Did the Allies of WWI pave the way for WWII?

[silence]

This teaches me to completely read a post before clicking anything.

I still can not see where Hitler was elected.

Hindenburg, although 'duly elected', appointed Hitler and that does not mean Hitler was elected by association. There was intrigue getting Hitler appointed as Chancellor but there was never an election held with him as a candidate. Unless my definition of "elected" is skewered.

So Hitler becomes Chancellor and the NDSAP gains about 43% of the seats in the Reichstag. They proceed to make procedural changes within that will make it easier for Hitler to gain power such as the Enabling Acts and Law Concerning the Highest State Office. The vote of August 19, 1934 is still not a direct 'election'. It was a vote on procedure and not 'electing' Hitler although the outcome was that Hitler gained full power. He still was not elected.

I still stand by my original post. Hitler was not elected.

Ultimately, my point is that - if I understand parliamentary procedures correctly - AH's ascension to power was along the lines of, eg, Churchill's. Now, was Churchill not then "elected," or, as party leader effectively appointed? The NSDAP, was also the party in power, though by virtue of a coalition rather than a single party.

SO AH was not elected the way an American president is, but it seems to me there are a lot of similarities to the way a British PM attains office.

But maybe I/we am/are splitting hairs here. It might be a better question to ask if he came to power legally and under the existent system at the time rather than was he elected.

 

[gumbyk]

Ultimately, my point is that - if I understand parliamentary procedures correctly - AH's ascension to power was along the lines of, eg, Churchill's. Now, was Churchill not then "elected," or, as party leader effectively appointed? The NSDAP, was also the party in power, though by virtue of a coalition rather than a single party.

SO AH was not elected the way an American president is, but it seems to me there are a lot of similarities to the way a British PM attains office.

But maybe I/we am/are splitting hairs here. It might be a better question to ask if he came to power legally and under the existent system at the time rather than was he elected.

While he may not have been directly elected, he was the leader of the majority party.

Here in New Zealand (and many other countries, as I understand it), the Prime Minister is just that (Top Minister). If they resign mid-term, then we do not have a new election, the party appoints a new leader in Parliament. This, as I understand it is the difference between a Prime Minister and a President. A Prime Minister doesn't have any more powers than any other minister in the Government.

So, was Hitler elected? No. Did he legitimately come to power under a democratic system? Yes

 

[parsifal]

Versailles contributed to the road to war, but the decision to go to war was all germany.


Some argue that Versaille was an unfair treaty. Perhaps. It could have followed the 14 points more closely. I doubt that woud have avoided another war though. Versaille failed because it allowed radical elements within Germany to hoodwink the majority into believing that germany had been tricked into surrendering, the so called "stabbed in the back" lie.

ermany was treated lightly and leniently after the war, because of American reservations mostly, and this leniency was the fatal mistake of the treaty. I agree with Pershing. in order to drive the point home unequivocally, the offensives of late 1918 that were at last making progress, needed to be continued and unconditional surrender achieved. Whatever the further costs to the allies, this, in my view was the only option after four years of blood letting

Germany needed to experience occupation and total defeat and control by an allied commission, not dissimilar to the post 1945 administration. Continued existence of the german state as an entity needed to be questioned, to scare the bejeesus out of these trouble makers Then we might have had some justification for the terrible losses Germany caused the world over that 30 year period.

I dont compromise on bullying issues. sorry guys

 

[Njaco]

Maybe I am splitting hairs and maybe I'm just dense. A person who is appointed by someone who was elected does not mean that he, himself is elected just by association. Maybe its just the American sense of the term 'elected' that I'm stuck on. When someone asks for the population to vote for him and the population casts a vote then the person is elected. I just don't understand this European sensibility of the term 'elected' meaning that the party in power appoints you a position then you are elected. I'll just leave it at that.

 

[DonL]

Versailles contributed to the road to war, but the decision to go to war was all germany.


