Assess The Impact Of The Treaty Of Versailles On Germany And Its Importance In The History Of The Weimar Republic

Assess the impact of the Treaty of Versailles on Germany and its importance in the history of the Weimar Republic.

World War I officially ended with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles on June 28, 1919. The Treaty of Versailles was the Peace Settlement between the Allies and Germany at the end of the First World War. The German authorities had little choice but to accept the terms of the Treaty presented by 'the Big Three'.

The treaty was negotiated between January and June 1919 in Paris, was written by the Allies with almost no participation by the Germans. The negotiations revealed a split between the French, who wanted to dismember Germany to make it impossible for it to renew war with France, and the British and Americans, who did not want to create pretexts for a new war. The German government signed the treaty under protest. Right-wing German parties attacked it as a betrayal, and terrorists assassinated several politicians whom they considered responsible. The U.S. Senate refused to ratify the treaty, and the U.S. government took no responsibility for most of its provisions.

For five years the French and the Belgians tried to enforce the treaty quite rigorously, leading in 1922 to their occupation of the Ruhr. In 1924, however, Anglo-American financial pressure compelled France to scale down its goals and end the occupation, and the French, assented to modifying important provisions of the treaty in a series of new agreements. Germany in 1924 and 1929 agreed to pay reparations under the Dawes Plan and the Young Plan, but the depression led to the cancellation of reparations in 1932. The Allies evacuated the Rhineland in 1930. Germany violated many disarmament provisions of Part V during the 1920s, and Hitler denounced the treaty altogether in 1935. From March 1937 through March 1939, Hitler overturned the territorial provisions of the treaty with respect to Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Memel, with at least the tacit consent of the western powers.

The Treaty of Versailles impacted Germany physically, financially and politically.

From these maps it is clear that Germany suffered large territorial losses. The provinces of Alsace and Lorraine returned to France; parts of Schleswig were ceded to Denmark; to the east, new countries were created to roughly match the ethnic balance of the area and finally, 'The Polish Corridor' was created which gave the Poles a broad strip of land that connected it to the sea - and consequently separated Eastern Prussia from the rest of Germany. It was not just in Europe that German suffered territorial losses. The Allies annexed all of Germany’s overseas colonies, either to become colonies or areas that were managed until independence could be maintained autonomously. In total, Germany lost over one millions square miles of land.

The Treaty of Versailles blamed Germany for the First World War. As a result of this Germany was also held accountable for the cost of the war and the Treaty dictated that compensation would have to be paid to the Allies. These payments, called reparations, would be paid monthly and would total some £6,600 million. It is clear to state that the Treaty of Versailles impacted Germany physically, financially and politically.

The most important effect of the Treaty of Versailles in Germany was not the immediate hardship it generated but rather the long-term legacy of bitterness and humiliation. The Germans felt yet again that they had been betrayed and treated unfairly. It was a feeling that cut across in the country. Someone had to take the blame and so the republic and the democracy, both foreign concepts to the German people, were held responsible.

The Weirmar Republic was forever associated with military defeat and international humiliation. Nationalists and the political forces of the extreme left and extreme right used the emotionalism of the treaty in propaganda to persistently and effectively attack the republic and democracy. With clever political instincts, opportunist’s politicians like Hitler and other opponents of German democracy took full advantage of the memory of the treaty to remain Germans of the shame and betrayal they had endured.