The stab in the back myth (German:
Dolchstoßlegende) was the notion, widely believed in right-wing circles in Germany after 1918, that the German Army did not lose WWI on the battlefield but was instead betrayed by the civilians on the home front, especially the republicans who overthrew the monarchy in the German Revolution of 1918-19. Advocates denounced the German government leaders who signed the Armistice on November 11, 1918, as the "November Criminals". There are various latter day permutations of that basic positioning as is being witnessed here.
When the Nazis came to power in 1933, they made the legend an integral part of their official history of the 1920s, portraying the new weimar republic as the work of the "November criminals" who used the stab in the back to seize power while betraying the nation. The Nazi propaganda depicted Weimar as "a morass of corruption, degeneracy, national humiliation, ruthless persecution of the honest 'national opposition'—fourteen years of rule by Jews, Marxists, and 'cultural Bolsheviks', who had at last been swept away by the National Socialist movement under inspired leadership of adolf hitler.
Scholars inside and outside Germany unanimously reject the notion, pointing out the German army was out of reserves and was being overwhelmed in late 1918. (see
Kolb, Eberhard (2005). The Weimar Republic. New York: Routledge. p. 140)
In the later part of the war, Germany was essentially a military dicatatorship, with the Supreme High Command (OHL) and General Field Marshal Hindenburg as commander-in-chief advising the figurehead Kaiser. After the failure of the spring and summer offensives of 1918 failed in 1918, the war effort was doomed. In response, by autumn, OHL arranged for a rapid change to a civilian government. General Ludendorf, Germany's Chief of Staff, said:
I have asked His Excellency to now bring those circles to power which we have to thank for coming so far. We will therefore now bring those gentlemen into the ministries. They can now make the peace which has to be made. They can eat the broth which they have prepared for us!"
As the military situation for the Germans on the Western Front became ever more precarious, Prince Maximilian of Baden reached out to the American President Woodrow Wilson, indicating that Germany was willing to accept his fourteen point plan. On November 11, 1918, the representatives of the newly formed weimar republic signed an armistice agreement with the allies which would end World War I. The subsequent Treaty of Versailles led to further territorial and financial losses. As the Kaiser had been forced to abdicate and the military relinquished executive power, it was the temporary "civilian government" that sued for peace—the signature on the armistice document was of Matthias Erzberger, a civilian, who was later murdered for his alleged treason; this led to the signing of the Treaty of Versailles.
Wilson's plan, however, was not widely supported in France or Britain, where attitudes towards Germany were much less conciliatory. The prevailing attitude in Paris and London was that Germany had been chiefly, if not entirely responsible for the outbreak of the war. For that, many argued, Germany should be held accountable and punished. They also called for measures to reduce Germany's ability to make war in the future, by dismantling or reducing her military and industrial sectors. The push to castrate Germany's military capacity came chiefly from the French, who had the most to fear from its eastern neighbour. At the Paris negotiations, French prime minister Georges Clemenceau argued forcefully for punitive and restrictive measures against Germany. Clemenceau wanted to send Germany's economy backwards, from a first-world industrial nation into a weak cluster of provinces concerned with agricultural production and small-scale manufacturing.
The Treaty of Versailles came to reflect much more of Clemenceau's punitive approach than Wilson's conciliatory one. Among its main terms and conditions:
- Germany lost substantial amounts of territory. She was stripped of all overseas colonies and forced to surrender large amounts of European territory, including some of significant strategic or industrial value. Alsace and Lorraine were returned to France, while other areas were surrendered to Belgium, Lithuania, Czechoslovakia and Poland.
- The Rhineland, an area of German territory bordering France, was ordered to be demilitarised, as a means of protecting the French border. Another German border region, the Saarland, was occupied and administered by France.
- Germany was banned from entering into any political union or confederation with Austria.
- The German Reichswehr (army) was restricted in size. It could contain no more than 100,000 men and was forbidden from using conscription to fill its ranks. There were also restrictions on the size and composition of its officer class.