Some argue that Versaille was an unfair treaty. Perhaps. It could have followed the 14 points more closely. I doubt that woud have avoided another war though. Versaille failed because it allowed radical elements within Germany to hoodwink the majority into believing that germany had been tricked into surrendering, the so called "stabbed in the back" lie.

ermany was treated lightly and leniently after the war, because of American reservations mostly, and this leniency was the fatal mistake of the treaty. I agree with Pershing. in order to drive the point home unequivocally, the offensives of late 1918 that were at last making progress, needed to be continued and unconditional surrender achieved. Whatever the further costs to the allies, this, in my view was the only option after four years of blood letting

Germany needed to experience occupation and total defeat and control by an allied commission, not dissimilar to the post 1945 administration. Continued existence of the german state as an entity needed to be questioned, to scare the bejeesus out of these trouble makers Then we might have had some justification for the terrible losses Germany caused the world over that 30 year period.

I dont compromise on bullying issues. sorry guys

Rubish!

The reparations, the humiliation, the total disarmament of the german military, so that germany was defenseless even against a polish attack and the singlesided war guilt of the versaille treaty next the Rhur occupation of 1923, all this was the forerunner of the radical elements called Nazi's and the forerunner to WWII.

The best proof is, how this was handled after WWII and how it worked for the germans.

Then we might have had some justification for the terrible losses Germany caused the world over that 30 year period.

I would like to see the justification for the european people that cost the terrible losses of the France imperialism under Bonaparte and the British imperialism from 1600 - 1900!

 

[Njaco]

I would like to see the justification for the european people that cost the terrible losses of the France imperialism under Bonaparte and the British imperialism from 1600 - 1900!

Thats not within the scope of this thread. And if you can't respond nicely to someone's post without getting upset, maybe you should find another forum. I'm tired of the lack of respect you show other members and their opinions.

 

[parsifal]

The treaty itself is often talked about and criticised and yet many dont have a detailed knowledge of its content.


One of the most controversial elements to the treaty, and perhaps the real reason why it is still reviled in germany as being "unfair" was the war guilt clauses. Known as article 231, it required "Germany to accept the responsibility of Germany and her allies for causing all the loss and damage" during the war (the other members of the Central Powers signed treaties containing similar articles).

The treaty forced Germany to disarm, make substantial territorial concessions, and pay reparations to certain countries that had formed the Entente powers. In 1921 the total cost of these reparations was assessed at 132 billion Marks (then $31.4 billion or £6.6 billion, roughly equivalent to US $442 billion or UK £284 billion in 2014). At the time some economists, notably John Maynard Keynes predicted that the treaty was too harsh—a "Carthaginian peace", and said the figure was excessive and counterproductive. However Sally Marks has shown these reparations figures to be lenient as far as the extent of war damage that was actually caused. It was a figure often blamed for the German economic melt down in early 30's, but as marks shows, was well within the capacity of the German economy. what was not taken into account was the very poor economic leadership shown by the germans in the post war period. More significant to the german economic failure was their own mismanagement of the economy, the printing of money they did not have caused their economy to enter melt down rather than the strains of the reparations payments. in any event, reprations in 1922 were not really taking effect. The reparations were a sum designed as a sum to look imposing but was in fact not, because of the deferred payment system that took effect almost immediately. Marks argues that reparations had little impact on the German economy and analyzed the treaty as a whole to be quite restrained and not as harsh as it could have been.

The result of these competing and sometimes conflicting goals among the victors was a compromise that left none contented: Germany was not pacified or conciliated, nor permanently weakened. The problems that arose from the treaty would lead to the Locarno Treaties, which improved relations between Germany and the other European Powers, and the renegotiation of the reparation system resulting in the Dawes Plan, the Young Plan, and finally the postponement of reparations at the Lausanne Conference of 1932. The reparations paymentsa were suspended during the hitler years, with less than a third paid off at that point, and were not completed until well after WWII. Blaming the German descent into barbarism because of the reprations is therefore a cop out, furphy conveniently trotted out with depressing regularity by hitlerian apologists, because most people omit to actually study the treaty .

