What would a “fair” Treaty of Versailles / Paris Peace Conference look like?

I'm going to have to join Anchises in disagreeing with this. The NSDAP rose with the Great Depression; Versailles (which every German government from 1919 onward was, openly or not, working towards a revision or entire removal of) didn't make them inevitable. A number of factors came together to let him into power (really; if you look at all of the failures and specific actions taken during the Depression in Germany, it seems like a potential turn to a road with no Hitler in it shows up every few months).

I agree resentment of Versaille was certainly a factor that Hitler used. However that doesn't mean Versaille itself was wrong or particularly unfair. There seems to be this odd concept that it's reasonable for Germany to expect a post WW1 treaty that it's happy with or that it's people won't resent, why?

Especially when such a treaty would breed resentment from the People of those countries that had just fought off Germany and felt the costs of doing so. Also I find the idea of Germany complaining about a harsh peace treaty and land grabs rather ironic considering what the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was going to look like in Eastern Europe in a post WW1 German victory scenario (and one assumes similar would be in effect in the West and south)



To be honest I used to be all "yeah Versaille was bad because it directly helps WW2 to kick off". But in recent years I moving away from that. Germany is ultimately responsible for it own actions (in WW2 and WW1), Versaille might have been harsh but I'm not sure that automatically equals unfair.

EDIT: Sorry I replied to your post rather too quickly after replying to Anchises, so I didn't pick on a few things on first reading!

So yes I agree the Nazis came about for lots of reasons, and none of them made them inevitable, equally as you say there were plenty of "no-Hitler turns in the road". But all this make the Versaille - resentment - Hitler railroad argument less strong?
 
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Anchises

Banned
1) He was pretty keen on increasing German domination and power, both in europe and abroad


2) Read what I said Hitler went way darker but that's not what I'm talking about. But the desire for the place in the sun was the same. Look your point seems to be basically I'm 'Godwinning'. But as I specifically said Hitler went darker, but that's not why we have WW1 & WW2. But I'll turn that point around, if your argument here seems to be basilly well Imperial Germany wasn't as bad as Hitler in the whole racism and deliberate genocide of millions stakes. l certainly agree, but that's a really, really low threshold to clear and still leaves plenty of room justificable ire.

Again I'm not talking doing horrible things to minorities I'm talking expanding power and control. However the point about losing political control is one I already made. They realised that they they were losing control so pushed the policy.

3) And OK how does that negate what I said? (Seems to me I actually raised the point about the allies being less than squeaky clean)

4) No Germany's actions at the time does a perfectly good job of that by itself, how mush more justification would be required, Should we not have fought?

5) That's not really a refutation of what I said? The democrats failed in Germany because of the Treaty, come on at some point you have to stop blaming others for your own actions no one. But fundamentally your point is Germany was upset about the treaty and that forces the nazis into power then to war, so what we give Germany what it wants (or just a slap on it's wrist) otherwise it gets upset and starts invading again? yeah I don't think so. Germany invade neighbors with no justification, it's direct action led to war that killed millions of people and devastated several countries, "common sense" is yes Germany is going to get some fall out from that, and yeah OK Germans might not like that, but what Germans like is a long way down any reasonable priority list. Because you know what the citizens of Germany's neighbours don't like? Not getting invaded, not having to fight off millions of Germans for years and loosing millions of their lives doing so, having to rebuild all the places the war trashed. Also on the point about German areas being torn away from Germany, give that Germany created as a unified nation was still well within living memory that really not as strong a geopolitical case as it might be especially given the WW1 context.

Its also Ironic for Germany to get upset about post war treaties that remove territories and surrender control of people, considering we have a pretty good idea what it was planing in the event of it's victory in WW1 when we look at the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. (and apparently observers responding to German criticism of Versialle at the also saw the irony)

Also what Promise are you referring too.

Ultimately did Hitler and co use German resentment at Versaille, yes of course they did. But Versaille didn't hold a gun to Germany's head and force them to go to war again 20 years later. More importantly being resentful is not a good enough reason to start invading people especially when you are resentful because of the results of you losing the last time you started invading people.




6) Really they seem pretty damned enthusiastic to the countries they marched into, please Germany the reluctant instigator of WW2, you're kidding me right? The best way of avoiding war when your tired of it, don't start invading people = no war.

Believe me none of the rest were champing at the bit either!




8) Only the reluctance of the Reichstag didn't stop it from happening (although it growing power was a factor for those who did push it as I said), nor did it being back x million french people or rebuild half of France etc, etc.

1) Not really. Bismarck wanted a stable position for Germany.

2) You completely fail to grasp the dimension of National Socialism. How is "I want colonies and being a respected Weltmacht" equivalent to "lets colonize Eastern Europe and murder everyone"?

All Great Power where thinking in terms of expanding their influence and control. Using your reasoning Winston Churchill fundamentally said the same things Hitler did.

Sorry but that just oversimplifies things to an absurd degree.

