you think it really would've mattered? Had the Allies after WWI been much nicer and fair would it have stopped groups like the Nazis from coming or do you think the treaty ultimately didn't matter and Germany would still be on course to WWII?
The rise of Nazism was largely predicated upon utilizing the German anger with the treaty. The treaty was a national humiliation, the Nazis promised to restore national prestige.
It is difficult to imagine the National Socialist Party gaining traction without this central issue to exploit. If the Nazis had not emerged in control of Germany then it would have been the Wiemar Republic vs the socialists and communists. No doubt the newly founded USSR would have made efforts to encourage the triumph of the socialists in Germany, these efforts would have been countered by the capitalist allies....and who knows what that conflict might have produced. There still could have been a WW II, just a different WW II with the Soviets rather than the Nazis being the enemy.
But maybe not...change one thing in history and you eventually change everything, so who can say with any confidence what the consequences of a fair minded treaty would have been?
One big contention is that the Treaty of Versailles was much too harsh on Germany and contributed to WWII. My question is even had the treaty been the most fair and balanced treaty ever, in the end do you think it really would've mattered? Had the Allies after WWI been much nicer and fair would it have stopped groups like the Nazis from coming or do you think the treaty ultimately didn't matter and Germany would still be on course to WWII?
If the Germans knew that they would be billed for the entire cost of the war, they would never have surrendered. Their military was intact and could continue the fight.
If the Germans knew that they would be billed for the entire cost of the war, they would never have surrendered. Their military was intact and could continue the fight.
I'm confident that the Germans were quite aware that any peace treaty would contain severe terms. The most immediate example available was the treaty the Germans imposed on the infant USSR. The Russians were forced to cede to Germany and renounce future claims on Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, Belarus, and Ukraine, an immense amount of territory. It was equivalent in size to the US losing all of the Atlantic states from Washington DC north through Maine.
From what one understands Joseph Goebbels used the Treaty of Versailles in his propaganda to urge Germans to continue fighting the war even when it was clear all was lost. Indeed many in the US military and Washington, D.C. began to lean on Henry Morgenthau, Jr. to lighten up on his plans for post war Germany.
If the Germans knew that they would be billed for the entire cost of the war, they would never have surrendered. Their military was intact and could continue the fight.
This is completely wrong.
In November 1918 the war was obviously over for Germany. Its allies were bailing (the Ottoman Empire, Bulgaria) or falling apart due to internal strife (Austria-Hungary). Revolution was incipient in Germany, public support for the war had collapsed, and German had exhausted its resources - and faced the reality that the American troops that had arrived at the battlefield that year, while not the battle-hardened troops of France and Britain, were capable and lacked only experience and would flow in a nearly endless stream.
The notion that Germany could have continued to fight but surrendered, you know... just because... is the stuff of the Dolchstoss, the stab-in-the-back myth flogged to no end by just about every German nationalist political party postwar - most notably, the Nazis. The idea held that the politicians had sold out a military that was holding its own (or, in the even more absurd versions of the fairy tale, on the cusp of victory).
Oh, and Germany knew exactly what to expect - after all, it had foisted harsh terms on France under the 1871 Treaty of Versailles at the end of the Franco-Prussian War.
At any rate, the reparations regime collapsed in the early 1930s - Germany paid nothing from 1933 onward. So the notion that somehow Germany had to attack Poland and the USSR in search of land, and France and the low countries in order to secure their flank in order to attack Poland and the USSR, and Denmark and Norway in order to outflank Britain in order to attack Poland and the USSR, and Yugoslavia and Greece to secure the Balkans and bail out their Italian ally in order to attack Poland and the USSR... because of Versailles reparations that were mostly unpaid and which had not been an issue at all for over six years... doesn't make much sense.
The factor that greased the skids of the Nazi rise to power far more than Versailles was the Great Depression. Grievances over Versailles simply were not that integral to the Nazi seizure of power.
The factor that greased the skids of the Nazi rise to power far more than Versailles was the Great Depression. Grievances over Versailles simply were not that integral to the Nazi seizure of power.
