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My point entirely. The Versailles treaty itself was used as a propaganda instrument, even before it was signed. The military refused to sign it to discredit the new government, forcing them to take the blame and allowing right-wing demagogues to maintain the lie the German army was im Felde ungeschlagen. The treaty itself contributed to massive changes in the German society, for sure - e.g. by limiting the armed forces to 100k. But presenting it as a or the major circumstance “driving people into the arms of” populists or ideologists buys right into an ideology itself, in my opinion.
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You’ve got a point that the treaty was abused for progaganda purposes. But it was also easy to abuse because the german people felt humilliated. At least that’s what I always was taught. Reading up on the wikipedia page about the war reparations it seems that nowadays there’s some consensus that the payments weren’t unfair but that germany was just dragging it’s feet.
So maybe my knowledge of the subject is somewhat out of date. Still, the marshall plan after WWII had a much better effect on almost anybody than the Versailles treaty demanding war reparations in times of economic crisis.
Ref the documentary I referred to above (The Final Hours) my takeaway was that at the close, Foch believed that the final agreement was not a peace treaty but merely an “Armistice for 20 years” because with Germany still existing and the terms imposed on the Germans being so harsh, they would eventually, naturally, seek revenge.
He had started out with one objective for the negotiation and that was to ensure Germany could never invade France again. He knew he had not achieved that.
As I understand it, Foch’s objection was that the treaty was not harsh enough. He wanted Germany permanently disarmed and occupied.
BTW:
I believe so. (Or broken up, perhaps.)
I have not been more excited for a film in a long time.
They were, from the beginning of the war until the end of WWII, told that they would win and really have won the war! Millions who never learned anything except being soldiers came back, many of them maimed and with PTSD (which was something people had to invent - humiliating - words for because it was unknown at this scale) and were told the Dolchstoßlegende, corroborated by the fact that not the military signed the VT, but the representatives of the new republic. They had no work, could not serve (German troops were limited to 100k soldiers), lived in a rapidly changing world with a social divide our generation hasn’t even a faint idea of despite all 1%-discussion. And then they were told that the VT was the reason for their misery.
It was a ruse, and still is.
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