In this essay I will discuss the title question and come to a conclusion on whether or not I agree. For me, one of the main causes of ww2 was the fact that The Treaty of Versailles was extremely harsh on Germany; this created a build up of anger and resentment from Germans, and also put them in a financial depression. Although Hitler had no control over this, he played on their poverty to receive votes and gain power. He also built up Germany’s resentment against the United Nations, which made his people pro war. Many people believe another fault of the League of Nations that contributed to war was; how they appeased Hitler by letting him have Czechoslovakia.
2. Describe German reactions to the Treaty of Versailles? The German reaction to the Treaty of Versailles was one of outrage, they felt in many ways that they had been harshly treated and their punishment was unjust. The Germans had lost 10% of its land, meaning Germans were disbanded from German and ended up in new countries for which they didn’t speak the language. It had also loss a large portion of the working population, which meant it would be near impossible for their economy to get going again, especially when they had been forced to pay reoperations of 6000 million.
In addition Strachan states that Germany lost due a lacking military unity with her allies, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire, who would launch their own military operations, which did not benefit their allies due to a lack of planning. The Western Forces (Britain, France and America) however, managed to put aside their differences in order to fight against Germany and her allies effectively . Strachan’s arguments seem very convincing however I believe that other factors, such as too much success on Germany’s part in Russia and the British Blockade also added to the unrest and demoralization within Germany which eventually caused the signing of the Armistice in November 1918. The
The decline in Russia’s war performance caused morale in the army as well as in the country to also decrease. However, this in itself was not enough to cause the Tsarist regime to fall. The situation of war was made worse by the fact that in September 1915 after the Russians lost Poland; the Tsar took personal control of the army and dismissed this Uncle Nikolai. As a result, poor military performance could be blamed directly on the Tsar himself. This in turn caused his support to wither and his opponents to build up in number.
Later in 1919 the Weimar government signed the treaty of Versailles. The treaty had some appalling things in it such as the war guilt Claus, which meant that Germany had to accept that the war was all their fault and huge reparations also had to be paid. The German people hated the Weimar Republic even more after this because they were disgusted that their government accepted the awful terms of the treaty. They especially did not like the bit that said
The Weimar republic was created in 1919 with the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm ll, it was created at a time of confusion and chaos after Germany had lost the First World War. Between 1919 and 1923 it had to deal with many problems such as extremists’ attacks, the treaty of Versailles and the reparations crisis. Firstly Germany had no tradition of democracy and had always had strong leaders; Germans weren't ready for democracy and did not agree to it. With Germany suffering very badly because of the war it added onto the hatred the democracy had made. The new government was the body that signed the treaty of Versailles, and to many it was a betrayal and most Germans referred to it as the ‘stab in the back theory’.
The first key issue I would like to discuss is the limited nature of the German revolution and how this damaged the prospects of German democracy. The way that Ebert used to take control lead damaged the prospects of democracy from the outset. Historians have criticised Ebert’s use of force to crush radical groups such as the Spartacists and his use of the Freikorps. Together with the crushing Spartacists in 1919 caused these left wing radicals to become divided and were therefore unwilling to compromise on reforms in the Reichstag. This made it far more difficult for coalitions to form and for democracy to function in the designed fashion.
To what extent was the Treaty of Versailles fair to Germany? The Treaty of Versailles was created to cripple Germany so that they could not start another war. One side of the argument is that the Treaty was extremely unfair to Germany, as it took away some of her most valuable assets and fuelled nationalism. However, the other side of the argument is that as Germany caused a lot of damage, she deserved to be punished and prevented from stirring up more trouble. The military clause was the harshest and most damaging clause, and was greatly disapproved of by Germany.
The reparations imposed on the country under the Weimar Republic caused many political problems within the nation. The Weimar Republic was associated with failure in WW1 since it had signed the Treaty of Versailles that had ended the war, this in turn caused a strong sense of unpopularity towards the government from the people of Germany, as it was believed that the Republic had ended the war too early and that Germany could have fought on. This left the Germans feeling humiliated, along with the harsh limitations on the German armed forces and also the concept that Germany and it's allies was to blame for starting the war, known as the War Guilt Clause.In addition, when the German people discovered that the Weimar Republic failed in making the Treaty fair towards them, the government became even more unpopular. They people were outraged at the fact that the government had accepted these conditions, despite the fact that there was not a lot else the Republic could do. This added to the already high level of unpopularity of the government, after signing the armistice to the end the war, consequently resulting in the government being named the 'November Criminals'.
In fact the groups within the right such as the Freikorps and consul organisation showed an increasing amount of violence because of their lack of support on democracy, which of course created a tremendous threat to the Weimar Republic. To an extent one could argue that the economy was a major threat to the stability of the Weimar Republic in the period 1919-1923 due to the severe reparation payments. The Treaty of Versailles stipulated that Germany had to pay reparations for the damage which was caused in WW1. The poor leadership and economic problems consequently led to a German defeat. In 1921, the total amount of reparations was set at 269 billion gold marks.