Mild Versailles - WWII anyway?

Terlot

Banned
But, yes, the evil Germans had no reason whatsoever to be bitter at Poland.
I see no reasons for Germans to feel bitter. Because for what ? All areas that German Empire lost contained Polish majority. Poznan, Corridor were gained by force from Poland. Silesia was gained by force from Austria and had rich multiethnic history. So why were they bitter. Should we seriously accept their bitterness right after losing a war with huge imperialistic goals and legacy of German opression ? Did they seriously expected love and acceptence of some German supremacy ?

you'd have know idea that hundreds of thousands of Germans left Poland immediately after the war thanks to a not insignificant amount of Polish pressure.
All of the books and sources-including pro-German authors-state that overwhelming number of Germans left out of their own free will.
And you should know that hundreds of thousands of Germans in Poland were settlers officials or soldiers-all of them placed to dominate Polish population. Did they expect Poles to allow them to stay ?
Moreover, note Stresemann's choice of ambassador to Poland in 1929, Ulrich Rauscher, who was a moderate and favored trying to come to some sort of agreement with Poland.
A normal diplomatic tactic, I would be convinced if Ulrich Rauscher would be in the place of Stresemann though. Btw:what kind of agreement did he had in mind ? All two often I encounter here some bizarre proposals and claims of "good deal"-"border of 1914 but Germany promises Poles to protect them from Soviets" "border of 1914 to enforce self-determination of German minority over Poles, but Poles get to occupy Lithuania". You may guess what my opinion is of those fantasies.

and it is absurd to expect Germany to smile as its fellow citizens were systematically oppressed.
Perhaps as much as 500,000 wouldn't be opressed at all if Prussian and German hadn't send them there in the first place. This actually makes me wonder-did the German settlers ever had accusations against government that sent them to Poland for their situation ? It's a honest question as you seem to be good in this matter.
(Although to be fair it's not like Pilsudski and co. didn't oppress plenty of Poles too. And Belarussians. And Lithuanians. And Sorbs. And Jews. Am I forgetting anyone?)
I'm not a big fan of Pilsudski(actually IMHO he ruined Poland's rebirth), but your claim of abuse against Jews is amusing since he actually supported them and was hated by Endecja for this.

That's nice, but you didn't really elaborate on how this meant they'd conquer Europe or were in some way worse than the Labor Party or French Socialists.
Did Britain or France plan to expell millions of Germans from German territory and settle those areas with French and British ?
Again, while I admit there was some discrmination, I reiterate that Germany was by the most progressive state in Interwar Europe on minority policies.
Czechoslovakia, Switzerland comes to mind. And argument "Others killled, I only had them beaten" is not the best one.
 

Terlot

Banned
Welcome back, Hurgan.
It's a second time somebody uses that ? Is this some insult ?

And please remember that even before Germans started returning home to Germany-even then the areas were not of German majority.
 
Originally posted by Terlot
It's a second time somebody uses that ? Is this some insult ?

Here, I'm affraid it is. HurganPL was a member of this board banned for Polish ultra-nationalism and rabid anti-Germanism (I think) not to mention offensive remarks towards other nationalities. In his eyes Poland simply couldn't do anything wrong.
Anyway, while I agree with some of your arguments (not all of them, mind) try to temper a little your patriotic enthusiasm. Arguments about German settlers from XVIIIth century are, delicately speaking, laughable. Before posting try to imagine we're talking about Polish settlers. And yes, I'm Polish too.
The fact is, however, that those Germans who left Poland after 1918 did it mostly voluntarily - they weren't driven away with bayonets (with perhaps some exceptions). OTOH Germans DID consider the Corridor, Greater Poland (Poznań) and Silesia theirs, since they were part of Germany for over hundred years - just like we consider Pomerania and Silesia ours today. The difference is, we're not ethnic minority there (now). So it is understandable they were pretty much unhappy with Poland. From Polish POV they were oppressors (which, I personally consider to be true), from German POV they were the opressed (after 1918, that is). The defeat in WWI was a terrible trauma for whole German people, and since it is natural for people to look for someone to blame for their calamities, well, we were at hand.
Frankly, it doesn't matter if Germans were really injured by the Poles. They FELT it that way and that was only thing that counted.
Now, even with less harsh Versailles they would have looked for someone to blame. Since I believe Greater Poland would have become Polish anyway, here we go. Germany would have remained rather hostile towards Poland. The German right would have been happy only with 1914 borders.
 

