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Paper Abstract: Aims, provisions, impact on Germany & rise of Adolf Hitler, economics, politics. Paper Introduction: INTRODUCTION The First World War, known then as the Great War, was also supposed to be the war to end all wars. Clearly, it did not achieve this lofty goal. The defeat of Germany led to the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, and that document was intended to lead to a new and more peaceful world. To achieve this, though, the victors believed they had to bind Germany so that the German military would never again be able to threaten the rest of Europe. There was more than a slight element of punishment in the provisions placed upon Germany by the victors, though the victors did not fully agree among themselves as to the proper course to take. The Treaty of Versailles was the result of the Paris Peace Conference, organized by the victors to settle the issues raised Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. Taylor states, "The First WorldWar left 'the German question' unsolved, indeed making it ultimately moreacute."[v] The Allies realized this soon after imposing the Treaty, andmost of the next ten years saw them trying to face the still-alive Germanproblem. Now,the Germans were handed the Treaty on a take-it-or-leave-it basis. New York: Oxford University Press, 1943.Hughes, H. There was more than a slight element ofpunishment in the provisions placed upon Germany by the victors, though thevictors did not fully agree among themselves as to the proper course totake. During the early days of therise of the National Socialists to power, there were three characteristicsof the regime: 1) a commitment to national tradition to make Germansidentify with the state and its power; 2) the joining of tradition with thepromise of a new order, of an historic breakthrough, and of a nationalrevival and renewal; and 3) terror directed at enemies and at the populaceat large in order to convince the people that compliance was the only wayto avoid further trouble. Grove and Ross J.S. Twentieth Century Europe. Many believe that theTreaty of Versailles and other treaties, agreements, and policies thatemerged from this Conference contributed directly to the maintenance oftensions in Europe over the next two decades and led inevitably to WorldWar II. PresidentWoodrow Wilson favored a conciliatory settlement based on the liberalprinciples of his Fourteen Points, which included national self-determination in Europe among its goals. Taylor writes, "The Second World War was, in large part, arepeat performance of the first."[iii] The Germans at the end of the warwere forced to surrender large amounts of war material, to withdraw theirforces behind the Rhine, and to hand over their fleet for internment. Many saw Germany as completely devastated by the terms of the peacetreaty at the end of the First World War, however, the result of a punitivepeace settlement. Many countries, notably the British, did not support the League andmade it an ineffectual body: All must surely have been different had not the spirit of self- seeking nationalism and isolationism prevailed also throughout the whole world community."[xi]Many feel that none of the Great Powers can be said to have dischargedtheir responsibilities for maintaining the general peace between 1919 and1939, and in particular they failed to give the League the power it needed:"In varying degrees all acted in obedience to purely nationalisticpolicies."[xii] In doing essentially the same, Hitler found a way to rallythe German people against those whom they believed had created theireconomic difficulties and contributed to their social turmoil through thestringent prescriptions of the Treaty of Versailles. The FourteenPoints were adopted as a basis for the armistice because the U.S.threatened to make a separate peace with Gemrany of the French and Britishdid not agree. The 27 nations represented at the Conference had conflicting plansfor peace, so the sessions were tumultuous and the resulting treatiescontroversial. The Allies also feared for the future and sought a way toprevent Germany from becoming a major power again.[ii] HITLER AND THE TREATY OF VERSAILLES A.J.P. Yet, Germany was not happy withhow the points were applied in the treaty of Versailles and otheragreements made at the time. THE TREATY OF VERSAILLES The Treaty of Versailles dwarfed the other treaties to emerge fromthe Paris Peace Conference and has frequently been confused with the wholesettlement. Thearmistice as used by the Allies changed the shape of Europe and shiftedpower away from Germany: "They were anxious to ensure that the Germannation acknowledged defeat. The Treaty imposed a fifteen-year occupation ofthe left bank of the Rhine and the demilitarization of a zone 3 miles wideon the right bank. Hitler established his absolute dictatorshipwithin the first few weeks: "He did so by that diabolical simultaneity ofreassuring the old elites and silencing or terrorizing most would-beopponents."