How Significant Was The Versailles Settlement Of Shaping The History Of The Weimar Republic? Essay

The Weimar Republic would have continued to be a functional government far longer than achieved if not for the defeat of WWI, the economic burdens imposed by the Versailles Treaty, and the flawed Article 48 which all contributed to the down fall of Germany’s first attempt at a legitimate Democracy. This paper will argue that the societal, economical, and constitutional aspects all played a role in the hopeless Democracy Germany attempted which ultimately lead Germany into a totalitarian state that would further shake the world with the rise of the NSDAP and Adolf Hitler.

On June 28th 1919, in the Versailles Palace of France, the treaty of Versailles officially ended World war one. The signers of this treaty implemented certain restrictions on Germany that were to guarantee Germany would never start another world war. This begs the question, “what did the end of one war have to do with the start of World War Two?”. The evidence shows that it was this treaty’s influence on Adolf Hitler that led to the Versailles Treaty’s ultimate failure and provoked the start of the next world war. Because of this treaty Adolf Hitler’s economic plan, proposed while he was seeking political election, was focused on rebuilding and reclaiming Germany. This went hand in hand with the nationalist ideas of the Nazi party.

Thus, a series of parties against the Weimar gained power, although through coalition, reducing the power of the already fragile Republic. Here we can see the system of parliamentary democracy was a factor in the collapse of the Weimar. The series of economic crisis’ which affected post World War One Germany assisted in both the fall of the Weimar and the rise of Hitler. The Treaty of Versailles left the country with extremely large debts and when Germany did not keep up with payments, the French responded by invading the Ruhr, an industrial region in Germany, resulting in a general strike and ruining the middle class who would eventually make up the foundation of Nazi supporters.

Treaty of Versailles' Role in Hitler's Rise to Power The Treaty of Versailles was important to Hitler's rise to power because, it was the cause of Germany's downfall. Hitler felt very strongly about the Treaty of Versailles and thought the terms were unfair towards Germany. Many German people also despised the treaty, and wanted something done about it. Hitler was there to turn to. He wanted to abolish the treaty and all of it terms.

Between the years 1919-1939, the Treaty of Versailles affected Germany in many ways such as economically, politically, loss of German territories, and caused Germany’s armed forces to struggle. The Treaty of Versailles was when Germany and The Allies signed a peace treaty, ending WW1. The treaty stripped Germany 25,000 square miles of land and over 7 million people. The treaty also caused Germany to go into a great depression.

It led to economic problems and a lack of food or jobs. These in turn

The Treaty of Versailles was signed on June 28th 1919 by the Germans in order to obtain world peace. However, this agreement seemed to only provoke the nation. According to the clauses of the document, Germany would have to pay for all damages caused by the war and they even had to claim full responsibility for initiating the war, often referred to as the War Guilt Clause. The German population also felt resentment with the government for giving away so much land to the various countries that had won the war. Around the time of the treaty, Adolf Hitler of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party was getting much attention because of his promising ideas to reduce unemployment which was a crisis that was caused by the depression of

The Treaty of Versailles was to blame the outbreak of WW2. The treaty of Versailles was one of the peace treaties at the end of WW1 signed on 28th July 1919. It ended state of war between Germany and Allied powers. World War I was a global war centered in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918. The topics that are discussed in this essay are the terms of the treaty of Versailles, the countries and people involved in the treaty of Versailles, the Germans’ reaction to the Treaty of Versailles, the unfairness of the treaty of Versailles, the advantage of the terms of the treaty of Versailles used by the Nazi party and the climate in Europe like in the lead up to WW2. Overall, the treaty of Versailles was to blame for

What if your world changed in a moment, a quick yet tedious second in which you knew nothing would be the same? Realizing that your world was falling apart crumbling at the edges, the cascading pieces taking away those you love and your will to survive. This is what many felt like after the treaty of Versailles was signed by the November criminals, but many German natives suffered the treaty’s repercussions decades after the treaty was signed. This formal agreement was significant in Germany from 1919 to 1939 because it led to Hitler’s rise to power, distrust among German citizens, and a newfound opposition to all those who created the treaty.

How significant was the Treaty of Versailles to Germany? This is the question that has been posed to us for our first analytical history essay. I will go into depth about my opinions on both the long-term and short-term effects of the Treaty of Versailles. I believe that the Treaty had a powerful impact on Germany- it practically ruined their economy, and gave the Germans all the more reason to hate the Allies, eventually contributing to the beginning of World War 2. Although the Allies had a right to demand certain things from Germany (as they were the instigators of the war), they should have been more lenient and taken Germany’s poor economic situation into account. The war was a mistake on the part of the German government, but it was the people who payed the price. I have taken into account Germany’s loss of territory, the war guilt, the economical effects of the Treaty, and the armaments and discussed them in this essay.

The Era of the World Wars was a terrible time in both American and European History. It started with World War I between the Allies Powers and the Central Powers. The major powers that made up the Allies were the Unites States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and France. The major powers that made up the Central Powers were Germany and Austria-Hungary. The end of the First World War resulted in the Allies winning, after the four long years of battle. When the war ended, the Allies formed a group called the League of Nations. They were the ones who formally call off the war between the groups. In this organization, it had been decided that there was to be special punishments to Germany, who was named as

The Versailles treaty was the peace settlement between Germany and the Allied powers that eventually ended world war one. Even Though it ended this war the treaty of Versailles was hated by many American and Germany. Germany made many threats to the Allied powers. The passing of the Treaty of Versailles resulted in unpopular backlash from both Germany and America.

The Treaty of Versailles was effective because it made territorial changes and had strict military terms for Germany. The Treaty of Versailles was between Germany and the allied powers, however Germany had no control of it. It assigned the War Guilt Clause to Germany stating they were the ones who caused the damage in World War 1. It also caused Germany to lose all its colonies and weapons. Germany had reparations, to pay the allied powers’ losses.

Since the Weimar Republic was established in the aftermath of World War One, it was almost inevitable that it would be blamed for Germanys surrender and the Treaty of Versailles. The supposed surrender was even harder to accept since in 1918 Germany had signed an armistice with Russia. Weimar was in essence ‘brought about by defeat’ . The ‘November Criminals’ who signed the armistice were always associated with Weimar, thus making it difficult for Weimar to be associated with anything but defeat and humiliation. The war guilt clause was also difficult to accept because it lay all the blame on Germany for starting the First World War. This along with reparations were crippling not only the economy but German society itself

In order to fully understand the role the Treaty of Versailles played in the initial upcoming of Adolf Hitler, we must first delve into the reasoning behind German involvement in World War One. Since the late 1800s, Germany was intent on expanding its borders, by any means necessary. Otto von Bismarck, Chancellor of Germany, was obsessed with his desire to “create a German Empire out of the group of smaller German states” mainly under Austria-Hungary’s authority (Schmidt, 2006). In order to expel Austria as the primary influence over these smaller German states, war was inevitable. Subsequently following the war, also known as the Seven Weeks War, Bismarck extorted the small German states of “Schleswig, Holstein, Hanover, Hesse, Nassau, and Frankfurt, which created the North German Federation” (Schmidt, 2006). Even more importantly, Austria was successfully displaced as the major influence over those small German states. Bismarck’s next calculated move was to achieve the same unification in the southern parts of Germany.