What Can Germany Accomplish within the Limits of Versailles?

Delta Force

Banned
What could Germany have accomplished in terms of rearmament while remaining within the limits of the Treaty of Versailles?
 
Far less than what Weimar accomplished IOTL. They even had to cheat to re-establish a General Staff. The terms were pretty comprehensive in making sure Germany couldn't defend itself against a strong gust of wind.
 

Delta Force

Banned
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Versailles#Military_restrictions

No armored cars, tanks and military aircraft. Article 198 prohibited Germany from having an air force.

So, not much.

There is a source that states that the German military wasn't allowed to have submachine guns but the police were. Could Germany do something in the vein of the Japan Self Defense Forces and classify the military as a civilian force where everyone is free to leave when they want, and then simply have a very powerful police force?

For example:

It's not an armored car, it's a special purpose vehicle.
It's not a tank, it's a heavy duty tractor.
It's not a military aircraft, it's a sport aircraft.
 
There is a source that states that the German military wasn't allowed to have submachine guns but the police were. Could Germany do something in the vein of the Japan Self Defense Forces and classify the military as a civilian force where everyone is free to leave when they want, and then simply have a very powerful police force?

For example:

It's not an armored car, it's a special purpose vehicle.
It's not a tank, it's a heavy duty tractor.
It's not a military aircraft, it's a sport aircraft.


As long as the Inter Allied Commission of Control was active in Germany the end rounds you suggest were simply not possible as they would spot them and order the projects to be killed. So really nothing till the commision withdraws in 1929.

Michael
 
There is a source that states that the German military wasn't allowed to have submachine guns but the police were. Could Germany do something in the vein of the Japan Self Defense Forces and classify the military as a civilian force where everyone is free to leave when they want, and then simply have a very powerful police force?

The French assumed that the Germans had already done this somewhat (and indeed the Germans did a little, but the various police units and militias weren't nearly as well trained or equipped as the French thought).

Real aircraft or tanks would not get past the old Entente members though - at that point, Europe would be rearming and Germany gains nothing by continuing to follow the pretense (and depending on the political situation, may be facing an invasion).

The only way for Germany to go full JDF is for a similar situation to evolve (the restrictions on Japan were very heavy at first - the Cold War caused them to loosen over time) - the former Entente knows full well that Germany has a real military, but plays along and some of them have been helping loosen the restrictions since Germany is an ally (but for some reason German politics means that actually calling their military a military is unpopular).

fasquardon
 
Once Stalin begins moving westward, France, Britain and the others may be asking Germany to rearm.

It took 17 years for him to go do that, and then only in concert with Germany, whom he allied with only after his attempts to ally with France and Britain fell through for petty and honestly rather stupid reasons. I think people really overestimate Stalin's willingness to be the Big Bad that everyone would rally against.
 
It took 17 years for him to go do that, and then only in concert with Germany, whom he allied with only after his attempts to ally with France and Britain fell through for petty and honestly rather stupid reasons. I think people really overestimate Stalin's willingness to be the Big Bad that everyone would rally against.

Yea, Stalin's later establishment of the Eastern Bloc was a case of opportunism at a relatively low cost. If he had to actually fight the countries the Soviet Union overran rather 'liberate' them from the Nazis, Stalin would have backed away. He's in for low risk, high reward gambles, not a world struggle against everyone else that he has little guarantee of success in.
 
Fair enough. But the Poles and Czechs may see their own strengthening militaries as a means to take land from a neutered Germany.
 
Atomic bombs on rockets seems possible. Lots of them to offset the fact that the army is tiny - enough to make the enemy glow in the dark.
 
How many troops can Germany train and then out back into civilians and have then ready for anything
That's the Israeli model, where everyone's a soldier. But for what purpose - who is invading Germany? The best thing the Germans should have done is let their industrialists takeover Europe. Do it through economics.
 
That's the Israeli model, where everyone's a soldier. But for what purpose - who is invading Germany? The best thing the Germans should have done is let their industrialists takeover Europe. Do it through economics.

In an age full of trade barriers, most of them directed at Germany specifically, with their country having been ransacked for its intellectual property at the end of the war, and with another invasion of the Ruhr over reparations payments probably inevitable, this all seems difficult.
 
Once Stalin begins moving westward, France, Britain and the others may be asking Germany to rearm.

I thought the original question was what Germany could do within the Versailles restrictions, *not* whether the Allies would relax the restrictions. (Which they would--Hitler or no Hitler, and without Stalin "moving west." "By the 1930's the West had a bad conscience over Versailles, and any German regime would have capitalized on this fact. Even before Hitler came to power, in December 1932. the Western powers recognized in principle Germany's right to parity in armaments. To quote Henry Ashby Turner, "Although exactly what that concession would mean in practical terms remained uncertain, it cleared the way, in Schleicher's view, for formation of a compulsory militia that would serve as the first step to the resumption of universal conscription. He planned, that is, to commit his cabinet to the cause of rearmament and reap the political credit for ending Germany's military impotence.'" https://books.google.com/books?id=kRPhzdeJ9UoC&pg=PA82 )
 
Poland maybe, but what claims did the Czechs have against Germany?

The Czechs had wanted all of historical Bohemia (that is, all of Silesia in addition to what they got) before the Treaty of Versailles was signed. I've never heard anything about them holding on to that claim though. Even to the Slavic majority areas of Silesia (the population of which could as easily have been considered Czechs as they were Poles). If anything, the Czechoslovaks were more likely to be on the German side of a Polish-German war.

fasquardon
 
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