[ix] In 1933, Hitler persuaded Hindenburg to sign emergency decrees thatin essence ended all civic rights that had been granted by the WeimarConstitution, and this would become the "legal" basis for the terror thatwas now unleashed. The Germanarmy was limited to a professional force of 1 , men, and there was aneven more drastic ceiling placed on the navy, with the added provision thatGermany had to surrender the larger part of its merchant fleet. ."[iv] Taylor finds that the Allies did notaccomplish their task as intended, for the treaty and other conditions,while they seemed to force Germany to acknowledge defeat, also acknowledgedthe legitimacy of the German government. The Road to War. The Germanpeople were to bear the costs of occupation.[i] The fact that the Treaty was dictated rather than negotiated would beimportant in subsequent history, for the Germans never did have a stake inthe Treaty in terms of having been involved in its creation. ENDNOTES BIBLIOGRAPHYBlack, C.E. Contemporary Europe: A History. To achieve this, though, the victors believed they had tobind Germany so that the German military would never again be able tothreaten the rest of Europe. The Nazis did not come to power in Germany without opposition, andthey did not develop their war machine in an atmosphere completely devoidof resistance. Helmreich. The Allies also sought to prevent Germany from everagain becoming a major military power and so forbade the country frombuilding offensive weapons, including airplanes and submarines. TheGermans had hoped to be able to negotiate on specific terms but wereinstead presented with a fait accompli and asked to sign. TheTreaty of Versailles left the Reich intact because Woodrow Wilson hadresisted all efforts at dismemberment, but the Reich was severely reducedin area, its frontiers contracted in both the east and the west. The Bismarckian Reich had been formed fifty years beforeand had brought industrial prosperity and national pride to two generationsof Germans, and now all of this was lost. The defeat of Germany led to the signing of the Treaty ofVersailles, and that document was intended to lead to a new and morepeaceful world. The entire nation was being brought intoconformity under the official designation Gleichschaltung, literallytranslated as "putting into the same gear." The work of terror could nowbe carried out more easily because the SA (Storm Troopers) and the SS werenow considered "auxiliary police." Goebbels was made minister ofpropaganda and imposed more stringent censorship.[x] Hitler had used theanger of the people as a wedge to take over, and the stringent provisionsof the Treaty of Versailles had created a generation ready to rebel againsta Europe that the people believed had punished them excessively andunjustly. The realcause was quite different: the impossibility of paying for the massive wareffort and reconstruction from an economy so reduced in size by theaftermath of the war. While the treaty was designed toprovide security against a new German aggression, it could only work withthe cooperation of the German government. French premier GeorgesClemenceau, however, was most interested in securing his country againstfuture German attack and took a different position. The Origins of the Second World War. The treaty also had severe military terms thatwere even more onerous. This fact initself created great indignation at home as German patriots clamored forrejection of the Treaty but were ignored. Points 6 through 13 dealt with specific territorial settlements.The 14th point became most important to Wilson: a general association ofnations for the purpose of providing mutual guarantees of politicalindependence and territorial integrity for all nations (leading to thecreation of the League of Nations). It did not help that thevictor powers had to meet at Versailles once more and restore the Germancurrency to a better state, along with the creation of a new schedule forreparations payments, for this only added to the sense that Germany's fatewas controlled externally. This was symbolic, since it was the same site where48 years before the victorious Germans had founded their new empire. The Fourteen Points were widelypublicized and acclaimed in the belligerent countries on both sides, andthe address at once gave Wilson moral leadership of the Allies and servedas a powerful diplomatic and propagandist weapon. Still, the perception persisted that the Allies hadcaused this economic collapse out of vengeance. and E.C. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1976.Overy, Richard and Andrew Wheatcroft. The first 5 pointsincluded the following: open covenants, openly arrived at; freedom of theseas; removal of economic barriers in international trade; reduction ofnational armaments to the lowest point consistent with domestic safety; andadjustment of all colonial claims on the basis of the self-determination ofpeoples. Helmreich, Twentieth Century Europe (NewYork: Knopf, 1966), 9 -91.A.J.P. New York: Atheneum, 1985.