Ian the Admin

Administrator
Donor
The war never happened due to loss of privilaged status of Germans in Poland, Hitler was quite willing to keep blind eye to Polish degermanisation efforts when it suited him. Many among German minority in Poland would only consider themself not persecuted only when they would again rule over them. And as Germans were widespread over all Polish territories then the only thing would be to occupy whole Poland for Germany.

Hey, Hurgan's back. Was. Banned.
 
Having just done a not insignificant amount of reading on this topic for the 1920s, I can dust out some articles, books, and so forth on the topic if you'd like, but the short answer is that historians have searched far and wide to find evidence of Weimar Germany's bid for European conquest and come up short.

Really, I have never found much on Weimar foreign policy, and as far as I can tell research is minimal/non-existent. (Sorry, brief summary, lost the original post)

1. No monograph on Weimar diplomacy itself, only dedicated book a collection of essays

2. JSTOR material extremely limited

3. Key documents never translated, Documents on German Foreign Policy Series A and B (18-25 and 25-33) only available in German not English, and extremely hard to get hold of, unlike Series C-E on the Nazi period. Without the volume material readily at hand it becomes difficult to get a broad assessment of elite views - one is left with the diaries and speeches of a few key figures.

Weimar research seems overwhelming focussed on domestic and economic policy - the real interest is the rise of Nazism.

Narratives of Weimar foreign policy still seem remarkably linear and not complex, with little balancing of competing trends. There is little analysis of the finer points and the twists and turns - such as Bruning's attempts to get the Poles in trouble at the League.

When general histories are agreeing with each other without a context of detailed research I am left with the conclusion that they are quite likely to be simply repeating each other's cliches.


On the actual topic: I would question your hypothesis here. Presumably you do not think that an elite fully supportive of an annexasionist peace in 1918 entirely dropped those ideas for 15 years and then re-discovered them with avengeance?

Anecdotal evidence suggests that even Hitler's opponents were fully bought in to the idea of German economic and political domination of Eastern Europe, they would just rather not use violent means.
 
You've got to remember that most of the key elements of Nazism were widespread on the right before 1914.
The Pan-German League were drawing maps that included most of Holland and Belgium, Russian Poland and half the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
The idea of a militarized authoritarian state was near universal on even the more 'moderate' right (nationalists).
At election after 1919 did the parties of the Weimar Coalition (SPD, GDP, and Centre Party) win a majority in the Reichstag. The only reason Weimar lasted as long as it did was the the anti-Weimar forces (Communists, Nazi's, Nationalists) were split on either side.
Also as the 20's wore on the Centre Party which was a Catholic party and followed the Vatican line in moving away from support of democracy so by 1930 the have to be added to the anti-Weimar group.
The only alternatives to the Nazi's or a very similar radical populist right wing party was a straight out military junta or a neo-Wilhelmian authoritarian regime.
 
Last edited:
Really, I have never found much on Weimar foreign policy, and as far as I can tell research is minimal/non-existent. (Sorry, brief summary, lost the original post)

1. No monograph on Weimar diplomacy itself, only dedicated book a collection of essays

I agree the topic cries out for a dedicated study in and of itself, but you can certainly find plenty of information on the topic if you look around.

2. JSTOR material extremely limited

Limited compared to what, though? What are you thinking of limited?

3. Key documents never translated, Documents on German Foreign Policy Series A and B (18-25 and 25-33) only available in German not English, and extremely hard to get hold of, unlike Series C-E on the Nazi period. Without the volume material readily at hand it becomes difficult to get a broad assessment of elite views - one is left with the diaries and speeches of a few key figures.

?? Reading from German doesn't seem an insurmountable topic.

Narratives of Weimar foreign policy still seem remarkably linear and not complex, with little balancing of competing trends. There is little analysis of the finer points and the twists and turns - such as Bruning's attempts to get the Poles in trouble at the League.

Eh. I posted several articles on the topic a page ago, although I admit most of it focused on the earlier 1920s, and not Bruning as such.

When general histories are agreeing with each other without a context of detailed research I am left with the conclusion that they are quite likely to be simply repeating each other's cliches.

No offense, but this seems vague enough that I don't understand what you're talking about specifically.

On the actual topic: I would question your hypothesis here. Presumably you do not think that an elite fully supportive of an annexasionist peace in 1918 entirely dropped those ideas for 15 years and then re-discovered them with avengeance?

No, I dispute this notion of "annexationist" Germany when Liberal Britain walked out of the war with an empire larger than ever.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that even Hitler's opponents were fully bought in to the idea of German economic and political domination of Eastern Europe, they would just rather not use violent means.

