Treaty of Versailles

The news of the treaty came as a complete shock to the new government and to the German people. Virtually all sections of German opinion denounced the treaty. It was known as the Diktat as Germany had been forced to sign the treaty.

On the day it was signed, Germany’s Protestant churches declared a day of national mourning. Germans were outraged at the loss of her colonies and her territory and population to France, Belgium and Poland.

She also resented the limitations placed on the size of her army and navy, the ban on an air force and tanks and the demilitarisation of the Rhineland. She felt that the principle of self-determination had been ignored in the case of the Germans of Austria and the Sudetenland. She believed that the War Guilt Clause and the reparations payments were unjust. One effect of the Treaty was an immediate lack of confidence in the politicians that had signed it. This was reflected in the poor performance of the parties that supported the republic in the elections of 1920.

• Terms of the Peace treaty
• Massively reduced military capability
• ‘War guilt’ clause imposed
• Reparations fixed at a very high level
• All of this led to BIG problems from 1919

Problems from 1919 - 1924

• Anger directed at the government for signing the Treaty of Versailles
• The new constitution reliant on coalition governments, which weakens its power
• Economic problems as all profit is sent directly to the Allies as reparations pay-outs
• Valueless currency as economic crisis leads to hyper-inflation
• Rise of extremist groups attempting to wrestle power from the de-stabilised government (Freikorps, Spartacists etc.) 

Opposition Uprisings

• The Communist Spartacists in 1919, defeated by the right-wing militia of the Freikorps
• The right-wing Kapp Putsch, defeated by a general strike 

The Kapp Putch

Right wing dissatisfaction with the new government was worsened when the government moved to disband Freikorps units. A nationalist politician, Wofgang Kapp led a revolt in Berlin backed by the Freikorps and the military commander of Berlin. The regular army refused to crush the revolt and the government fled to Stuttgart. Its call for a general strike was carried out by the trade unions in the city and the putsch collapsed. At the same time a communist revolt was crushed in the Ruhr, the industrial heartland of Germany, with over a thousand dead.

Right wing assassinations were to plague the early years of the new republic with leading politicians such as Matthias Erzberger and Walther Rathenau assassinated. Many of the murderers were treated with great leniency by the courts but the murders did have the effect of strengthening support for the institutions of the republic.

Summary

• Germany in a desperate situation.
• The terms of the Treaty of Versailles cripple the economy and prevent German recovery after the war.
• This in turn leads to the new, Weimar, government being unable to restore pre-war conditions.
• Animosity towards those who signed the treaty grows and many German people look for people to blame for the crisis, leading to theories of ‘the stab in the back'.
• The new government, already under fire, is likely to fail in it's duty to provide security, prosperity and comfort given the conditions that it has inherited.  

The videos below provide an overview to the treaty of Versailles.