-----------------------H. Knopf, 1987.Taylor, A.J.P. Hoffman. . INTRODUCTION The First World War, known then as the Great War, was also supposedto be the war to end all wars. The Origins and Background of the Second World War. Taylor, The Origins of the Second World War (New York:Atheneum, 1985), 18.Ibid., 23.Ibid., 24.Richard Overy and Andrew Wheatcroft, The Road to War (New York:Random House, 1989), 22.Ibid., 22.Ibid., 25.Fritz Stern, Dreams and Delusions (New York: Alfred A. Black and E.C. New York: Knopf, 1966.Haines, C. The Treaty of Versailles was the result of the Paris PeaceConference, organized by the victors to settle the issues raised by thewar. In effecting this shift, Hitler used resentment overthe Treaty of Versailles and the supposed vengefulness of the Allies asfuel to stoke conflict in German society. Wilson hoped to rally liberalopinion throughout the world with his address. The Fourteen Points were a program announced by PresidentWoodrow Wilson before a joint session of Congress on January 8, 1918, asthe basis for a just peace settlement. Hoffman, The Origins andBackground of the Second World War (New York: Oxford UniversityPress, 1943), 21.Ibid., 21.----------------------- 1 Thomas Mann expressed the viewthat the national existence of Germany was now to be condemned as guiltyand erroneous: "Germany became the pariah of Europe; the German people wereforced to adjust to a very different post-war world of politicaluncertainty and economic stagnation."[vi] The German people felt a deepsense of injustice that would scar an entire generation, and thisgeneration was in fact left with the desire to reverse the judgment ofVersailles and to return Germany to the steady upward path enjoyed beforethe war. Grove Haines and Ross J.S. Germany suffered apolitical crisis that also led to an economic catastrophe: "Weakened bythe loss of territory and resources, saddled with massive war debts andescalating government deficits, the German currency collapsed."[viii] Thecountry experienced a period of hyperinflation, and the government blamedit on reparations and the economic vindictiveness of the Allies. New York: Random House, 1989.Stern, Fritz. At first, this was directed at opponents of the regime,notably the Communists. The conference convened on January 18, 1919. The Treaty was harsh in itsterms, though not as harsh as the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk imposed sixmonths earlier by the Germans themselves on the vanquished Russians. Knopf,1987), 167.Ibid, 167-168.C. New York: Alfred A. Hitler made use of this desire on the part of the German peopleso that by 1939 the nation was ready for war: By that date Hitler had restored German power to a point where it could not remotely be contained within the existing international order, led as it was by the most embittered and radical veterans of German collapse in 1918.[vii] In addition to the stringent conditions imposed by the Treaty ofVersailles, Germany faced a number of problems the people seemed to believehad also been visited upon them by a vengeful Europe. Dreams and Delusions. Stuart Hughes, Contemporary Europe: A History (EnglewoodCliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1976), 12 -121.C.E. Clearly, it did not achieve this loftygoal. It was signed on June 28, 1919 in the Hall of Mirrors in thepalace of Louis XIV. The Allies generallyaccepted it as a statement of war aims, and when Germany sued for peace itwas on the basis of the Fourteen Points. Although many of Wilson'ssuggestions had been made before, in total effect the speech represented aradical departure from the old diplomacy and called upon future victors andvanquished to liberalize their diplomacy and ideology. There was resistance to the Nazis within German societyfrom a number of people and groups, and this resistance was dealt withharshly as the Nazis tried to consolidate their own power and bringeveryone into conformity with their program of belligerence towardGermany's neighbors. Stuart. The reconstituted state of Poland in the east changed Germany'sborders considerably, and the so-called Polish Corridor which gave the newnation free and secure access to the sea completely cut off East Prussiafrom the rest of Germany. In addition to the Treaty itself, the Alliesfelt bound by a number of secret treaties and agreements made among themduring the war. Germany andthe other defeated Central Powers were not permitted to sit at theconference tables, and the four major victorious powers--Britain, France,Italy, and the United States--dominated the proceedings. CONCLUSION The League of Nations, a body that Woodrow Wilson, among others,believed could help avoid another war, was not at all effective at thattask. Alsace-Lorraine in the west was returned to France, which also was given the rightto exploit the industrially rich Saar Basin for a period of fifteen years.Two small strips of land went to Belgium, while northern Schleswig went tothe Danes. If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search for: or Click here to request an essay written just for you.

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