[mooxe]

I asked myself this while reading Black Edelweiss along with some other memoirs from German soldiers. Thier national pride was seemingly taken away by this treaty. They were happy Hitler starting "reversing" them.

Was it bad planning on the Allies part to impose such heavy fines on the Germans? If you think about them, how could a country accept these fines for so long. Especially when new generations of Germans were growing up with them, possibly not feeling really connected to the reason they were imposed. Did the heavy fines just give Germany a reason to fight? How could the Allies really believe they could keep a country down and out for so long and at the same time be so oblivious to its massive build up? Its like caging an animal or imprisoning a human, they will just want to escape. If they escape who do you blame? The escapee or the prison guard?

[AT_Stalky]

[Polemarchos]

i would say possibly yes, Versailles also caused WW2...

But in my eyes more crucial, was the weak setup of the League of Nations...

Examples:
- Italic annexion of Rejka in Croatia
- Mandate for Greece to occupy parts of Turkey and the retreat of all other Allies
- Anti bolschevik actions of Western Allies in Russia
- Various African adventures of European powers
- Japanese expansion

All these actions, could not be sanctioned by the League of Nations. Thus the anarchic setup of Int. Relation during that period, benefitted Realist (self-help) politcies of any Nation, feeling itself treated unjust.

[karlmortar]

I could say that the treaty was a factor for the Germans to start the war.
But a not a very big factor.

[MörserCarl]

You cannot say that the Versailles treaty caused the second world war but you can argue that it was a contributing factor. It is true that the Versailles treaty was unfair and detrimental to growth and stability - imagine where Japan would have been had similar punitive terms been imposed on that nation after the second world war. Don't forget that Germany basically had ignored and violated many/most of the Versailles treaty terms by the time the second world war broke out. In fact, Germany was doing pretty well economically in the late thirties.

The Versailles treaty was one of several burdens on the German nation after the first world war that led to poverty, hunger, unemployment, inflation and thereby, in the twenties, prepared the German people to accept radical thinkers such as the national socialists or communists. It happened that the national socialists got the upper hand and they, with their simpleminded belief in German supremacy and hate towards other races and minorities, started the second world war.

[Polemarchos]

in fact international system constraints, self-help and hegemonic power shifts caused WW2, you're right Versailles was just a normal factor, like arms race before 1914...

for wars on this scale actually only structure (of int. system/ so called third image) matters....

[Blackstump]

Interesting thread..also interesting is the fact that the German soldiery, felt let down by there Government as they signed of on the "treaty", i wonder how the civilian population felt? probably relieif that there sons would no longer go to the meat grinder. Alot of contributing factors went towards the second war, from my view, the "treaty" was treated as a joke by the Hapsburgh regime and successive German governments, little money was repaid, the world economic recession wiped the debts, the sudenland was mostly reoccupied, Germany rearmed, all with out any interference by the first world war allies, all this led to a bolder refinanced Germany. Then i feel the major contributing factor steped into the picture. He was able to consolidate his power base, focus an entire nation, tell them what to hate and how to achieve his dream (nightmare). Germany was on its way once again... the other contributing factor, that nobody has talked about here. In what caused the second world war. Was one other man... i know this will cause arguments but.. while other western European countries were being set up to fall by Hitler, only one man with the balls big enough was prepared to stand toe to toe with Hitler, and i suppose without Churchill. The maps of today would look very different..

[rebel1]

Did Versailles cause ww2: no!
Did versailles help Hitler (&NSDWP) win an election?: Yes!

Versailles is the lightning rod but not the lightning!
When Der Reich bailed in '18, there were no foreign troops on german soil: The citizens had been told "we're winning", "we're winning", "tactical retreat", "we've asked for an armistice".

Germans particularly did not understand the "war guilt" clause; Everyone behaved like alley dogs on the run-in to war (& after).

Hitler was a loony when he tried a putsch in Munich in '20 - something, but in '33 after the great depression had demolished the Weimar compromise & replaced it with Hindenberg's kleptocrats +40% unemployment, anything looked good.

Or as the 'great power' historians put it: Germany & Russia were great powers that had their borders trimmed after being 'on the wrong side in WW1'. There was no way those borders were not going to be reviewed once those powers regained their strength.

My reading of history is that if the depression hadn't swept normal politics (& economics) away, ww2 might have been avoided - for a while.

Some of my sources:
1918, War & peace by Gregor Dallas
Rise & Fall of Great Powers by Kennedy
The Owl of Minerva by Regler
Conf. proceedings: "Versailles, 75 yrs later" (Haven't ponyied up $85 for this yet); the historians are seriously digging into ww1 now; few veterans & aging politicos are left to fire bomb their homes!

Or as WH Auden wrote in "September 1, 1939":
"I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-Second Street
Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low, dishonest decade:...