Opinion of the Treaty of Versailles?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Fun fact: Germany's economic arms-industry driven economic recovery under the Nazis was literally the result of an admittedly very clever scam.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Sometimes two seemingly contradictory statements can both be true, you know. It is undeniably true that Versailles was punitive, vindictive and generally rather harsh. It is also undeniably true that such treaties were the norm at the time and that, on the matter of territory at least,* The Treaty of Versailles was notable for its moderation (we can, for instance, be absolutely sure that if the Central Powers had won the war the territorial demands of Germany et al would have been considerably more excessive). The Reparations are a different matter, and that is where the historical controversy lies. There have been attempts to defend the policy in recent decades, but I personally disagree; it was stupid and short-sighted even if the motivation behind it was perhaps understandable and even if it is absurd to argue Reparations ---> Hitler as though nothing else happened between 1919 and 1933.

_{*Germany lost Elsaß-Lothringen (which was a smaller territory than you'd think from the name; although it included all Alsace but Belfort, it only included about a quarter of Lorraine: the present day department of the Moselle) which was valuable but had only been annexed in 1871 anyway, Posen (a large and not terribly important agricultural province that was majority Polish), the Polish-speaking parts of Upper Silesia (economically valuable, but Germany was hardly short of heavy industry), northern Schleswig (Danish farmers ffs), Eupen-Malmedy (literally a couple of hick parishes), Memelland (ibid), and some additional small scraps of land on the new Polish border (notably the 'Polish Corridor') which at the time (the port of Gdynia not having been built) had no value other than - from a Polish perspective - strategic. To argue that this was onerous by the standards of the time is difficult. It is, in fact, hard to make a case against most of those territorial changes. More questionable would be the hiving off of the Saarland and Danzig as quasi-independent statelets (so that the French could exploit the Saar's collieries - reparations again - and that the Poles would have access to a proper port), though (again) these were rather small territories. There's also the matter of the loss of practical sovereignty over Rhineland which is hard to defend, sure. Oh, and Germany also lost its (actually pretty worthless) colonies, though I'd be very surprised if anyone here were to kick up a fuss about that...}