@hamburger,
What is truly amazing, and pathetic, Hamburger, is that people, including instructors in history classes, continue to repeat the old canard that the terms of the Versailles Treaty lead to World War II, especially as it created the run-away inflation and the economic collapse which allowed the NSDAP to come to power.
There was a study done by a German economist in the 1980s, i don't remember the name (i don't do German names well) which showed that inflation started to rise in Germany in 1914,
before the war began. After 1917 and the Verdun offensive, that rapidly rising inflation turned into "run-away" inflation, and it took it more than four years to calm down. Such an historical myth ignores, too, the very good job the Weimar Republic did to end that inflation, and the sacrifices ordinary Germans made in enduring the necessary austerity.
The claim is based on a contention that the reparations were punitive, revenge by the French for 1871, and that this wrecked the economy through that inflation. Well, it has been established by at least one (and i believe more than one) German economist that the inflation predated the war. But beyond that,
Germany did not pay the reparations. Austria and Hungary were forgiven their reparations debt. One nation, and one nation only paid its reparations bill, and that was Bulgaria.
The final stroke in that myth is that the treaty required Germany to accept responsibility for a war it did not start. In the first place, the Austrians proceeded to put the screws to Serbia in the summer of 1914 precisely because the Germans had told them they would support them. But in the second place,
all of the treaties which were signed by defeated nations had a clause admitting responsibility for the war, because that was the legal justification for imposing reparations. The Treaty of St. Germain signed by Austria, the Treaty of the Petit Trianon signed by Hungary, the Treaty of Neuilly signed by Bulgaria and the Treaty of Sèvres signed by Turkey all contained such a clause.
Germany simply defaulted on the reparations. Austria and Hungary had their debts forgiven them, in lieu of selling off the art treasures in their museums to pay the debt. Bulgaria paid the reparations imposed on her. Turkey didn't pay her reparations because in addition to the Greek invasion sponsored by France, she sank into civil war. When Mustafa Kemal took over after the "Turkish War of Independence," a new treaty was signed.
Nevertheless, schools, including high schools and universities in the United States, continue to perpetuate this myth, which was an essential part of right-wing propaganda in Germany in the 1920s and -30s.