- The German military was subject to other restrictions and prohibitions. Naval vessels were restricted in tonnage while bans were imposed on the production or acquisition of tanks, heavy artillery, chemical weapons, aircraft, airships and submarines.
- The treaty's Article 231 (the 'war guilt clause') determined that Germany was single-handedly responsible for initiating the war, thus providing a legal basis for the payment of war reparations to the Allies.
These terms were formulated by the Allies without the input of Germany, which was not permitted to attend the Paris peace summit. In May 1919 German delegates were finally invited to Paris. After being kept waiting for several days, they were presented with the draft treaty. The German foreign minister, Ulrich von Brockdorff-Rantzau, spoke at Versailles, suggesting that while his country was prepared to make amends for its wartime excesses, the suggestion that Germany was alone in starting the war or exceeding the rules of war was baseless:
When news of the treaty reached Germany it generated a firestorm of public anger. Germans had expected a fair and even handed agreement based on Wilson's Fourteen Points. Instead, they were handed what they called the "Versailles diktat" – a treaty that was not negotiated between equals but was forced on a war-ravaged and starving people at the point of a gun. There were few moments of national unity in Weimar Germany – but the response to Versailles was one of them. Erich Ludendorff considered the treaty the work of Jews, bankers and plotting socialists. Gustav Stresemann described it as a "moral, political and economic death sentence". "We will be destroyed," said Walter Rathenau. In the Weimar Reichstag, delegates from all political parties except the USPD rose to condemn the Versailles treaty and the conduct of the Allies. Almost every newspaper in Germany slammed the treaty and screamed for the government to reject it.
For two tense months the Weimar government debated the ratification of the Treaty of Versailles. The issue brought about the demise of Weimar's first chancellor, Philipp Scheidemann, who resigned rather than ratify the treaty, which he deemed a "murderous plan". President Friedrich Ebert was also opposed to the Versailles treaty. In June he contacted military commanders and asked whether the army could defend the nation, if the government refused to sign the treaty and the Allies resumed the war. Both Paul von Hindenburg and Wilhelm Groener advised the Reichstag that the army lacked materiel and munitions and could not withstand an Allied offensive or invasion of Germany. Any refusal to comply with Versailles would also prolong the Allied food blockade, which was still ongoing in June 1919 and contributing to thousands of civilian deaths from starvation and Spanish flu epidemic. Confronted with this advice, the Reichstag had no alternative but to submit to the Allies. Germany's delegates signed the treaty on June 28th 1919. It was ratified by the Weimar assembly almost a fortnight later (July 9th), passed 209 votes to 116.
For the SPD and other moderates, the acceptance of Versailles was a necessary measure, given reluctantly to prevent more war and bloodshed, an Allied invasion of Germany and the possible dissolution of the German stateitself. There can be little doubt that the civilian leadership was duped by the snior German army leadership. . Some accepted Versailles in the hope that it could be renegotiated and relaxed later.
Those in the military and the far right, however, saw it as yet another betrayal. "Today German honour is dragged to the grave. Never forget it!" screamed one nationalist newspaper. "The German people will advance again to regain their pride. We will have our revenge for the shame of 1919!" Conspiracists on the far right claimed the ratification was more evidence of destructive forces at work in Germany's civilian government. The Treaty of Versailles – or rather the question of how Germany should have responded to it – would contribute to political divisions for the life of the Weimar Republic.
The question arising from all this is whether the treaty caused this self delusion, or whether it was innate in the german psyche before the treaty. The treaty was harsh, but not as harsh as those that followed the surrender in 1945. Most scholars agree that the peace treaty as the main cause of the swing to the right is in fact to believe the myths generated by the Nazis and other far right organisations that ate this stuff up and manufactured it for public consumption to a willing and demoralised public. Its up to everyone top make their own minds up, but for me it is clear. Versailles was not the main reason for the right wing reaction in Germany. The seeds for that reaction were already there, any treaty would have caused a swing to the right. What the germans really wanted they could not have. They wanted victory when none was to be had. Without victory they were never going to play ball. Therein lies your long term reasons for the rise of Nazism. It was inevitable, inescapable until the national psyche had been rewritten as it was in 1945.