The territorial concessions extracted out of germany were of great angst within Germany, and are often paraded as evidence of the pique that underpinned the treaty. Certainly it was a treaty full of nastiness, but in comparison to other contemporary treaties, was really a very tame and benign imposition on Germany. They were also entirely consistent with Wilsons 14 points. Versaille was not inconsistent with Wilsons very reasonable charter with regard to its territorial concessions. One of the fourteen points had included

"5.A free, open-minded, and absolutely impartial adjustment of all German territories , based upon a strict observance of the principle that in determining all such questions of sovereignty the interests of the populations concerned must have equal weight with the equitable claims of the government whose title is to be determined.

8.All French territory should be freed and the invaded portions restored, and the wrong done to France by Prussia in 1871 in the matter of Alsace-Lorraine, which has unsettled the peace of the world for nearly fifty years, should be righted, in order that peace may once more be made secure in the interest of all.

9.A readjustment of the frontiers of Italy should be effected along clearly recognizable lines of nationality.

13.An independent Polish state should be erected which should include the territories inhabited by indisputably Polish populations, which should be assured a free and secure access to the sea, and whose political and economic independence and territorial integrity should be guaranteed by international covenant.

To anyone but a german, these are reasonable adjustments to the map of Europe, given the trouble and suffering of the precedeing 4 years. in the years that followed, Wilsons 14 points, particulalry these territorial adjustments were railed against by the new fascist leadership, and used by them as reason for going back to war, but how does that compare to the peace imposed on the defeated russia under Brest Litovsk. under that grotesque document, dictated on a prostrate Russia by an exultant and cruel german regime, the germans attempted to enslave more than 62 million Russians under the Imperial Jackboot, occupying nearly 25% of Russian territory (about 3.4 million sq miles) with no rights of self determination and no regard to the wishes or ethnicity of the people being enslaved. Reparations under Brest Litovsk were about 4 times those imposed under Versailles, and were designed to destroy the Russian economy. had that treaty been retained (one of the Versailles requirements was that it had to be abrogated by Germany), and we will simply never know if Germany would have relaxed its reparations provisions to a more reasonable level.

By comparison the Versaille treaty forced the germans to cede about 7% of its territory and lose about 700000 of its popilation that were at least ostensibly based on ethginicity and the principal of self determination .

Put this all together and the lie that Versailles was somehow instrumental in causing WWII, or that it was an especially vicious and uncompromising peace, is exposed for the untruth that it is. it was tough, but not tough enough. neither was it conciliatory as had been intended by Wilson. It was very much the compromise peace decided upon amongst the allies. what it did do was rub germany's nose in the dirt without inflicting enough real pain as to make a difference to her war making potential. so in the end, you ended up with a country with its nose out of joint, and not wounded as far as military power was concerned

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Wow, never been called a hitlerian apologist before...

Been called a lot of things, but never that.

 

[DonL]

To anyone but a german, these are reasonable adjustments to the map of Europe, given the trouble and suffering of the precedeing 4 years. in the years that followed, Wilsons 14 points, particulalry these territorial adjustments were railed against by the new fascist leadership, and used by them as reason for going back to war, but how does that compare to the peace imposed on the defeated russia under Brest Litovsk. under that grotesque document, dictated on a prostrate Russia by an exultant and cruel german regime, the germans attempted to enslave more than 62 million Russians under the Imperial Jackboot, occupying nearly 25% of Russian territory (about 3.4 million sq miles) with no rights of self determination and no regard to the wishes or ethnicity of the people being enslaved. Reparations under Brest Litovsk were about 4 times those imposed under Versailles, and were designed to destroy the Russian economy. had that treaty been retained (one of the Versailles requirements was that it had to be abrogated by Germany), and we will simply never know if Germany would have relaxed its reparations provisions to a more reasonable level.