And saying that the Silent Dictatorship pushed the policies it did, because they feared losing control is another oversimplification. There were numerous reasons and ignoring how Luddendorff and his authoritarian designs basically failed, reveals that you are just making this argument for the sake of crude parallelism between the Kaiserreich and the Third Reich.

3) It proves that France and Britain were acting in the same way that you used as a reason for constructing inherently problematic German traits.

4) Are you serious? Being allied with Russia and Serbia is a perfectly good explanation for WW1?

You are aware how WW1 started?

Also you failed to adress how Germany exactly is at fault. You mentioned intent to dominate Europe.

I honestly see the same intent in permanently crippling Germany. Basically what Germany wanted to do to France. You just ignore the German perspective, until this point it had been France who regularly invaded Germany and had grand designs to annex German lands.

Napoleon, this 1830/1840s talk about the natural borders, 1871 where France declared war etc.

5) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourteen_Points

Oh yeah sure, paying reparations for decades, being demilitarized forever, invading the Rhineland and crippling the German economy had absolutely no influence on the failure of Weimar.

Explain to me how this is supposed to be a viable basis for a democracy? I don't think it is at all surprising, that being treated like an enemy eventually lead to hostile people beong elected. No one denies responsibility for German actions but not acknowledging that the ToV structurally fucked over the fledgling democracy is pretty bizarre.

And I think it is ironic, that you dismiss German wishes as unimportant and say that carving up Germany wasn't "such a bad idea" because Germanly had only been united for nearly 50 years at this point. To me this attitude reeks of the same things that you accuse Germany of.

Selling a peace on the basis of national self-determination and then ignoring that for reasons of power and influence.

6) Nice misrepresentation of what I said!

You are aware that Hitler's foreign policy exploits gave him the political capital for WW2? His democratic predecessors, who tried to negotiate a peaceful solution for the unsustainable borders rotted in a concentration camps.

7) Its rich that you just ignore how France decided to throw in their lot with Russia and Serbia.

Was there some human rights/democracy reason I am not seeing here or did France bears the responsibility for escalating the situation too?

tl,dr: You constantly accuse Germany of stuff that you defend the Entente for. You constantly ignore the German perspective, for example constant French agressions in the past.

You constantly characterize German people as inherently aggressive and warmongering. I think it is astonishing to not see, how forcefully trying to reduce a Great Power into something close to a failed state, could backfire spectacularly.

Would Germany has been treated as a Great Power that has lost, instead of trying to cripple it forever, Hitler would have never risen to power. I don't demand that a French mother had to understand that in 1918, but in 2018 it is fairly obvious.

That does not justify NatSoc mind you but I just don't understand the perspective that Versailles was fair.
 
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1) Not really. Bismarck wanted a stable position for Germany.


Yeah right, look at how he went about getting that and stable has been a euphemism for a lot of stuff for a long time. I'm actually reasonably fine with Bismark, by the standards of the day he kept within reasonable bounds knowing when to push and when not to.


2) You completely fail to grasp the dimension of National Socialism. How is "I want colonies and being a respected Weltmacht" equivalent to "lets colonize Eastern Europe and murder everyone"?


Because (again) my point it's not about the deliberate genocide it's about "we want what we think is owned to us, and we'll take it" as the running theme. I get why you latching on to "your calling them nazi's" (although again I'm not) but my point of comparison is not how murderously racist they each where but how Hitler was while saying other things saying some of the same stuff. If it makes you feel better that stuff is not uniquely German either!

All Great Power where thinking in terms of expanding their influence and control. Using your reasoning Winston Churchill fundamentally said the same things Hitler did.

Winston said a lot of shitty things, and yeah in general terms of race, racism and racial superiority a lot of them were similar, what he didn't do is initiate a war that killed first 20m people and then another 40m

Sorry but that just oversimplifies things to an absurd degree.

And saying that the Silent Dictatorship pushed the policies it did, because they feared losing control is another oversimplification. There were numerous reasons and ignoring how Luddendorff and his authoritarian designs basically failed, reveals that you are just making this argument for the sake of crude parallelism between the Kaiserreich and the Third Reich.


The point is it doesn't matter they still did it. How their schemes failed is irrelevant in terms of what actually happened. Also unless you are going to claim their schemes did not involve increasing German hegemony in central Europe and holdings outside Europe, I'm not even sure the parallels are disproved anyway?


3) It proves that France and Britain were acting in the same way that you used as a reason for constructing inherently problematic German traits.

Who talked about specific German traits? Also France invaded Germany in 1914 did it? Also given you just accused me of retroactively justifying WW1 because of WW2, you just did the same because of the Maus-Maus?


4) Are you serious? Being allied with Russia and Serbia is a perfectly good explanation for WW1?

Are you? So it's France's fault and Germany had to invade it via neutral countries, because there's some natural law that's states its unfair or wrong for a county to be in an alliance with another (but of course nothing wrong with Germany being in alliance with A-H).

You are aware how WW1 started?

Yes?

Also you failed to adress how Germany exactly is at fault. You mentioned intent to dominate Europe.

