not published until 1967. After the National Socialist's election victory in July 1932, the Nazis prevented the reinstatement of the entire committee and prohibited publication of its work. The bulk of the first subcommittee's documentation burned during World War II. Second subcommittee: missed peace opportunities After the conclusion of the Treaty of Versailles, the issue of missed opportunities for peace during the war was hotly debated throughout the Weimar Republic. In the second subcommittee as well, the Foreign Office "succeeded in transforming the committee's work into a bureaucratically directed, quasi-secret investigation" to which there was little resistance from the parliamentarians. As a result, only the reports on U.S. President Woodrow Wilson's peace campaign of 1916/17, Pope Benedict XV's mediation effort in the summer of 1917, peace feelers to France and Belgium, and the German-American peace talks in the spring of 1918 were brought to a conclusion. Possibilities for peace with Russia and Japan were not covered. Committee chairman Fischer-Baling considered the handling of Wilson's peace feelers in 1916/17 to be the second most significant topic of the inquiry. The former Reich chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg, former state secretary of foreign affairs Arthur Zimmermann, along with Hindenburg and Ludendorff were summoned. According to Fischer-Baling, it became apparent that the responsible politicians had recognized that the peace for which Wilson wanted to clear the way was a deliverance for Germany, but they were not allowed to reach for it because army leadership under Hindenburg and Ludendorff did not let them. Instead, by resuming unrestricted submarine warfare, the military ensured that the U.S. entered the war on the side of the Allies and helped to ensure Germany's defeat. In spite of its far-reaching findings, the subcommittee merely agreed on the result that "an important peace opportunity had not been treated with due diligence". Since the committees were no longer meeting in public, the findings attracted little public attention. The only matter that was viewed slightly differently was the papal appeal for peace by Benedict XV in the summer of 1917. According to Fischer-Baling, the relevant investigations by the committee showed that although the Pope advised haste because the favorable mood in England could soon change, State Secretary of the German Foreign Office Richard von Kühlmann moved slowly. He was under pressure from the Supreme Army Command (OHL), which was reluctant to agree to the precondition of renouncing the annexation of Belgium. The