Title: Key Provisions in the Treaty of Versailles - HISTORY
Headings: The Treaty of Versailles Punished Defeated Germany With These Provisions
The Treaty of Versailles Punished Defeated Germany With These Provisions
Hand Over Territories and Colonies
Limits on Arms, Forces and Equipment
War Crimes Trials
$33 Billion in Reparations
German Humiliation, Debt & World War II
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Content: “I believe that the campaign for securing out of Germany the general costs of the war was one of the most serious acts of political unwisdom for which our statesmen have ever been responsible,” economist John Maynard Keynes wrote in 1920. Germany was already in deep financial trouble, due to the former imperial regime’s trick of printing a lot of currency and borrowing heavily to cover its military expenditures. The new German government, struggling under the weight of debt and budget deficits, defaulted on the payments in gold-backed marks that it was obligated to make. France then tried to put on the pressure by occupying the Ruhr, an industrial region in western Germany. That only exacerbated Germany’s economic chaos, and contributed to the hyperinflation that made the nation’s currency virtually worthless in 1923. German Humiliation, Debt & World War II
Eventually, the United States came up with the idea of lending money t o Germany to pay the reparations. In the end, though, the Allies got very little money from Germany, and the reparations were cancelled at the Lausanne Conference in 1932. “The reparations and dismantling of the German military were humiliating for many Germans, primarily because the German military and press had been lying to the public about the war,” Quall says. Anger over the imagined betrayal, in turn, helped fuel the rise of populism and nationalism that eventually led to the rise of Hitler, who proceeded to violate the treaty by rearming Germany. Hitler subsequently defied other provisions as well, including re-militarizing the Rhineland and joining into a union with Austria.