Sure, so? Do you think that the Raj was built on sunshine and flowers? Or that the Sterling Bloc was entirely voluntary?
 
Originally posted by Terlot

The fact is, however, that those Germans who left Poland after 1918 did it mostly voluntarily - they weren't driven away with bayonets (with perhaps some exceptions).

See, while it wasn't anything like the Armenian genocide, I think this understates what was going on. Half a million people leave in a year, communities that existed for generations withering overnight, does not bespeak a friendly and welcoming environment.

OTOH Germans DID consider the Corridor, Greater Poland (Poznań) and Silesia theirs, since they were part of Germany for over hundred years - just like we consider Pomerania and Silesia ours today.

I'd like to caveat this; while I think most considered the Corridor and Silesia there's, Poznan didn't seem to excite the same protest and anger.

It's also not clear to me that the Corridor would've voted for Poland in 1919. You saw people who we'd call Polish today vote for Germany in Prussia and Silesia, after all. I know they were often Wends and such, and we were talking about a new state whose future was uncertain, but...

From Polish POV they were oppressors (which, I personally consider to be true), from German POV they were the opressed (after 1918, that is). The defeat in WWI was a terrible trauma for whole German people, and since it is natural for people to look for someone to blame for their calamities, well, we were at hand.

I agree with all of this.

Since I believe Greater Poland would have become Polish anyway, here we go. Germany would have remained rather hostile towards Poland. The German right would have been happy only with 1914 borders.

I think this is certainly true; the issue is how much did Poland enflame the German right? How much did the loss of the Corridor, the Ruhr Occupation, etc. discredit liberalism in Germany?

Hrmm. Palestine is to the Islamic World as Bromberg is to The Weimar Republic?
 
The idea of a militarized authoritarian state was near universal on even the more 'moderate' right (nationalists).

I'm not sure I agree with this. It depends on what you define as the moderate right. In pre-1914 Germany, for instance, there was a lot of admiration for the British parliamentary system because it seemed to have managed to get competing interests to unite in the greater glory of the nation. And, of course, even with the absurd electoral system of the Kaiserreich, in 1912 the SPD had the most seats in the Reichstag.

This does not bespeak a society hell-bent on war.

At election after 1919 did the parties of the Weimar Coalition (SPD, GDP, and Centre Party) win a majority in the Reichstag. The only reason Weimar lasted as long as it did was the the anti-Weimar forces (Communists, Nazi's, Nationalists) were split on either side.

But flash forward to 1928, where the DNVP get clobbered in the polls and the Weimar Coalition regains a substantial majority.

Also as the 20's wore on the Centre Party which was a Catholic party and followed the Vatican line in moving away from support of democracy so by 1930 the have to be added to the anti-Weimar group.

I have to disagree. Certainly the Center Party were leaning authoritarian (just as the PSF ended up getting enormous support in France) but to say it wanted to dismantle the Weimar system seems, IMO, a stretch.

And it's a far cry from "Paternalistic state" to "Nazis Always."
 
My opinion about this:
- Versailles was, while not the direct cause of WWII, one of the biggest indirect causes of WWII. Had a milder treaty been hammered out (perhaps an attempt from the US President or the UK Prime Minister (Woodrow Wilson and Lloyd-George) to convince the French President (Clemenceau) that less harsh demands be made) then the Weimar Republic or even a monarchic Germany (Weimar Republic was nicknamed "The Accidental Republic" because someone had shouted something about hailing the republic while no one had even known which government would there it be) could have survived, as less payments to the Entente would mean a stronger economy and no hyperinflation.
- Had the US joined the League of Nations and allowed Germany, Austria and Hungary to join it as well, perhaps a better spirit of international cooperation could have been achieved.
- The Depression would have still be started, because there were lots of things that caused it, none of them related to Versailles, but perhaps the existence of a stronger LoN would have helped the economies, and Germany wouldn't be in a bankrupt due to the fact that Germany wouldn't have asked for so many loans to the American banks.
- If the Depression is fought against through the efforts of the LoN, then there wouldn't be a rise of hypernationalism in Germany, which would mean Nazism would stay as a minor party.
- WWII would have started anyway, although not as in OTL WWII. The most likely 1st aggressor would have been the Soviet Union, which would have attacked Poland and then Germany, which would (if the LoN is still around) have started a war between the LoN and the Soviet Union + other Communist allies, and perhaps the Japanese Empire if they decide to go after the British and French colonies in East Asia.
 
Top