Lets start with invading its neighbors including one it didn't even have a problem with, and go from there. Now you can blame the treaty system if you like for making it worse, but nothing forces Germany to invade. More relevantly to the point Germany invaded with full knowledge of the alliance system (it's why it invaded France first*) it also seemed pretty sure it would win even knowing the alliance repercussions.


*we can talk about Germany deciding to go with the Schlieffen plan, a plan already obsolete but also guaranteed to bring in everyone, but also the only one they had. But remember this is a plan that is inherently created knowing that Germany is going to to go to war with France and Russia at the same time and needs to break a third parties neutrality (so likely bringing in Britain) to have a chance of knocking out the former before the latter get going.

I honestly see the same intent in permanently crippling Germany. Basically what Germany wanted to do to France.

Right only France did so in Versaille by limitation in response to Germany having a damn good go actually doing so by force, so you can see why France might have been keen to ensure Germany didn't get another chance? Also I don't accept that the the "Crippling" of Germany by the 14 pts of Versaille is equal to what France had gone through in WW1.

You just ignore the German perspective, until this point it had been France who regularly invaded Germany and had grand designs to annex German lands.

Napoleon, this 1830/1840s talk about the natural borders, 1871 where France declared war etc.

1830/40 Germany doesn't really exist so the context is somewhat different. 1871? Yes because that was all France. Either way 1871 did not end with either side being crippled or in fact anything like the repercussions of WW1. Eitherway Germany/Prussia was happy to take its winnings in 1871 wasn't it? Where's the concern for French resentment? France and Germany/Prussia fought, France lost, Germany/Prussia won. Germany pretty much dictated the terms from a position of strength although as the conflict had been limited relative to WW1 the terms were as well.

On German perspective, I don't ignore it I just don't rank it up there with the perspective of the people it invaded.

Finally on France and 'Napoleon' (albeit an earlier one), seems to me there was a previous europe wide war where we ended up levelling a pretty harsh treaty including reparations, territory losses, the loser funding an occupying army on it's territory for a while etc, etc

Also seems to me that might have something to do with that French chat about natural borders 25 years later etc.


5) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourteen_Points

Oh yeah sure, paying reparations for decades, being demilitarized forever, invading the Rhineland and crippling the German economy had absolutely no influence on the failure of Weimar.

Explain to me how this is supposed to be a viable basis for a democracy? I don't think it is at all surprising, that being treated like an enemy eventually lead to hostile people being elected. No one denies responsibility for German actions but not acknowledging that the ToV structurally fucked over the fledgling democracy is pretty bizarre.

Honestly, 'give up your territorial claims, lose some territory, have a small defensive army', it's not nice but well too bad. As to making democracy impossible? Bollocks, others have done better with less. What's it's not is an instant "goto fascism" command.



And I think it is ironic, that you dismiss German wishes as unimportant and say that carving up Germany wasn't "such a bad idea" because Germanly had only been united for nearly 50 years at this point. To me this attitude reeks of the same things that you accuse Germany of.

Selling a peace on the basis of national self-determination and then ignoring that for reasons of power and influence.

No my point was the loss of German territory was to be frank quite a lot of stuff that hadn't been Germany for very long anway, like it or not there were claims and counter claims and WW1 didn't leave many looking to fight or back Germany's claims too hard. But it's not about German territory in particular it's about when you lose wars you tend to lose territory. Again given what Germany was going to do with Brest-litov it's hypocrisy to complain about alsace lorraine and the sudetenland. I also wasn't selling the peace on self determination? And again yes I rank German wishes as less important than others in this context. This seem to be point you keep making, do you think German wishes should be given equal standing?


6) Nice misrepresentation of what I said!

your words where: "I mean Germans weren't enthusiastic when WW2 started, they were tired off war too", shall we count how many countries they invaded 1938 - 1940?

You are aware that Hitler's foreign policy exploits gave him the political capital for WW2? His democratic predecessors, who tried to negotiate a peaceful solution for the unsustainable borders rotted in a concentration camps.

So again we come back to the main point German's resentment of the treatment that was dictated to them after they lost a war they started that cost 10m lives, and 4 years of destruction so therefore there's no choice, all that follows must be? Only why do we have to pander to Germany to avoid its resentment under threat of then doing the same again? Maybe Germany should just not start world wars, and accept the fact that when they do people will be pissed and there will be negative repercussions.

There was also peaceful solution to the borders, and that was don't invade over them! The borders weren't inherently unsustainable*, Germany didn't like them, those are two different things.

*for instance Czechoslovakia seemed to somehow be making them work


7) Its rich that you just ignore how France decided to throw in their lot with Russia and Serbia.

Was there some human rights/democracy reason I am not seeing here or did France bears the responsibility for escalating the situation too?

Did France invade Germany? Is there some rule that France can't ally with Russia? But of course its obviously fine for Germany to ally with A-H? (hang on I've typed this already)


tl,dr: You constantly accuse Germany of stuff that you defend the Entente for. You constantly ignore the German perspective, for example constant French agressions in the past.

I'm guessing you're referring to the 1871 again? (see above). But yeah poor picked on Germany invading France through Neutral countries.

