World War One and the Coming of the Next War

How the Versailles Treaty Contributed to World War II

Jul 18, 2009

Short sighted diplomacy, revenge, and unrealistic reparations helped to fuel a political, military, and economic response to the terms of the 1919 Versailles Treaty.

Historians have long argued that the inadequacies of the Versailles Peace Treaty ending World War One directly contributed to the coming of World War Two and perhaps even the rise of Adolph Hitler and the Nazi Party. While there is substantial evidence to suggest that the terms of the 1919 treaty paved the road to the next war, it may be circumstantial to suggest a direct link between the treaty and the rise of the Nazi Party.

World War One was bitterly fought between 1914 and 1918, resulting in over twenty million deaths. By 1919, three of the great dynasties were no more: the Hapsburgs, the Hohenzollerns, and the Romanovs. In Russia, the Bolshevik revolution in October 1917 resulted in the massacre of the Royal family. As the victorious allies met in Versailles, the former empires were carved up into new states or reemerging states: Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and others.

Ignorant of ethnic minorities in the newly created nations, the victors inadvertently set the stage for future problems. Hitler’s demand that the Sudetenland be joined to Germany in the late 1930s was based on the fact that millions of ethnic Germans had been placed under the control of non-German regimes. In essence, this gave Hitler a bargaining chip that only served to enhance his overall goal of conquest and annexation. The same can be said of Silesia, which, in 1918-1919 was given to Poland.

German war indemnities were unrealistic yet nations like Britain tied veteran benefits and pensions to the expected sums. The destruction of the German fleet was humiliating as was the French occupation of the Ruhr region. The weak Weimar Republic, confronted by massive unemployment and inflation, had to contend with internal revolutions, uprisings, and a plethora of political parties seeking political domination.

The United States, which had been a key player in the Versailles Treaty under the idealistic Woodrow Wilson, reverted to isolationism, maintaining that posture until the attack on Pearl Harbor. The United States never joined the League of Nations and was unconcerned with post-war events in Europe, unless they affected German reparations.

Did the Treaty Contribute to the Rise to Power of Hitler?

In the various elections held in Germany in 1932 and 1933, the Nazi Party never received a majority vote. Prior to Hitler’s appointment as chancellor, the Communist Party and the Social Democrats reflected broad support and might well have emerged in a national leadership position.

The Nazis, however, not only appealed to the same hyper-nationalism that had been part of the German psyche before World War One, but promised the bread and butter issues many unemployment Germans wanted to hear. The Nazis added to this propaganda, notably scapegoating the Jews, and had the support of the military. Aristocrats, bankers, and industrialists that thought they could control Hitler once he was chancellor were disillusioned.

Although Hitler used the terms of the treaty to prey on German patriotism and nationalistic sensitivities, the treaty, in and of itself, did not directly create Hitler. Any well-organized political and/or para-military group would have capitalized on the “war guilt” clause of the treaty. Hitler was simply more ruthless and perhaps better organized than his adversaries, particularly the Communists.

Short Sighted Promoters of Peace

Woodrow Wilson and his colleagues set the stage for a variety of movements in Germany that used the terms of the treaty to instill anger and foster the seed of revenge. Although Wilson was an idealist, the others were not. As Clemenceau stated, “The Americans are very charming, but they are also far away.” Perhaps the one nation that might have averted another war elected to rely upon the security of two oceans and divorced itself from European affairs.

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