The Treaty of Versailles was signed on June 28, 1919, bringing an official end to the conflict between Germany and the Allies. Unfortunately, by forcing Germany to shoulder most, if not all, of the blame for the war, the War Guilt Clause (Article 231) placed a heavy burden upon the German people. The Treaty of Versailles had the opportunity to be a new beginning for all involved parties, regardless of where they stood during the war, and instead was used as the means by which the Allied Powers exacted revenge on Germany. This compulsion to act out of anger and selfishness, not compassion and mutual beneficialism, became a direct cause of another conflict only twenty years down the road.
The treaty was supposed to be a step towards a lasting peace, at least according to U.S. President Woodrow Wilson. His plans “called for an immediate end to the war, the establishment of an international peacekeeping organization, international disarmament, open diplomacy, the explicit disavowal of war, and independence for formerly colonial territories.” (Khan Academy) This, though I cannot speak to how well or for how long it would have worked, would have been, at the very least, an attempt to pick themselves up, put the past behind them, and work together for a better future.
Britain and France did not approve of this approach. There were multiple reasons for this, but the foremost was that they were angry. Where America had been fighting “Over There” (song composed by George M. Cohan in 1917) and for less than a year, the French and British had been fighting close to home, if not in their own territory, for four years. They had lost men, supplies, buildings, and land, and they wanted Germany to pay for it. Germany was forced to give up its territories, drastically downsize its military, and, quite literally, pay the expenses. The total bill of reparations came out to a whopping $60 billion dollars, what would be over $760 billion today. A decade later this sum would be reduced to something slightly more reasonable, $30 billion dollars, but the damage was already done.
With reparations to pay and not nearly enough money to pay them with, the German government, then changed to the Weimar Republic, started printing deutschmarks (their currency at the time). Unfortunately, this had a reverse effect as the nation went into a state of hyperinflation and the value of the deutschmark plummeted, bringing the Weimar economy with it. To quote the History.com article on the Weimar Republic, “An underground bartering economy was established to help people meet their basic needs.” That alone should indicate how bad things were.
Regardless of Germany’s past actions, this should have been the point where the international community stepped in and did something to help. There is no excuse for willfully neglecting the welfare of an entire civilian population, yet the Allies did so for a whole generation. Even when they did act — which, admittedly, they did — their focus was on the reparations and resuming the payments, not on the suffering of the German people.
Between their loss in the war, their economic collapse, and the seeming indifference of their neighbors to their suffering, it should not be surprising that in their anger and desperation the German people turned to extremism, looking for new leadership and a semblance of hope. As Sarah Pruitt wrote, “Due to lasting resentment of the Versailles Treaty, the National Socialist (Nazi) Party and other radical right-wing parties were able to gain support… by promising to overturn its harsh provisions and make Germany into a major European power once again.”
As I hope I have made clear, the Treaty of Versailles, by its focus on revenge rather than rationality, was a direct cause of both Hitler’s rise to power and the Second World War, and while the treaty itself was necessary, many of its contents, particularly Article 231, the War Guilt Clause, were inevitably detrimental to not only Germany, but the whole of the international community.