You constantly demonize German people as inherently aggressive and warmongering.

Oh Please, ironic though since your point seems to hinge on the claim that Germany's only possible response was to invade everyone.

I think it is astonishing to not see, how forcefully trying to reduce a Great Power into something close to a failed state, could backfire spectacularly.


And I think you are massively underestimate what a big deal WW1 was and why everyone was as pissed off at Germany as they where. I also think you exaggerating with "Failed state", there's a middle ground between "Great power" and "Failed state". But you know what yeah maybe if Germany hadn't decided to try for Great power status at the expense of it's neighbours we'd all have been be happier (including Germany).

Would Germany has been treated as a Great Power that has lost, instead of trying to cripple it forever, Hitler would have never risen to power.


This comes up a lot, but I think it's really just part of the claim that Germany was particularly hard done by because it was Germany. I'm not sure what you think another great power would have been treated like, that wouldn't be that different from Versaille? Lose of territory, reparations, curtailment of military and economic power this was all pretty standard stuff, and frankly history has seen far, far worse. This fantasy that if it had been not Germany but another country, the rest of the world would have been given them a let, is quite odd and based on no supporting facts that I can see.

I don't demand that a French mother had to understand that in 1918, but in 2018 it is fairly obvious.

Honestly I think its more that 'Versailles was unfair and led to no other possible outcome than Hitler' has become a historically meme that has been far too internalised, and Germany not liking Versailles is not the same as Versaille being unduly unfair or harsh

or tl;dr

Germany: "I don't like Versaille"
Rest of the world: "your not supposed to"
Germany: "well don't blame us if Hitler comes along using it as a rally cry because we don't like it and goes for round 2"
Rest of the world: "if that happens we will blame you, because you not liking a thing doesn't remove your agency, and your like or dislike of a thing is not the sole arbiter of it"
 
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NoMommsen

Donor
... considering what the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was going to look like in Eastern Europe in a post WW1 German victory scenario ...
Tbh :
I'm somewhat astonished how long it took for this questionable comparision - Treaty of Versailles : Treaty of Brest-Litowsk - to pop up.

... IMHO it underlines the ... "unfairness" of the ToV, as BL is IMHO much 'softer' than the former.
  • The whole sume of reparations demanded was less than half of what the entente demande as a first-off payment
    • 6 billion Goldmarks against 20 billion, these 6 billions also lowered by russian claims of destructions as well as the worth of confiscations
  • no demands on industrial goods like 5.000 lokomotives, 15.000 railcars, the merchant fleet, civilian harbour assets (floating docks, cranes), war ships NOT already in possession (and accounted on the above) - not to speak of military material demanded
  • no withdraw of sovereignity rights on rivers
  • no further occupation of territory NOT occupied already (Rheinland)
  • no restrictions on military matters on whatever level
And now for the 'territorial' changes, that by far 'outweight' these other in comparision rather 'mild' conditions - as so often stated :

these were NOT russian territories but territories under rule of the russian empire you talk about​

If you would have asked them I don't think many Finns, Estonians, Latvians, Lithunians, Poles, Ukrains and Belorussians (though the last I'm not sure about the actual 'strengh' of a nationalist movement at that time) would rather not have rendered themself as Russians.
Same well counts for the Armenians, Azeri and Georgians.

Eastern Europe as well as its mineral, agricultural and industrial assets did not belong the russian goverment, of whatever franchise (tsarist, communist, ...).

The BL-Treaty actually fulfilled in this respect the wilsonian 'nationality-rights' wishes.

Without a doubt, the 'states' founded under german rule were right that :
under german rule.​

But things were moving, nothing stayed as it emanated at first.
And even under german rule the 'autonomy' all these nations and peoples 'enjoyed' - including fighting each other devidwed in several faction - was much more they were ever granted by Russia.


I do not claim that eastern Europe experienced/enjoyed 'paradise' under the rule of OberOst and during the post-BL time, it rather suffered without a doubt.
But I also don't think they would have been better of, if they had come under communist rule in 1918.
 
Tbh :
I'm somewhat astonished how long it took for this questionable comparision - Treaty of Versailles : Treaty of Brest-Litowsk - to pop up.

... IMHO it underlines the ... "unfairness" of the ToV, as BL is IMHO much 'softer' than the former.
  • The whole sume of reparations demanded was less than half of what the entente demande as a first-off payment
    • 6 billion Goldmarks against 20 billion, these 6 billions also lowered by russian claims of destructions as well as the worth of confiscations
  • no demands on industrial goods like 5.000 lokomotives, 15.000 railcars, the merchant fleet, civilian harbour assets (floating docks, cranes), war ships NOT already in possession (and accounted on the above) - not to speak of military material demanded
  • no withdraw of sovereignity rights on rivers
  • no further occupation of territory NOT occupied already (Rheinland)
  • no restrictions on military matters on whatever level
And now for the 'territorial' changes, that by far 'outweight' these other in comparision rather 'mild' conditions - as so often stated :

these were NOT russian territories but territories under rule of the russian empire you talk about​

If you would have asked them I don't think many Finns, Estonians, Latvians, Lithunians, Poles, Ukrains and Belorussians (though the last I'm not sure about the actual 'strengh' of a nationalist movement at that time) would rather not have rendered themself as Russians.
Same well counts for the Armenians, Azeri and Georgians.

