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> In the Treaty of Versailles, which Germany was not allowed to participate in the negotiation of, they were forced to accept all guilt for the war, give up vas

> In the Treaty of Versailles, which Germany was not allowed to participate in the negotiation of, they were forced to accept all guilt for the war, give up vast tracts of land, and then pay an a unpayable amount on top, which many even at the time argued was excessively myopic. This repeats several depressingly common myths. For starters, germany was "forced to accept all guilt" (several other countries were considered "guilty" by those treaties) because they were guilty. While not the sole participant, they actively encouraged the starting of the war and then immediately took advantage of it by invading france. After spending 4 years of brutal fighting literally just to make the germans go home, the people defending themselves were more than a bit mad. As to the famous war debt, for one thing its size wasn't much larger, relatively speaking, to the debt germany had just imposed on france a generation previously after france lost a war in which they invaded germany. This kind of war reparations was extremely common, and while obviously burdensome, hardly an excuse to launch another global war of conquest. Much like france and its war debt, germany could have easily paid what it owed without collapsing. One of the thing the nazis and friends deliberately did was cause hyperinflation in order to both decrease the debt and to encourage anger among the populace to hopefully cause them to "rebel" against the existing leadership and support the extremists in thr nazi party. Even after hitler took power (as you point out, at best semi-democratically) germany's economy was no worse off than any of the other major powers going through the depression, but instead of doing public works like america did, hitler deliberately allocated an unsustainable amount of money into war production, money that obviously had zero return to the german people. A large part of the reason hitler started invading when he did was because they had basically run out of money and their choice was use their expensive army or sell it off in order to buy food and oil.

somenameforme 3y ago
That is not a particularly fair recounting of WW1. The entire world was at fault for that war. A Bosnian Serb, probably with state backing, assassinates the heir of Austria Hungary. Serbia then refuses Austria Hungary's terms for settlement of the affair, so Austria Hungary decides to invade Serbia. This then drives Serbia's ally Russia to intervene. But Germany had a military alliance with Austria Hungary which then drove them to intervene on behalf of Austria Hungary. Of course France then also had a military alliance with Russia, so they're now in the game. And so on, and so forth. Germany is only uniquely guilty there in the sense that the loser of a war is always the one who did wrong. And the Nazis didn't cause hyper-inflation. They didn't take power until 1933. The inflation, that would quickly end up turning to hyperinflation, began shortly after the Treaty of Versailles in the early 1920s, in the Weimar Republic. Germany didn't have anywhere near enough money to pay off their debts under the Treaty of Versailles, which demanded payments in gold or foreign currency only. With their gold reserves long since exhausted, Germany had little choice but to begin printing money in order to buy foreign currency. And even that wasn't enough, as their currency inflated to the point of worthlessness causing them to default on their debt, which then lead France/Belgium to make things even worse by invading and occupying the [industrially key] Ruhr region of Germany in 1923, and responding to predictable German acts of civil disobedience by killing civilians. And as above - 'so forth, and so on.'
- felixgallo 3y ago
  Yes, Fascist Germany and Hitler weren't at fault -- the Jews made him do it. Amazing.
  - somenameforme 3y ago
    My friend, straw men are rarely the sign of a literate mind, but you took it to a bold new level here. WW1 was in 1914. The Nazi party did not exist, and Hitler was a 24 year old low ranking dispatch runner of no note, volunteering in the Bavarian army.
    - felixgallo 3y ago
      speaking of bold new levels of misdirection and Nazi apologia, I was, and clearly, referring to your nonsensical implications about Nazis really not being to blame in your third para.
      - somenameforme 3y ago
        It's the same story there. Hyper inflation began in the Weimar Republic / Germany in 1921. The Nazi party was only formally formed in 1920 with a handful of members. By the time hyperinflation was raging, the Nazis were a group of people with 0 political power, largely made up of drunkards and misfits.
- wredcoll 3y ago
  > Serbia then refuses Austria Hungary's terms for settlement of the affair, so Austria Hungary decides to invade Serbia And you talk about fair recounting? First off, every single war decision is made by humans. People seem to gloss over this when talking about history and countries, but even if you have a treaty with another country, you're still making a choice to declare war. You can argue that its always the moral choice to obey a treaty and declare war, but its still a choice. Secondly, the austro-hungarian "terms for settlement" were deliberately designed to be refused, the terms were extremely punitive and made with every intention of provoking a war. This isn't speculation, this is what the people making the terms said to each other. Also a sizeable part of the reason austro-hungary felt able to make such demands is because germany was encouraging them and offering support, both via treaties and more informal communications. After that, yes, treaties gave other countries reasons to get involved in that war, but I think there's a pretty clear moral difference between "serbia gets invaded so I'm going to honor my treaty to attempt to defend them" and "oh hey, my ally started a war by invading someone, I'm going to get in on that action and invade someone else!" > that would quickly end up turning to hyperinflation, began shortly after the Treaty of Versailles in the early 1920s, in the Weimar Republic. Germany didn't have anywhere near enough money to pay off their debts under the Treaty of Versailles, First off, "shortly after" is doing a massive amount of work there. Yes, in terms of "history of the world" it was a short amount of time, but that doesn't mean one caused the other. The inflation was a combination of poor economic decisions and deliberate attempts to destabilize the country. Hitler wasn't made leader until 1933 but the nazis (and more importantly, their backers and allies) had a large amount of power in the country even in the 1920s (see the beer hall putsch, it didn't succeed but just the fact it was possible says a lot). Yes, the occupation of the ruhr didn't actually help, but the occupiers also left after 2 years and a new plan of repayments was agreed to. You can argue that its "natural" or maybe just "predictable" that germany would (essentially) start voting for the nazis after something like that, but its still a choice people made, and more importantly, the choice to start invading other countries was made well over a decade later. The point I wanted to emphasize is that all of these wars were the results of people making choices. You're never forced or required to invade someone. You choose to do that, and germany rightly bears the blame for choosing to do so. You can argue that other people/countries could hade made different choices and those different choices might have influenced the choices people in germany made, but again, they're not controlling the people making the choices. (Also this whole storyline is a great counter-example to the silly trope about "victors writing history" since there is a massive amount of, uh "myths" about ww1 and ww2 era germany written by the germans, who certainly didn't win)