Do you are realy sure about this?

At the treaty of Brest Litovsk, their was not a single peace of money/reparations to Germany.
Please show us from official papers your claim of the reparations

Also Germany had not annex one peace of territory from Russia.
If you look on a map today, the same countrys are there as it was rueled at the treaty of Brest Litovsk with the same national people,
Finnland, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, Belarus and Ukraine and Polen wasn't to any time a real part of Russia.

To your mathematics and claims about german economic and economic leaders, they are very far from any reality. The inflation came through the war debts, the reparations and the Ruhr fight, from nothing else. All other is a lie!
To your information, Germany has paid the last rate of the reparations of the Versaille Treaty 2010
210 million Euros

Your post is the next anti german propaganda post and very far away from any reality.
To me it isn't understandable, how someone can write at the year 2014, things that are this far away from any truth and after countless of international historians, which have proved the total opposite.

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

You can get your point accross without directly calling someone a liar. We have been over this.

Of course calling people hitlerian apologists isn't much better.

I see where all of this headed. Don't need a crystal ball.

 

[michaelmaltby]

"...I see where all of this headed...."

 

[parsifal]

Wow, never been called a hitlerian apologist before...

Been called a lot of things, but never that.

i never called you that, and never believed it.

everything Ive written is on topic and does not attack anyone. it attacks issues. Deal with that, instead of getting offended over something i never intended it to be. debate with me by all means, and I give you my word i will respect your opinions. i probably wont agree with them, but when did that become an issue around here, especially for you. i know you are much better than that

 

[parsifal]

You can get your point accross without directly calling someone a liar. We have been over this.

Of course calling people hitlerian apologists isn't much better.

I see where all of this headed. Don't need a crystal ball.

not with me it isnt. i cannot see certain other members comments and pay no attention to anything they may say or how they may react. its going to stay that way. if I misbehave, by all means do as is right, but dont judge me on the misbehaviour of other members that for a long while now i have put on my ignore list.

 

[parsifal]

The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was a peace treaty signed on March 3, 1918, between the new Bolshevik government of Russia (the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic) and the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and Turkey), which ended Russia's participation in World War I. The treaty was signed at Brest-Litovsk (now Brest, Belarus) after two months of negotiations. The treaty was forced on the Soviet government by the threat of further advances by German and Austrian forces. By the treaty, Soviet Russia defaulted on Imperial Russia's commitments to the Triple Entente alliance.

According to Spencer Tucker (World War I) Russia ceded Baltic States to Germany, recognized the independence of Ukraine (prior to that had been part of imperial Russia, as it again was under the communists, and agreed to pay six billion German gold mark in reparations (a different figure to other sources that i have, but the reparations were payable "up front" and at that time quite beyond Soviet russias capacity to pay). Historian Spencer Tucker says, "The German General Staff had formulated extraordinarily harsh terms that shocked even the German negotiator. Russian-Poland was not mentioned in the treaty, as Germans refused to recognize existence of any Polish representatives, which in turn led to Polish protests". When Germans later complained that the Treaty of Versailles of 1919 was too harsh on them, the Allies (and historians favorable to the Allies) responded that it was more benign than Brest-Litovsk. Under the treaty, the Baltic states (other Russian Duchies that were part of Imperial russia, these were not returned to Stalin until June 1940) were meant to become German vassal states under German princelings. They were no more german than they were russian, but at least Russia had some recent historical claims to these lands.

 

[fastmongrel]

I think this thread needs to be put in the cooler for a bit before the Ban Hammer comes out.

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

i never called you that, and never believed it.

everything Ive written is on topic and does not attack anyone. it attacks issues. Deal with that, instead of getting offended over something i never intended it to be. debate with me by all means, and I give you my word i will respect your opinions. i probably wont agree with them, but when did that become an issue around here, especially for you. i know you are much better than that

Sure you did. Basically you said that people who believe that Germany should not have received all the blame, that Germany was not fully defeated and that the treaty of Versailles helped lead to WW2 are hitlerian apologists. Your words not mine. I believe those things, so I am what you called those people. If that is not what you mean with your words, them choose them more wisely.