Eastern Europe as well as its mineral, agricultural and industrial assets did not belong the russian goverment, of whatever franchise (tsarist, communist, ...).

The BL-Treaty actually fulfilled in this respect the wilsonian 'nationality-rights' wishes.

Without a doubt, the 'states' founded under german rule were right that :
under german rule.​

But things were moving, nothing stayed as it emanated at first.
And even under german rule the 'autonomy' all these nations and peoples 'enjoyed' - including fighting each other devidwed in several faction - was much more they were ever granted by Russia.


I do not claim that eastern Europe experienced/enjoyed 'paradise' under the rule of OberOst and during the post-BL time, it rather suffered without a doubt.
But I also don't think they would have been better of, if they had come under communist rule in 1918.


Brest-litov was going to make Eastern europe into a de-facto German empire, the Baltic states were going to become German principalities. The Germans didn't even recognise the Polish representation so what do you think the chance of Poland being a free state was going to be, what with Prussia and Poland having been historically such good friends.

I didn't bring it up to say it was exactly like for like to Versailles in terms how many trains where grabbed, I brought it to point out the irony of Germany complaining about territory grabs from a position of military victory (even if it was actually still fighting elsewhere).


Also "it would have been worse under the Communists" as justification? really?

Basically if your arguing those territories did not belong to the Russian Empire (not unreasonable by today's standards, even if Russia at the time wouldn't agree), then they don't belong to a nascent German Empire either.
 
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Zagan

Donor
This^^ (@NoMommsen)

Unlike the Versailles Treaty, the Brest Litovsk Treaty did not detach any Russian inhabited land from Russia but only freed the nations captive under Russian yoke.
 
This^^ (@NoMommsen)

Unlike the Versailles Treaty, the Brest Litovsk Treaty did not detach any Russian inhabited land from Russia but only freed the nations captive under Russian yoke.

To replace it with a German one.

But you think there were no Russians living it those territories that had been part of the Russian empire for a while? Interesting

Not that the simple fact that there were Russians there makes those territories inherently Russian (see what's going right now in the Ukraine, this shit don't change). However it raises an interesting point about countries claiming territories by dint of having numbers of ethnically identifying people in those territories i.e see bits of Europe Germany has claimed is German at various times (but they're not the only ones of course)

Lets also not forget what the Casus belli is for WW1 is (Serbian nationalists killing AH royalty)?
 
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This^^ (@NoMommsen)

Unlike the Versailles Treaty, the Brest Litovsk Treaty did not detach any Russian inhabited land from Russia but only freed the nations captive under Russian yoke.
It is arguable that Belarus was Russian inhabited to a large extent.
And the regions separated from Germany had essentially either a majority of non-Germans or adopted another civic identity.
 
I agree resentment of Versaille was certainly a factor that Hitler used. However that doesn't mean Versaille itself was wrong or particularly unfair. There seems to be this odd concept that it's reasonable for Germany to expect a post WW1 treaty that it's happy with or that it's people won't resent, why?

Especially when such a treaty would breed resentment from the People of those countries that had just fought off Germany and felt the costs of doing so. Also I find the idea of Germany complaining about a harsh peace treaty and land grabs rather ironic considering what the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was going to look like in Eastern Europe in a post WW1 German victory scenario (and one assumes similar would be in effect in the West and south)

I agree - I should have mentioned this, actually, but looking back a lot of my posts in this thread have been taking a position more along the lines of "How could Versailles be changed to give stability to Weimar and in doing so avoid another world war?" rather than being pointed at fairness.

I do think that, even without getting into the whole 'ground-up' discussion of "alright, so first we need to establish what fairness is, here", there's an issue of immediate relevance - the question of whether or not a punishment-based justification of harsh terms is legitimate (i.e. can they deserve it if this is, legally and in a few key aspects practically, a new they?).

To be honest I used to be all "yeah Versaille was bad because it directly helps WW2 to kick off". But in recent years I moving away from that. Germany is ultimately responsible for it own actions (in WW2 and WW1), Versaille might have been harsh but I'm not sure that automatically equals unfair.

EDIT: Sorry I replied to your post rather too quickly after replying to Anchises, so I didn't pick on a few things on first reading!

So yes I agree the Nazis came about for lots of reasons, and none of them made them inevitable, equally as you say there were plenty of "no-Hitler turns in the road". But all this make the Versaille - resentment - Hitler railroad argument less strong?

For me, at least, the idea is less that Versailles caused resentment which caused Hitler, and more that Versailles (and the specifics of how it was done, which also includes the German side of things) was a large factor in the immediate post-war crisis* that greatly undermined Weimar's legitimacy and popularity in the long term, in addition to creating a situation in which it was far more difficult for the republic to establish itself (it didn't cause the mistakes made, but it added factors like 'German army must retreat behind the Rhine ASAFP' that helped set up mistakes like not purging / arresting the army leadership).

