Was Germany punished too hard for WWI?

I've heard here and there that the Treaty of Versailles punished Germany too excessively for its role in World War I. I was wondering, was that actually the case? Was Germany's punishment too harsh? Was it not harsh enough?
 
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I've heard here and there that the Treaty of Versailles punished Germany too excessively for its role in World War I. I was wondering, was actually that the case? Was Germany's punishment too harsh? Was it not harsh enough?
If you consider the treaty punishment for what Germany did during WWI? Absolutely. Germany was hardly worse than France, Britain, Russia, etc. But the treaty of Versaille wasn't made as punishment for Germany, it was made for revenge, greed and trying to knock out Germany permenantly. They failed at the last part and the result was WWII.

Mind you, don't think i am taking Germany's side here. As I said Germany was hardly worse than the other major players in the war and would no doubt have done the same to their enemies and actualy did so with Russia.
 
From an ethical viewpoint? Any treaty that punishes the common people for the actions of the politicians ruling over them is too harsh, as far as I'm concerned.

From a strategical viewpoint? There's a view that I kind of agree with that sometimes comes forward on this site: the Versailles Treaty was either too harsh or not harsh enough. It was too harsh to make a way for reconciliation and an eventual Franco-German rapprochement, but too lenient to completely suppress Germany. This fact led to the worst of both worlds: Germany became both powerful enough to strike back and revanchist enough to want to.
 

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Clearly it was harsh enough to lead to economic, social, and political instability, but not so harsh as to eliminate Germany as a potential great power. They could have forced Germany to pay more in reparations, closed the loopholes that let Germany develop new weapons and tactics, and split Germany between the North and South German cultural, linguistic, and religious groups. Two middle power Germanic states would have been much easier to deal with than one large great power state.
 
Yes, that treaty was a major part of WW2.
Well the treaty combined with the fact that the allies never actually took one step into Germany proper. I think it might have been a different matter if Entente troops had marched into Cologne before the treaty was signed, that would have led to 'the stab in the back' being a conspiracy theory rather than a legitimate (to those unfamiliar with the situation) view.
 
Was the treaty of Frankfurt too harsh as well?
Absolutely. The Germans should never have annexed Alsace-Lorraine. if they hadn't it would probably have lead to an less toxic relation between France and Germany and thus a better twentieth century.
 
It was undoubtedly harsh but many at the time actually thought it was too lenient, Foch stated that only a permanent occupation of the Rhineland would prevent another war. Personally I think that Versailles' failure wasn 't solely due to the harshness of the terms but also that war weary public opinion in the Entente wasn't prepared to pay the price of enforcing that peace. The French tried it over the Ruhr Crisis and had the ground pulled from under them by the British and Americans. Soon you had the worst of all worlds, a humiliated Germany looking for revenge, and complacent Entente powers who didn't recognise the danger until it was too late.
 

Given the context of the post, evidently MattII meant that the Entente should have invaded Germany itself before actually signing an armistice. Which is, of course, a bad idea. Germany asked for the armistice - what should the Entente have said? "Sure, but first, we'll kill thousands more of your soldiers and loot the Rhineland so it doesn't seem like your army was 'stabbed in the back'!"?
 
The treaties following the war were just awful in general, leaving Europe and to some extent the world with little defence against depression whilst also actively strengthening Germany's position in Eastern Europe.
 

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Given the context of the post, evidently MattII meant that the Entente should have invaded Germany itself before actually signing an armistice. Which is, of course, a bad idea. Germany asked for the armistice - what should the Entente have said? "Sure, but first, we'll kill thousands more of your soldiers and loot the Rhineland so it doesn't seem like your army was 'stabbed in the back'!"?

And ignores the fact that politically it was unfeasible and the French army was pretty much falling apart by November 1918 and wouldn't be in a position to carry on; despite the statements of the US military about occupying Berlin by force in 1920, I doubt they would be willing to go it alone in 1919 when the Germans were already giving up and the French were too exhausted to carry on. Plus having successful communist uprisings in Germany stick would be a major reason this would be a very bad idea; having a communist Germany, Hungary, Russia, and perhaps even Poland wouldn't really count as a win, especially given that the US didn't want to stick around post-war for more an a few years.
 
I think a harsher Versailles might have turned Germany communist eventually, then allying with Stalin, perhaps starting WWII that way.

Would likely be Britain+ a stronger France (US staying out) vs Russia+a weaker Germany.

I do think France would invade a communist-revolution Germany in this scenario.
 
Given the context of the post, evidently MattII meant that the Entente should have invaded Germany itself before actually signing an armistice. Which is, of course, a bad idea. Germany asked for the armistice - what should the Entente have said? "Sure, but first, we'll kill thousands more of your soldiers and loot the Rhineland so it doesn't seem like your army was 'stabbed in the back'!"?

Exactly, at least as far as this is concerned this is 20/20 hindsight. Many countries lost wars without having troops setting foot in their home territory without going berserk afterwards.
 
Versailles was fairly harsh, but in territorial terms it was far milder to Germany than the treatment Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire received - those two were completely dismembered, whereas Germany just lost some disputed border territory here and there, and some colonies.

The reparations were steep, though, and the clause blaming the war on Germany was unnecessary. That just ended up being propaganda for German revanchists.
 
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