Not important enough to be worth bothering about. The dolchstoss myth was only a frill.

It was more than that. Among other books The End https://www.amazon.com/End-Defiance-Destruction-Hitlers-1944-1945/dp/0143122134 mentions more than once how important the "stab in the back" mythos was for Hitler, the SS, and the Heer. Hitler brought up again and again with them there would no "stab in the back" this time. The "stab in the back" became a large part of German Mythos after WW1.
 
It was more than that. Among other books The End https://www.amazon.com/End-Defiance-Destruction-Hitlers-1944-1945/dp/0143122134 mentions more than once how important the "stab in the back" mythos was for Hitler, the SS, and the Heer. Hitler brought up again and again with them there would no "stab in the back" this time. The "stab in the back" became a large part of German Mythos after WW1.

Yet
It was more than that. Among other books The End https://www.amazon.com/End-Defiance-Destruction-Hitlers-1944-1945/dp/0143122134 mentions more than once how important the "stab in the back" mythos was for Hitler, the SS, and the Heer. Hitler brought up again and again with them there would no "stab in the back" this time. The "stab in the back" became a large part of German Mythos after WW1.

as late as 1928 that myth had earned to Nazis a magnificent twelve seats in the Reichstag. That's how important it was.

It may have been comforting to some Germans to think they somehow hadn't really been defeated, but they would still have hated the ToV in any event. And as others have noted, the Depression was vastly more important than all other factors put together. Hitler would have got in with or without a dolchstoss myth.
 
Yet


as late as 1928 that myth had earned to Nazis a magnificent twelve seats in the Reichstag. That's how important it was.

It may have been comforting to some Germans to think they somehow hadn't really been defeated, but they would still have hated the ToV in any event. And as others have noted, the Depression was vastly more important than all other factors put together. Hitler would have got in with or without a dolchstoss myth.

Oh, it wasn't that important for him to get into power as virtually every other party was saying the same thing. What it was important for is allowing his policies to happen. Although it wasn't the backing of everything he did it was part of the backing of a lot of what he did. Without the "stab in the back" myth German policies would be different and mostly in better way.
 
Intrinsically weak is what I said. Madagascar was a remote island . with a relatively small, very poorly educated population with no significant industry. Germany was in the middle of Europe with a large, highly educated population with a lot of industry.

Except that at the timeframe under discussion it really wasn't. it had a few industrial giants, largely concentrated in heavy industries, that were world leaders but the rest of the economy was still pretty backwards by comparison with its neighbours. Its agricultural sector was tremendously inefficient and the standard of living of the average German was lower than the likes of Britain, even without the effects of WWI. Compounding this issue of very partial modernization and industrialization was the lack of natural resources, which is why the idea of expansion in the East was a theme among German nationalists long before Hitler. If there had been a general adoption of free trade post WWI the major beneficiary wouldn't have been Germany but the USA. Post WWI Germany is not an industrial powerhouse only held back by the strictures of the ToV, this is a perception coloured by the 'economic miracle' of West Germany post WWII.

Oh, it wasn't that important for him to get into power as virtually every other party was saying the same thing. What it was important for is allowing his policies to happen. Although it wasn't the backing of everything he did it was part of the backing of a lot of what he did. Without the "stab in the back" myth German policies would be different and mostly in better way.

On this I completely agree with you. The stabbed in the back myth coloured the whole of Germany politics in the 20s and early 30's, the belief that Germany had never really been defeated but betrayed by socialists and Jews and tricked into signing up to an unjust peace. It was hardly unique to Hitler but it did make it much easier to persuade the German people to look towards the extremes of politics to put right this 'injustice'.
 
Except that at the timeframe under discussion it really wasn't. it had a few industrial giants, largely concentrated in heavy industries, that were world leaders but the rest of the economy was still pretty backwards by comparison with its neighbours. Its agricultural sector was tremendously inefficient and the standard of living of the average German was lower than the likes of Britain, even without the effects of WWI. Compounding this issue of very partial modernization and industrialization was the lack of natural resources, which is why the idea of expansion in the East was a theme among German nationalists long before Hitler. If there had been a general adoption of free trade post WWI the major beneficiary wouldn't have been Germany but the USA. Post WWI Germany is not an industrial powerhouse only held back by the strictures of the ToV, this is a perception coloured by the 'economic miracle' of West Germany post WWII.

That it was behind the Industrial Superpowers of GB and the US doesn't make it Madagascar!
 
That it was behind the Industrial Superpowers of GB and the US doesn't make it Madagascar!