I think this is overstatement. You demonstrate that the severity of the Treaty terms had less of an impact than supposed, but you are overlooking that the perception of the severity existed regardless. It was a perception kept alive in people's minds by the Nazis and was a core issue which they exploited. The danger of the socialists, and the guilt of the Jews, were the other big issues which they pounded on over and over.
It may have taken the great depression to cause people to turn to the Nazis, but they knew that they were turning to a party which promised to expel the socialists and Jews, and repudiate the hated treaty.
Jay Leno was on The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore and made the best joke of the night. Leno said that the reason that VW came out and admitted to rigging the software was that it is better for a German to admit being duplicitous than incompetent.
So I'm going to split the middle between Grandstander and Unsettomati. It is true that Germany nearly escaped paying any reparations, but the dismantling of the German Army, and loss Germanic territory was a near fatal blow to German pride, and it was the loss of pride and Hitler's promise to restore it laid behind the rise of the Nazi Party.
The global economic depression and the weak institutions of government in Weimar Germany is what paved the way for the Nazis. When economic times are tough, people vote for change. Any government is vulnerable during tough times and the weaker ones often fail, like the Weimar Republic. The Treaty was just one excuse of several the Nazis used. They would have invented excuses if none were available. The Nazis were popular in America and the UK as well and those nations were on the other side of the 1918 Treaty.
One big contention is that the Treaty of Versailles was much too harsh on Germany and contributed to WWII. My question is even had the treaty been the most fair and balanced treaty ever, in the end do you think it really would've mattered? Had the Allies after WWI been much nicer and fair would it have stopped groups like the Nazis from coming or do you think the treaty ultimately didn't matter and Germany would still be on course to WWII?
The Treaty of Versailles was very instrumental in the events which lead to World War II.
Woodrow Wilson had made public his Fourteen Points in 1918 after America had entered the war. The Fourteen Points were remarkably fair and did not call for reparations from Germany. Nor, did they state that Germany had to accept the "guilt" for having started World War I. The primary focus of Wilson's document was on granting independence to former territories in Eastern Europe that were part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and upon creating the League of Nations. Germany's leadership read these Fourteen Points and were hopeful that an armistice would lead to a settlement of the conflict based upon them. Perhaps, this was simply wishful thinking. However, some contend that Germany would never have agreed to a ceasefire if they had realized in advance that the terms of the peace would be much harsher.
The whole issue of reparations immediately raised its head when the Versailles Conference began in 1919. It was probably the primary objective of France in the talks--along with largely disarming Germany--and creating a buffer zone in the Rhineland between France and Germany where no military force would be present. French Premier Clemenceau and British Prime Minister David Lloyd George made it clear to Wilson that politically they had no alternative but to seek and obtain large reparations from Germany. In fact, the population of both countries badly wanted to punish Germany for the war. Clemenceau and George privately admitted to Wilson that they knew that if they obtained a large figure for reparations as part of the Treaty of Versailles that much of it would probably not be paid by Germany. Nevertheless, politically they had to make it look like this burden had been imposed on their enemy. They also demanded a clause in the Treaty that announced to the world that the German nation was guilty for having started World War I.
The German people had suffered for four long years because of a naval blockade imposed on their country by the British Navy. Poverty and hunger were becoming serious issues when the war ended. Ultimately, the impending collapse of Germany left the Germans with little choice, but to sign the Treaty of Versailles and effectively capitulate. Capitulating under these terms was enormously shameful to many Germans.
The Weimar Republic was disdained by many Germans who equated it with the Treaty of Versailles. If the Weimar Republic ever stood a chance that hope was dashed by two economic crises. The first occurred in the early 1920's when hyperinflation struck the Germany economy. It should be pointed out that reparations were one reason for this hyperinflation. Than when the country began to recover, the Great Depression hit every major country in the world around 1930.
Ultimately, it was both the Treaty of Versailles and world economic crises that lead to the rise of Hitler.
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