somenameforme 3y ago

That is not a particularly fair recounting of WW1. The entire world was at fault for that war. A Bosnian Serb, probably with state backing, assassinates the heir of Austria Hungary. Serbia then refuses Austria Hungary's terms for settlement of the affair, so Austria Hungary decides to invade Serbia. This then drives Serbia's ally Russia to intervene. But Germany had a military alliance with Austria Hungary which then drove them to intervene on behalf of Austria Hungary. Of course France then also had a military alliance with Russia, so they're now in the game. And so on, and so forth. Germany is only uniquely guilty there in the sense that the loser of a war is always the one who did wrong. And the Nazis didn't cause hyper-inflation. They didn't take power until 1933. The inflation, that would quickly end up turning to hyperinflation, began shortly after the Treaty of Versailles in the early 1920s, in the Weimar Republic. Germany didn't have anywhere near enough money to pay off their debts under the Treaty of Versailles, which demanded payments in gold or foreign currency only. With their gold reserves long since exhausted, Germany had little choice but to begin printing money in order to buy foreign currency. And even that wasn't enough, as their currency inflated to the point of worthlessness causing them to default on their debt, which then lead France/Belgium to make things even worse by invading and occupying the [industrially key] Ruhr region of Germany in 1923, and responding to predictable German acts of civil disobedience by killing civilians. And as above - 'so forth, and so on.'

felixgallo 3y ago
Yes, Fascist Germany and Hitler weren't at fault -- the Jews made him do it. Amazing.
- somenameforme 3y ago
  My friend, straw men are rarely the sign of a literate mind, but you took it to a bold new level here. WW1 was in 1914. The Nazi party did not exist, and Hitler was a 24 year old low ranking dispatch runner of no note, volunteering in the Bavarian army.
  - felixgallo 3y ago
    speaking of bold new levels of misdirection and Nazi apologia, I was, and clearly, referring to your nonsensical implications about Nazis really not being to blame in your third para.
    - somenameforme 3y ago
      It's the same story there. Hyper inflation began in the Weimar Republic / Germany in 1921. The Nazi party was only formally formed in 1920 with a handful of members. By the time hyperinflation was raging, the Nazis were a group of people with 0 political power, largely made up of drunkards and misfits.
wredcoll 3y ago
> Serbia then refuses Austria Hungary's terms for settlement of the affair, so Austria Hungary decides to invade Serbia And you talk about fair recounting? First off, every single war decision is made by humans. People seem to gloss over this when talking about history and countries, but even if you have a treaty with another country, you're still making a choice to declare war. You can argue that its always the moral choice to obey a treaty and declare war, but its still a choice. Secondly, the austro-hungarian "terms for settlement" were deliberately designed to be refused, the terms were extremely punitive and made with every intention of provoking a war. This isn't speculation, this is what the people making the terms said to each other. Also a sizeable part of the reason austro-hungary felt able to make such demands is because germany was encouraging them and offering support, both via treaties and more informal communications. After that, yes, treaties gave other countries reasons to get involved in that war, but I think there's a pretty clear moral difference between "serbia gets invaded so I'm going to honor my treaty to attempt to defend them" and "oh hey, my ally started a war by invading someone, I'm going to get in on that action and invade someone else!" > that would quickly end up turning to hyperinflation, began shortly after the Treaty of Versailles in the early 1920s, in the Weimar Republic. Germany didn't have anywhere near enough money to pay off their debts under the Treaty of Versailles, First off, "shortly after" is doing a massive amount of work there. Yes, in terms of "history of the world" it was a short amount of time, but that doesn't mean one caused the other. The inflation was a combination of poor economic decisions and deliberate attempts to destabilize the country. Hitler wasn't made leader until 1933 but the nazis (and more importantly, their backers and allies) had a large amount of power in the country even in the 1920s (see the beer hall putsch, it didn't succeed but just the fact it was possible says a lot). Yes, the occupation of the ruhr didn't actually help, but the occupiers also left after 2 years and a new plan of repayments was agreed to. You can argue that its "natural" or maybe just "predictable" that germany would (essentially) start voting for the nazis after something like that, but its still a choice people made, and more importantly, the choice to start invading other countries was made well over a decade later. The point I wanted to emphasize is that all of these wars were the results of people making choices. You're never forced or required to invade someone. You choose to do that, and germany rightly bears the blame for choosing to do so. You can argue that other people/countries could hade made different choices and those different choices might have influenced the choices people in germany made, but again, they're not controlling the people making the choices. (Also this whole storyline is a great counter-example to the silly trope about "victors writing history" since there is a massive amount of, uh "myths" about ww1 and ww2 era germany written by the germans, who certainly didn't win)