Like you I am not going to beat around the bush.

There is no point in debating it with you. We both know each others stance on the topic, we both wont budge.

And believe me, I am no offended by such trivial matters. What it does to the respect I feel is a whole other matter...

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

not with me it isnt. i cannot see certain other members comments and pay no attention to anything they may say or how they may react. its going to stay that way. if I misbehave, by all means do as is right, but dont judge me on the misbehaviour of other members that for a long while now i have put on my ignore list.

I call it like I see it too.

Do as you feel is necessary. I will do as I...

 

[parsifal]

Sure you did. Basically you said that people who believe that Germany should not have received all the blame, that Germany was not fully defeated and that the treaty of Versailles helped lead to WW2 are hitlerian apologists. Your words not mine. I believe those things, so I am what you called those people. If that is not what you mean with your words, them choose them more wisely.

Like you I am not going to beat around the bush.

There is no point in debating it with you. We both know each others stance on the topic, we both wont budge.

And believe me, I am no offended by such trivial matters. What it does to the respect I feel is a whole other matter...

I think you are misunderstanding me. For the record, I assume the offending comment was

Blaming the German descent into barbarism because of the reprations is therefore a cop out, furphy conveniently trotted out with depressing regularity by hitlerian apologists, because most people omit to actually study the treaty .

i

You are claiming I said you are a hitlerian apologist from that statement. It doesnt exist in the statement, ive publicly started that isnt my intent, but still you want to make an issue of it. Ive asked you if I am in breach of the forum rules by that, you have not raised it, so I assume this is just a personal thing I need to deal with.

I can see that this is a statement that could be misinterpreted. The point i wanted to make in that statement, rephrased, is that peoplle who blame the treaty for the rise of hitler are simply making excuses for him. people who argue that external powers as manifested in the treaty were responsible for the rise of hitler are still just making excuses for him. hitler came to power by machiavellian manipulation of discontent within Germany, and that discontent arose out of the germans making a decision to go to war, and then suffering because they lost the war. As it turns out, Gernany made a bad choice going to war in1914, and then made a bad choice listening to a madman. In that I make no comment as to why Germany went to war, and who was to blame for the outbreak of war. They went to war and they lost. That is a basic fact, no opinion, no blame. Tell me, why do you think Hitler came to power. are you one of these people that blame Britain for germany's choices? The British (and other nations), owe the germans nothing. They went to war, lost, and then had to suffer the consequences. They (the Germans) have to deal with that.

I would say, the german people need to man up and accept responsibility for their own poor choices in life

Nobody outside of germany owes them a single favour. germany went to war,was responsible for much suffering and many deaths, lost, suffered a relatively benign peace, and because of all that decided collectively to throw their lot in with a madman. There is nothing judgemental about that. im not even going to the issue of cause the war, who was responsible. thats a whole different issue. The Germans chose war, lost, suffered a penalty and then made bad choices in response. no foreign power is to blame for that . they have only themselves to blame for all of that.

You obviously have an issue with me using the term "Hitlerian apologist". Though it is an accepted term, i wont use it if you are offended by it and do apologise. I will rephrase it , people who try to blame outside countries for the rise of hitler are just trying to shift blame away from Germany. people who blame Versaile as an unfair treaty need to actually read the treaty and compare eggs to eggs, by comparing its provisions to the way the Russians were treated by the germans at Brest Litovsk.

And like it or not, we are debating this issue....on your terms. i am disappointed that you are offended by my opinions incidentally, but Im not going to agree with you just to make you happy either. That would be diingenuous

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

I remove my post for the good of this forum...

My thoughts on this matter however do not change.

 

[parsifal]

So, if versailles contributed to WWII, was there a better way of ending WWI

Adler, please dont respond