preview

How Did The Treaty Of Versailles Cause Ww2

Better Essays

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. …show more content…

It is a reasonable conclusion that to Hitler, the restoration of Germany and the damning of the Treaty of Versailles, specifically returning Germany’s right to be an equal in the world society, are linked. In a speech givin at Dusseldorf Hitler even went as far as promising to withdraw the signature that indicted Germany for starting World War One. Here Hitler also draws the comparison to returning German pride with reinstating the military heritage taken in the Treaty of Versailles. These pairings that Hitler chose to address shows the direct influence that Hitler felt the Treaty of Versailles had on weakening the German people and causing a separation from their heritage after 1919. These ideas of Hitler were not unfounded. He claimed in his speech at Munich 1922 that Germans were burdened at the end of World War I with an 8 million mark debt of their own, and the debt of the other allied countries, with similar sentiment in other speeches . The actual treaty confirms this by showing a 10+ billion mark reparations clause in section 232 right after the War Guilt Clause . A scholar by the name of Graham Darby claims that the treaty of Versailles is not the primary cause of the economic downturn and therefore not a primary influence on Hitler’s economic policy. The data however, points to one crucial fact that Mr. Darby neglects to mention in his article, the Dawes Plan. The Dawes plan was enacted during 1924 and

Get Access