But it does mean there was nothing inevitable about it becoming an economic superpower and no reason for the likes of Britain or the USA to imagine it becoming one. Based on the economic reality of the time it was a middling European country that had barely exist for 50 years with delusions of grandeur about being a great power and a lack of means to back up those ambitions. The reason it was able to go toe-to-toe with its enemies in two world wars, for a while at least, was a willingness to pour a staggering percentage of its GDP into the military. In the choice between guns and butter Germany kept choosing guns, mainly in the hope that they could conquer the people who had butter.
 
But it does mean there was nothing inevitable about it becoming an economic superpower and no reason for the likes of Britain or the USA to imagine it becoming one. Based on the economic reality of the time it was a middling European country that had barely exist for 50 years with delusions of grandeur about being a great power and a lack of means to back up those ambitions. The reason it was able to go toe-to-toe with its enemies in two world wars, for a while at least, was a willingness to pour a staggering percentage of its GDP into the military. In the choice between guns and butter Germany kept choosing guns, mainly in the hope that they could conquer the people who had butter.

Your point? All I said is that France couldn't keep Germany down forever and once it left it would be payback time. If it wasn't the equal of the US or UK it certainly was tougher than France.
 
But it does mean there was nothing inevitable about it becoming an economic superpower and no reason for the likes of Britain or the USA to imagine it becoming one. Based on the economic reality of the time it was a middling European country that had barely exist for 50 years with delusions of grandeur about being a great power and a lack of means to back up those ambitions. The reason it was able to go toe-to-toe with its enemies in two world wars, for a while at least, was a willingness to pour a staggering percentage of its GDP into the military. In the choice between guns and butter Germany kept choosing guns, mainly in the hope that they could conquer the people who had butter.
I'm you do realise that Germany had a larger economy then brition before ww1 right, and the usa had a larger economy the Briton, France and Germany combined be for ww1 to right? Brition had been losing its economic dominance sense the 1870's. Germany was able to go toe to toe was becuse the Germany economy was much better geared to wartime industry then brition (gearded toward shipping and finance) or france (gearded to finance, farming and service industrys) as far as iv been able to find besides 1944-45 germany dint spend much more of its relative gpa on the world wars then Briton, France or Russia, us a ofcorse actually profited from the wars.
 
Oh, it wasn't that important for him to get into power as virtually every other party was saying the same thing. What it was important for is allowing his policies to happen. Although it wasn't the backing of everything he did it was part of the backing of a lot of what he did. Without the "stab in the back" myth German policies would be different and mostly in better way.

Which ones in particular? Not rearmament, not conscription, not the territorial claims he made, not his (and everybody's) desire to overthrow the ToV and certainly not his hang-up about Jews.
 
Yeah, you're right. It's unfair to France.
All right, one Treaty of Frankfurt, Edition Versailles coming up.

In addition to the original provisions:
France is not invited to the negotiatinons, and has to sign the treaty.
France looses Corsica and Savoy to Italy.
France looses some territory north of the Pyrenees to Spain.
Britanny is made independent and forbidden from re-unifing with France.
The cities of Calais and Dunkirk are made international cities administered by Belgium to safeguard traffic through the channel.
The northern industrial area (i.e. Briey-Longwy-Verdun) is demilitarised, as is a certain distance beyond it. France is forbidden form staging mititary excercises there.
The Germans may both stage exercises there and build logistics to enable easy seizure in case of war.
French patents are seized - their value is not counted towards the sum of reparations.
French property or corporations outside of France proper are seized - this is also not counted towards the reparations.
The French colonies are entirely redistributed amongst Britain, Japan, USA and anybody else wanting a piece.
France is forbidden from exporting arms.
The French merchant fleet is seized.

The French army is limited to a 100000 soldiers.
The French army may not have a general staff.
The French army may not have equipment heavier than a mortar.
The French army may not have any sort of flying component.
The French navy is seized. It is not counted towards the reparations.
New naval construction is limited.
Any development of new military tech is forbidden.

The rest of the european powers form a league.
France is excluded from this league.
France may not contest taxes or tarrifs levied on french goods by any member of this league.
France may not protest any action by this league.
Germany (and the rest of the league), reseve the right to conduct military operations to enforce this treaty at their liking.

France must admit that they deserved it and the treaty is fair and balanced.


Very much the Treaty of Frankfurt, isn't it? No a single bit unfairer and more insulting to France. Perfectly acceptable to any frenchman.
 
Doesn't matter who did it; restoration of the monarchy would have been a smart move to placate the nationalist right. Give them a constitutional figurehead who represents some level of continuity with tradition.

I don't think so. You'd have, beyond the obvious issue of "will mandating a change in form of government be accepted as part of the peace?" (which I think is honestly a major consideration; I guess if all you want is to prevent the OTL Nazi regime, it does work quite well, though, because you can just make a treaty impossible to sign by any government, march in and probably muck the timeline up so much Hitler ends up an architect in Argentina) the problems of...