Now, my own perspective is mostly from the German side, partly because of what I've read (I should be getting a book on France post WWI soon, so hopefully that'll change) and partly because the things I have read are German, which means they have a German perspective on things - even without any sort of agenda, this and the topics being focused on (i.e. the revolution, Weimar, etc.) will mean that the situation around Versailles in the victorious powers doesn't get much mention; one of the better ones did go into the reasons why Versailles was a mess for everyone, but most treat it as a sort of...ancillary condition, or a force of nature that is present and needs to be reacted to or dealt with, rather than going into the French/British/American/Belgian/Italian side of things.

*Versailles did actually help, though, in 1923 - it provided an excellent scapegoat for the hyperinflation, which was actually chosen as the least-bad solution to the crisis resulting from Germany's obscene war debt, increasing expenditures and decreased income.
 
I agree - I should have mentioned this, actually, but looking back a lot of my posts in this thread have been taking a position more along the lines of "How could Versailles be changed to give stability to Weimar and in doing so avoid another world war?" rather than being pointed at fairness.

Yep I think that's a good way of looking at this (and again sorry I replied to you too quickly after replying line by line to another post!)

So OK yes I agree a Weimer not subject to Versaille would be likely be more stable, and how that coudl have been mitigated that is a different question. Itcould that have been lessened even if it's just restructuring the debt (which did happen, although whether one views that process itself as being reasonable or not is another matter*). However I feel we still get to assumed Weimer falls - goto Nazi's / WW2"

It is worth noting I think though that the money spent by Germany 1933+ on rearming was rather larger than that spent post 1919 on reparations. (it's a tough direct comparison because each expenditure has different knock on effects on the economy though, not to mention it involves comparing 1919 Gold Marks to Reichmarks in 1933+!)

*of course even if the loans etc were reasonable, the market crash has a knock on effect on that aspect of debt management!

I do think that, even without getting into the whole 'ground-up' discussion of "alright, so first we need to establish what fairness is, here", there's an issue of immediate relevance - the question of whether or not a punishment-based justification of harsh terms is legitimate (i.e. can they deserve it if this is, legally and in a few key aspects practically, a new they?).

It's a tough one, because each clause had two sides, including either compensation for loss incurred or a preventative measure to stop it happening again. So it's not like France took those German trains and dumped them in the sea the point being to deny the German people of trains, it was so that France could replace the trains that had been lost in WW1 when Germany invaded without having to pay for them again.

Compensation =/= punishment, even if those paying compensation feels the loss. But that doesn't stop Germans looking around and saying hey where did all the trains go?


For me, at least, the idea is less that Versailles caused resentment which caused Hitler, and more that Versailles (and the specifics of how it was done, which also includes the German side of things) was a large factor in the immediate post-war crisis* that greatly undermined Weimar's legitimacy and popularity in the long term, in addition to creating a situation in which it was far more difficult for the republic to establish itself (it didn't cause the mistakes made, but it added factors like 'German army must retreat behind the Rhine ASAFP' that helped set up mistakes like not purging / arresting the army leadership).

Now, my own perspective is mostly from the German side, partly because of what I've read (I should be getting a book on France post WWI soon, so hopefully that'll change) and partly because the things I have read are German, which means they have a German perspective on things - even without any sort of agenda, this and the topics being focused on (i.e. the revolution, Weimar, etc.) will mean that the situation around Versailles in the victorious powers doesn't get much mention; one of the better ones did go into the reasons why Versailles was a mess for everyone, but most treat it as a sort of...ancillary condition, or a force of nature that is present and needs to be reacted to or dealt with, rather than going into the French/British/American/Belgian/Italian side of things.

Well equally I'm a Brit who's German is a very distant GCSE!

*Versailles did actually help, though, in 1923 - it provided an excellent scapegoat for the hyperinflation, which was actually chosen as the least-bad solution to the crisis resulting from Germany's obscene war debt, increasing expenditures and decreased income.

That's the thing, other forms of German government than Nazis were capable of blaming Versailles (not unreasonably it had an effect after all)! So again this idea that the Nazi future was uniquely linked to Versailles is I think not shown.
 
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Yep I think that's a good way of looking at this (and again sorry I replied to you too quickly after replying line by line to another post!)

Don't worry about it!

So OK yes I agree a Weimer not subject to Versaille would be likely be more stable, and how that coudl have been mitigated that is a different question. Itcould that have been lessened even if it's just restructuring the debt (which did happen, although whether one views that process itself as being reasonable or not is another matter*). However I feel we still get to assumed Weimer falls - goto Nazi's / WW2"

While I haven't thought about it in depth, a sort of economic connection scheme, with French companies being sent cheap or free coal/steel/etc. for a certain number of years, could work as a replacement for (part of) a direct money reparation system. In general, when it comes to reparations, changing it structurally so it more resembles the loop of the 1920s (American capital goes to Germany -> German economy is working -> German reparations go to France -> French pay their loans back to the Americans) or some kind of at least partially mutually beneficial system would be ideal.

