How did the Treaty of Versailles contribute to Hitler’s rise to power?

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  Shimon Simon History Coursework 9/4/02

How did the Treaty of Versailles contribute to Hitler’s rise to power?

Question 1

The Treaty of Versailles was a conference lasting a year and ended when two German representatives signed it on the 28th June 1919. It was an edict against Germany by the allied powers due to WW1. The Leaders of Britain Being David Lloyd George, France- Georges Clemenceau and the US leader Woodrow Wilson took the important decision of Versailles.

The main terms can be split into 5 areas.

        Germany had to accept the blame for starting the war.

         Germany’s army was limited to 100,000 men. Conscription was banned. No armoured vehicles, submarines or aircraft were to be used by them. The Navy could only build six battleships. The Rhineland was to be demilitarised.

         £6.6million was to be paid as reparations to the allied powers.

         German Overseas Empire was taken away. 10% of Germany was to be taken away and Germany was forbidden to unite with Austria.

          The League of Nations was to be set up.

The overall reaction of Germans was outrage. They were infuriated especially because they had to take all the blame for the war. They felt that taking 16% of its coalfields and ½ of it iron and steel factories and then making it pay £6.6 billion in reparations was unacceptable. They were also infuriated at the fact they would lose 10% of land and all its overseas colonies and not being invited to the League of Nations. They were also angry at the small amount of military capabilities authorized by them. They did not even feel they had lost the war. The Germans did not know how much their military capabilities had been depleted, so they thought that German politicians had agreed to a ceasefire and should have been at Versailles. And they were forced to sign a treaty without any comment.    

From a German newspaper

Today in the hall of mirrors the disgraceful treaty is being signed. Do not forget it! The German people will with unceasing labour, press forward to reconquer the place among the nations to which it is entitled.

The situation in Germany was already reaching a crisis. In 1919 Ebert’s Weimar Government was already fragile. When he agreed to the treaty it tipped Germany into chaos and attempted revolution.

Germany fell behind on its reparations payment in 1922 and so in 1923 French and Belgian soldiers entered the Ruhr an industrial region and took what was owned by the way of raw materials. This was legal under Versailles. The German government ordered all workers to strike so there would be nothing for the allies to take. The French were enraged killing more than 100 workers. More importantly though the strike meant that Germany had no goods to trade and so no money.

The government solved this problem by printing more banknotes. Soon the value of money crashed. It was worthless. It cost 201,000,000,000 marks to buy a loaf of bread. This was blamed on the Weimar government. They were basically fighting an impossible battle if they did not sign Versailles Germany would lose the restarted war. When they did they got fierce criticism and had to deal with riots. When they used the policy of passive resistance they lost lots of money and had to print more. When they stopped passive resistance they got lots of criticism and had to put down a revolution by the Nazi party at the Munich Putsch in 1923.

British historian, Finlay Mckichan

…the causes of hyperinflation were varied and complex, but the Germans did not see it that way. They blamed reparations and the Weimar Republic, which had accepted them and had presided over the chaos of 1923. Many middle class Germans never forgave the republic for the blow it believed it had dealt to them.

The German people were angry they thought that they were being stabbed in the back they were prepared to carry on fighting they believed that by signing the treaty of Versailles they were signing a death wish.

Nevertheless though even without public opinion the treaty was signed it made the German peoples lives very difficult.

The German population particularly hated the War guilt clause. Not only was this insulting but it meant that Germany had to pay all the damage. The German economy was already in crisis. Germans were without money for food now they had to pay reparations.

£6.6million was to be paid to the allies, which would have lasted until 1984 if not for the Young Plan. This was a huge burden to carry, which Germany could not hold. Germany was already in a predicament with the affects of the war taking its toll. Germans were starving some scavenging for a morsel of bread. When Germany fell behind with payments in 1923 as we said before the French and Belgian soldiers invaded the Ruhr this added salt into the already deep wound. The heavy reparations also caused hyperinflation.  

Disarmament also enraged the Germans. 100,000 men were hardly enough to defend Germany even with new weapons like aeroplanes, U-boats and armoured vehicles, which were prohibited under the treaty.

Germany lost 10% of its land of which 16% of its coalfields and half its iron and steel industry were situated. All its Overseas Empire was taken away too. Therefore Germany lost a lot of Economic power at a time when they needed every mark they could get when paying such high reparations.

As if this was not enough the Germans were further offended by not being invited to join the League of Nations.

This affected the German Nation in that it dented their national pride, made them prone to attack from other boarder states and put them in a massive financial predicament. These points made the German people want to take revenge.  

Gustav Stresemann became Chancellor in 1923 and was very skilful at his new job. He tried to build up Germany. He was helped by the fact that the rest of Europe was emerging from the post-war depression. Slowly he began to build up Germany’s economy under the Dawes plan with the USA. This was a loan to Germany, which helped build industry in Germany this increased employment so national, and international trade was increased and so profits were increased. The USA could then be paid back when Germany’s economy had recovered. The Young plan was also set up implementing lower reparation payments. At this time Hitler and the Nazis as well as the Left-Wing Communists were not thriving as we see from an American journalist.

Most Germans one met struck you as being democratic, liberal even pacifist. One scarcely heard of Hitler and the Nazis except as jokes.

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But then disaster struck in 1929 as the Wall Street crash plunged the world into a depression and so all loans to Germany were recalled by the USA. The USA was unwilling to support Germany when its own economy was in a mess. Industries suffered and so cut jobs. Therefore all Stresemans work was for nought as Germans only got short-term good economic times.

The Weimar government were now in a dire predicament. It is bad enough for a nation to be struck down by economic depression but to get the blow twice is a lot worse. The great ...

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