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> The First World War was not finished when the shooting stopped. The resentment, restrictions and reparations were directly responsible for what came next. Th

by pyrale 3y ago

> The First World War was not finished when the shooting stopped. The resentment, restrictions and reparations were directly responsible for what came next. This is nazi propaganda straight out of the book. It's being repeated a lot so maybe you don't know. "The first WW was not finished" is an allusion to the dolchstoss legend. The allusion to war reparations being a cause for resentment was a common talking point for the Nazi party, but in reality Germany barely paid reparations.

lostlogin 3y ago
I didn’t know that this was a thing, so thanks for that, it’s eye opening. I don’t entirely follow the line of reasoning though, how do you explain The Marshal Plan? Was working with the losers a nazi (and Japanese Empire) support scheme? It worked far better than the things tried at the end of The First World War. What would have prevented the Second World War? If Nazis didn’t rise to power, something bad was still on the cards.
- pyrale 3y ago
  > how do you explain The Marshal Plan? As in, how do I justify that it happened? or why did it happen if it wasn't "for peace"? First off, Germany did receive significant help after WW1, especially from the US. That came in the form of war reparations relief (through the Dawes plan), direct financial help and investments. That help stopped as the Young plan fizzled, due to the 1929 crisis. However, it is worth noting that this help was enough to offset the cost of reparations for Germany. As for the benefits of the Marshall plan, it was not entirely benevolent: the US had to convert their war economy back to peacetime, and that was an incredibly hard task. From a peacetime point of view, army men were functionally jobless, the production system was completely unfit for peacetime, and with out some public help/oversight, the US would likely have suffered the worst economic crisis of its history (see postwar inflation). Helping WW2's losers was a humane thing to do, but it was also in the US' best economic interest to get a foothold in new markets. > It worked far better than the things tried at the end of The First World War. It wasn't the single outcome of the war, though. In any aspect but the economic one, WW2's peace plan was incredibly hard on Germany. Way harder than what the UK or the US would ever have allowed in the Versailles treaty. > What would have prevented the Second World War? It's hard to do what-if history. A peace plan similar to WW2's (or to WW1's plan for Austria-Hungary, for that matter) would likely have prevented Germany from rising again, but neither the US nor the UK were willing to implement that. Short of that, it's hard to predict what would have happened. Many of the issues with Germany were unrelated to economic problems, and some of them happened before any economic policy could have had an effect. For instance, Germany's student associations voted to ban students that weren't "pure-race" German as early as 1919..
  - lostlogin 3y ago
    Thank you for this reply - I’ve learned some things.

by pyrale 3y ago

lostlogin 3y ago

I didn’t know that this was a thing, so thanks for that, it’s eye opening. I don’t entirely follow the line of reasoning though, how do you explain The Marshal Plan? Was working with the losers a nazi (and Japanese Empire) support scheme? It worked far better than the things tried at the end of The First World War. What would have prevented the Second World War? If Nazis didn’t rise to power, something bad was still on the cards.

pyrale 3y ago
> how do you explain The Marshal Plan? As in, how do I justify that it happened? or why did it happen if it wasn't "for peace"? First off, Germany did receive significant help after WW1, especially from the US. That came in the form of war reparations relief (through the Dawes plan), direct financial help and investments. That help stopped as the Young plan fizzled, due to the 1929 crisis. However, it is worth noting that this help was enough to offset the cost of reparations for Germany. As for the benefits of the Marshall plan, it was not entirely benevolent: the US had to convert their war economy back to peacetime, and that was an incredibly hard task. From a peacetime point of view, army men were functionally jobless, the production system was completely unfit for peacetime, and with out some public help/oversight, the US would likely have suffered the worst economic crisis of its history (see postwar inflation). Helping WW2's losers was a humane thing to do, but it was also in the US' best economic interest to get a foothold in new markets. > It worked far better than the things tried at the end of The First World War. It wasn't the single outcome of the war, though. In any aspect but the economic one, WW2's peace plan was incredibly hard on Germany. Way harder than what the UK or the US would ever have allowed in the Versailles treaty. > What would have prevented the Second World War? It's hard to do what-if history. A peace plan similar to WW2's (or to WW1's plan for Austria-Hungary, for that matter) would likely have prevented Germany from rising again, but neither the US nor the UK were willing to implement that. Short of that, it's hard to predict what would have happened. Many of the issues with Germany were unrelated to economic problems, and some of them happened before any economic policy could have had an effect. For instance, Germany's student associations voted to ban students that weren't "pure-race" German as early as 1919..
- lostlogin 3y ago
  Thank you for this reply - I’ve learned some things.