Really, I think the best way to do it would be to fiddle with some things - have the war guilt explicitly point to the Imperial German state, give the Germans a bit of say on some matters, have the old army folks do the signing - to lessen the impact of the treaty, even if it remains mostly intact.

I agree with the assumption bit; it's part of why I like to bring up just how "easy" it would be, to just remove the Nazis from ever coming to power even with a minor PoD (at one point, you could have a man trip, spend a minute dusting himself off, and out goes Hitler's chancellorship).

*of course even if the loans etc were reasonable, the market crash has a knock on effect on that aspect of debt management!

I'm not sure exactly what you're referring to here - do you mean the war debt Germany had, or reparation loans?

The German economy actually had a problem with debt before the 1929 crash; the agricultural sector was a subsidy-dependent mess and a lot of local governing bodies were massively in debt - part of why the crisis hit Germany especially hard (lack of internal capital + removal of American capital + large debt already present + export-focused industry).

It is worth noting I think though that the money spent by Germany 1933+ on rearming was rather larger than that spent post 1919 on reparations. (it's a tough direct comparison because each expenditure has different knock on effects on the economy though, not to mention it involves comparing 1919 Gold Marks to Reichmarks in 1933+!)

It was also very unsustainable; if the war hadn't happened, Germany would have run into a recession and had debt issues of its own.

There's also the very different economic conditions to keep in mind - it's one thing to cook the books and rearm for the do-or-die war you're expecting, it's another to (from an economic perspective) throw money into a fire while the country's economy is in shambles, a kinda-sorta civil war is grinding along and you're already struggling with expenses.

It could be interesting to look at when the most payments were made, though; if the Erfüllungspolitik of Wirth (can be summed up as "so let's just give them what they demand, and then they'll see that even if we try our best and wreck our country doing it, we can't - so they have to renegotiate") represented the high point of payments or if they came later.


It's a tough one, because each clause had two sides, including either compensation for loss incurred or a preventative measure to stop it happening again. So it's not like France took those German trains and dumped them in the sea the point being to deny the German people of trains, it was so that France could replace the trains that had been lost in WW1 when Germany invaded without having to pay for them again.

Compensation =/= punishment, even if those paying compensation feels the loss. But that doesn't stop Germans looking around and saying hey where did all the trains go?

Oh, absolutely - I'm not saying that things like reparations are an inherently punishing thing (well, they sort of are, but their justification / basis doesn't need to be), just that the reasoning of "they did this bad thing, so they deserve it" is faulty, IMO, and when combined with the tendency to wrap an entire nation into a single entity (which is not helped by the fact that it's a lot easier to say "this country did X" than to say "Y and Z, who were at the time the government, did X") can really easily lead to a poor foundation for any real or imagined peace deal.

Well equally I'm a Brit who's German is a very distant GCSE!

Now all we need is someone from France and Belgium, and we can get to work!

That's the thing, other forms of German government than Nazis were capable of blaming Versailles (not unreasonably it had an effect after all)! So again this idea that the Nazi future was uniquely linked to Versailles is I think not shown.

I wouldn't say "other forms were capable", I'd say they all did. It's kind of ironic that, as far as I can tell, the sole unifying factor from far left to far right in Weimar politics was "Versailles needs to go". They couldn't even agree on whether or not the republic was good or not (large anti-republican parties were in the government as early as 1920, literally the first proper Reichstag of the republic) but they were all not happy with Versailles. At times it was a scapegoat for other problems, sometimes it created tricky situations when institutions tried to uphold/cheat the treaty (the Reichswehr and Prussia were in pretty much constant conflict until the Preußenschlag coup'd the latter out of the discussion; the Reichswehr wanted to work with various illegal militias and such to ensure a large force was ready to defend the eastern border against Poland, while Prussia was annoyed by the military constantly claiming illegal weapon caches were definitely theirs the whole time after they'd been found), but you're right in that it definitely didn't make the Nazis inevitable*.

* It did enable the founding of the NSDAP, though - without the French occupation, the DAP would probably have just faded away like so many other tiny local parties, rather than surviving to become the NSDAP later.
 
I don't think that the Treaty of Versailles was the real issue with issue with WWII. It was an issue, but it was only seen as unfair due to the years of propaganda being shoved down German throats. Outside of those in the Military during WWI the German people were largely unaware of the situation at the Front. When Germany had to surrender it was a massive shock to the German population. They'd been led to believe that the Germany Army was just about to knock France out of the war. The Unfairness of the treaty doesn't come from the treaty, it comes partly from the German peoples reaction to the news that far from winning the war, they were on the verge of collapse. The other part is from how post war was handled. Britain and France didn't do much to try and integrate Germany back into the European community. That in itself isn't a huge problem, but they also didn't do much to support the German Republic or it's people. It's easy to see how you could turn that around as a propaganda tool against the Allies.
 