  1. Who to put on the throne. If you want to placate the German monarchists, you'll probably want to grab a Hohenzollern, but the obvious candidates have both abdicated.
  2. How to convince people that putting the brother or cousin of the guy they see as responsible for the war in charge of the country is a good idea. Yes, even if he's not actually in charge.
  3. How to keep this change from just causing a greater rift within Germany or destabilizing the new regime in favor of one more aggressively revisionist; a potential issue if you pick the wrong prince and he hates the Treaty more than anyone expected.
  4. Somehow placating nationalists by dictating the form of the German government to them.

EDIT: Regarding the original question, having Hindenburg and Ludendorff involved in the signing would go a long way to cutting away the nimbus of victory and battlefield glory that they had historically. Beyond potentially avoiding a Hindenburg presidency, you could see some right-wing groups lose legitimacy by associating with the latter in the early years of the republic.
 
I don't think so. You'd have, beyond the obvious issue of "will mandating a change in form of government be accepted as part of the peace?" (which I think is honestly a major consideration; I guess if all you want is to prevent the OTL Nazi regime, it does work quite well, though, because you can just make a treaty impossible to sign by any government, march in and probably muck the timeline up so much Hitler ends up an architect in Argentina) the problems of...

  1. Who to put on the throne. If you want to placate the German monarchists, you'll probably want to grab a Hohenzollern, but the obvious candidates have both abdicated.
  2. How to convince people that putting the brother or cousin of the guy they see as responsible for the war in charge of the country is a good idea. Yes, even if he's not actually in charge.
  3. How to keep this change from just causing a greater rift within Germany or destabilizing the new regime in favor of one more aggressively revisionist; a potential issue if you pick the wrong prince and he hates the Treaty more than anyone expected.
  4. Somehow placating nationalists by dictating the form of the German government to them.

EDIT: Regarding the original question, having Hindenburg and Ludendorff involved in the signing would go a long way to cutting away the nimbus of victory and battlefield glory that they had historically. Beyond potentially avoiding a Hindenburg presidency, you could see some right-wing groups lose legitimacy by associating with the latter in the early years of the republic.
Basically, you'd have to run a two-pronged approach:
1. Remove the legitimacy of the citics. Do this by bolstering the legitimacy of the civilian government and put the blame more on the military.
2. Have the ToV less hypocritical, etc. (see last bits of this thread) - this should prevent endemic revanchism.

If you "forget" one of those two bits, you'll end up in OTL, or something similar revisionist.
 
The ToV virtually guaranteed another war. The Germans were not going to tolerate being a third class power in open ended fashion. It might not have been the Nazis who come to power and start it with some historical changes, but the guarantee of another great war came the second the treaty was signed.

As for the idea here that a stronger and harder peace perhaps ending Germany as a unified state would have stopped another war. Perhaps, but that would have required the French and British to go to war again and America wouldn't be there to help them out in that and I don't think they were emotionally ready to do that.
 
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Which ones in particular? Not rearmament, not conscription, not the territorial claims he made, not his (and everybody's) desire to overthrow the ToV and certainly not his hang-up about Jews.

More when the tide was turning and holding out until the end. It might not have lost them the war but it probably cost everyone 1-1 1/2 years of bloody war. At the latest things were militarily hopeless after D-day. Very arguably sooner but that nailed it. Germany was being attacked on three fronts and was being driven back day by day with resources running lower and lower by the hour. This resulted not only many soldiers being killed but also Jews, Gypsies etc. in death camps.

It also helped allow the oppression apparatus to be turned more inward. Not that there wasn't great oppression in Germany itself before this but it made it worse. No one wanted to be blamed for being the ones to stab Germany in the back so they kept obey nonsensical orders no matter how hopeless or stupid. This wasn't mentioned only in post-war interviews where people wanted to spin things the best way for their captors but surveillance tapes in POW camps and diaries picked up from dead Germans. The last is the most crucial, they didn't have any reason to lie about their feelings in their own diary, particularly those unflattering to the Reich.
 
Treaty explicitly allows German states rights of self determination. Bavaria is gone with maybe a few of the more Catholic areas. The conservative south and the SPD dominated north are more politically stable.
 
Treaty explicitly allows German states rights of self determination. Bavaria is gone with maybe a few of the more Catholic areas. The conservative south and the SPD dominated north are more politically stable

Why would Bavaria be gone? Some radical nutjobs in Munich might declare independence but local Freikorps (or whatever they were called in Bavaria) would slaughter them by the end of the week. Look at what became of French attempts to promote secession in the Catholic Rhineland.
 
Treaty explicitly allows German states rights of self determination. Bavaria is gone with maybe a few of the more Catholic areas. The conservative south and the SPD dominated north are more politically stable.

What happens when India or Algeria ask if they can get the right of Self Determination too? Far better to steer well clear of opening that nasty can of worms.
 
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