Why did the Versailles Treaty arouse such opposition in Germany?

Many people believe that the Versailles Treaty was to blame for the long term undermining of the Weimar Republic. There would have been no way that the German people would have accepted the treaty unless the Allies hadn’t threatened to continue the war and dismember Germany. This was because German propaganda had shielded the people from what was really happening on the fronts.

One of the main reasons the German people rejected the treaty so much was because they would have had no idea what was happening at the front apart from what they would read in biased German newspapers. So when defeat came the people were completely unprepared for it. For several months before the war ended the German people had been suffering from hunger and starvation due to the blockade of German ports and a food shortage in 1918, so when the war ended they expected this to end but it didn’t. Many Germans also expected favourable terms in the peace treaty like they had received when the treaty of Brest Litovsk was signed with Russia in march 1918, which ended fighting on the Eastern front. In this treaty Germany had received huge land gains in Russia, but these were taken away by the allies in the treaty of Versailles. This increased the shock effect of the treaty, which the new German government had no choice but to sign.

Another thing, which added to the shock effect of the treaty, was that only a few of Wilson’s fourteen points had been incorporated into it. The self-determination clause was to be used for the smaller nations in Europe these included Poland and Czechoslovakia. This clause meant that people would vote on which country they wished to belong to, but for Germany much of its territory and many of its citizens were handed over to Poland without voting. The German people were outraged by this, as a much larger majority of the population in these areas were German, which went against the idea of self-determination. The League of Nations was also set up, this was meant to be based upon people of the same culture and language living together. Germany was excluded from this. This made Germany appear to be an insignificant power in Europe which many proud German nationalists could not except these were also the same people who founded the “stab in the back myth” and would later lead to right wing unrest in the Weimar Republic.

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France pushed for an anti-German agenda mainly because much of its territory was used as a battleground and had received huge casualties and financial debts. This was also the case for Britain who had built up huge debts to the Americans to pay for the war. Some of the financial terms placed on Germany effectively crippled it. The treaty stated that Germany had to pay financial reparations to the British and French. This meant that the countries gold supply could be taken as well as industrial assets, which included railway stock as well as major industrial areas. From the 13% of its territory that Germany lost and 6 million people, it lost a total of 15% Arable land, 75% iron ore production, 68% zinc ore production and 26% of its coal production. The impact on the German economy because of this was massive; this again caused resentment towards the Versailles treaty. The reduction of the German army was also a shock especially to right wing generals in the German high command. Two of these were Hindenburg and Ludendorf who were effectively controlling Germany like a military dictatorship during most of the last few months of the war. The army was reduced to 100,000 men and no tanks or aircraft were allowed. The navy was reduced to 6 battleships, 6 cruisers, 12 destroyers, 12 torpedo boats and 0 submarines. Arms and munitions were also banned from being imported to Germany. All sports using firearms or that encouraged the uses of firearms were banned. The reduction of the army also put thousands of soldiers out of work when the war ended, this later lead to the creation of the Freikorps units during the years of the Weimar republic.

War guilt was another important part in the understanding of why the German people wouldn’t accept the treaty. The idea of War Guilt was that Germany and its allies, mainly Austria and Hungary, were to blame for the war and so were forced to pay reparations to the allies. Article 231 read:

“The Allied and Associated Governments affirm and Germany accepts the responsibility of Germany and her allies for causing all loss and damage to which the Allied and associated governments and their nationals have been subjected as a consequence of the war imposed on them by the aggression of Germany and her allies”

By signing this the new government under Erbert was effectively committing treason in he eyes of right wing extremists who believed Germany could go on fighting. This is where the myth of the “November criminals” came from and would later lead to unrest especially by right wing extremists during the years of the Weimar republic. An example of this is a right wing slogan from the time, “death rather than slavery” and “peace through victory”. The war guilt clause meant Germany had the responsibility of paying compensation to the allies just as it made Russia do at the treaty of Brest Litovsk. The final amount to be paid was decided by the reparations committee. The German people also found it difficult to come to terms with the war guilt clause as the majority of the population believed that Germany was fighting a defensive war from the beginning.

Another thing that caused outrage and surprise among the German people was that the team of German diplomats assembled by the German government was completely ignored by the allied delegation. The Allies thought that if the Germans had any part in the negotiations they would try to split up the allies up over certain issues in order to get more favourable terms. This promoted the view that the treaty of Versailles wasn’t so much a treaty but a dictation of allied demands. This was not why the Germans had agreed to stop fighting and so they thought they had been betrayed.

The first reason there was German opposition to the treaty was the trauma of defeat. This was the biggest shock because most Germans felt that the war was going well. It was generally felt through out the front line troops that Germany could have kept on fighting for another few months and that the army had been betrayed. The terms of the treaty itself were also a huge shock to the Germans who expected to be treated much more leniently after installing their own parliamentary democracy and ending the rule of the monarchy and the Kaiser. They also expected Wilson’s fourteen points to be a major part of the treaty, but they were only used selectively. All these reasons were to blame for widespread German resentment throughout the Weimar period, mainly by right wing extremists who believed that Erbert’s new government had sold out to the Allies, but also left wing extremists who believed Germany should follow the example of the Russian Bolsheviks. Both sides blamed the new government for the repercussions of the treaty although they had no choice but to sign it.

Sam Roberts