Don't worry about it!

cheers


While I haven't thought about it in depth, a sort of economic connection scheme, with French companies being sent cheap or free coal/steel/etc. for a certain number of years, could work as a replacement for (part of) a direct money reparation system. In general, when it comes to reparations, changing it structurally so it more resembles the loop of the 1920s (American capital goes to Germany -> German economy is working -> German reparations go to France -> French pay their loans back to the Americans) or some kind of at least partially mutually beneficial system would be ideal.


Well I think they did do that partly? The Rhineland sent coal and steel to france, US loans were made to Germany etc, etc. part of the reason why France walked into the Rhineland in 1923 was the Coal and steel payments stopped and weimar defaulted

Really, I think the best way to do it would be to fiddle with some things - have the war guilt explicitly point to the Imperial German state, give the Germans a bit of say on some matters, have the old army folks do the signing - to lessen the impact of the treaty, even if it remains mostly intact.

yep could well work, enough symbolic separation between old govt and new. (of course that might then support the point "well if it was their fault why are we paying")

I agree with the assumption bit; it's part of why I like to bring up just how "easy" it would be, to just remove the Nazis from ever coming to power even with a minor PoD (at one point, you could have a man trip, spend a minute dusting himself off, and out goes Hitler's chancellorship).

Yep

I'm not sure exactly what you're referring to here - do you mean the war debt Germany had, or reparation loans?

Wel kid of both, but...

The German economy actually had a problem with debt before the 1929 crash; the agricultural sector was a subsidy-dependent mess and a lot of local governing bodies were massively in debt - part of why the crisis hit Germany especially hard (lack of internal capital + removal of American capital + large debt already present + export-focused industry).

...yep that covers it quite well!

It was also very unsustainable; if the war hadn't happened, Germany would have run into a recession and had debt issues of its own.


Oh I agee nazi rearmament was economically unsustainable, I was more making the point that the more lurid narratives of the Versaille reducing Germany to failed state etc, etc are just that.


There's also the very different economic conditions to keep in mind - it's one thing to cook the books and rearm for the do-or-die war you're expecting, it's another to (from an economic perspective) throw money into a fire while the country's economy is in shambles, a kinda-sorta civil war is grinding along and you're already struggling with expenses.

True, if nothing else for all it other economic failings rearmament increased employment (kind of like a more violent public works plan :)!), The Issues with Nazi economics didn't stop at how it went about remarming either.

It could be interesting to look at when the most payments were made, though; if the Erfüllungspolitik of Wirth (can be summed up as "so let's just give them what they demand, and then they'll see that even if we try our best and wreck our country doing it, we can't - so they have to renegotiate") represented the high point of payments or if they came later.

I think most payet were made early on, but since they were funded by loans the economic hit was spread out?


Oh, absolutely - I'm not saying that things like reparations are an inherently punishing thing (well, they sort of are, but their justification / basis doesn't need to be), just that the reasoning of "they did this bad thing, so they deserve it" is faulty, IMO, and when combined with the tendency to wrap an entire nation into a single entity (which is not helped by the fact that it's a lot easier to say "this country did X" than to say "Y and Z, who were at the time the government, did X") can really easily lead to a poor foundation for any real or imagined peace deal.

Thing is the Deserve it point is really the same question. There's a difference between do they deserve to be punished and do they deserve to compensate others for the damage caused.

However you are right it is collective punishment! Problem is though even if we had conficased the personal estates of the what ever list of people Germany felt comfortable assigning blame to would that have been adequate compensation? (although guess that's were the next German Govt could have started when funding the the first payment)

I think fundamentally there i still an idea that a peace deal has to involve all parties being equally happy. Now I agree that is the best kind and also the one most likely to be lasting, but I also think it the most realistically unlikely. Especially as not all parties carry the asme level of guilt, and losses have been so great. I.e a peace deal hat wasn't going to be acceptable to the entente is a no go anyway (and we go back to war), and well they're in the position to dictate terms.

Now all we need is someone from France and Belgium, and we can get to work!

heh

I wouldn't say "other forms were capable", I'd say they all did. It's kind of ironic that, as far as I can tell, the sole unifying factor from far left to far right in Weimar politics was "Versailles needs to go". They couldn't even agree on whether or not the republic was good or not (large anti-republican parties were in the government as early as 1920, literally the first proper Reichstag of the republic) but they were all not happy with Versailles. At times it was a scapegoat for other problems, sometimes it created tricky situations when institutions tried to uphold/cheat the treaty (the Reichswehr and Prussia were in pretty much constant conflict until the Preußenschlag coup'd the latter out of the discussion; the Reichswehr wanted to work with various illegal militias and such to ensure a large force was ready to defend the eastern border against Poland, while Prussia was annoyed by the military constantly claiming illegal weapon caches were definitely theirs the whole time after they'd been found), but you're right in that it definitely didn't make the Nazis inevitable*.

* It did enable the founding of the NSDAP, though - without the French occupation, the DAP would probably have just faded away like so many other tiny local parties, rather than surviving to become the NSDAP later.


Yep it all rather more complicated really!
 
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