Impact of Versailles on Germany

• Land terms of treaty:

  • 13% land lost
  • Danzig became a free nation under the League of Nations
  • Anschluss was banned
• Army terms of the treaty:

  • Army limited to 100,000 men and conscription was banned
  • No heavy artillery allowed
  • Rhineland was demilitarised
• Germany had to take the blame for the war under Article 231
• Germany had to pay 6.6 billion dollars in reparations to the Allies and had to pay separate installmements of Gold and coal reserves
• Germany's perceived the treaty as diktat which is Dictated peace without negotiations
• Germans also disliked the fact that Wilson's fourteen points wished for national demilitarisation in which France and Belgium didn't experience and this was discrimination against Germany
• Wilson's Fourteen points emphasised national determination but this was denied for Germans because millions of them lived in Poland and Czechoslovakia
• Was Germany's reactions justified?

  More territorial terms would've happened regardless, Alsace Lorraine would've voted to join France

  The treaty was more moderate in comparison to the Brest Litovsk Treaty of 1918 where Germany and Russia annexed large parts of Poland and the Baltic states
• How did the Right wing react?

  Extreme nationalists believed that the politicians betrayed Germany several times through abdicating the Kaiser, signing the armistice and acceptance of the treaty
• What were politicians who signed the treaty labelled as and what was the action of signing the treaty known as?


  They were labelled as November Criminals and their action was called a stab in the back
• Reactions from Pro Republican parties

  SPD and allies knew TOV would rebound on them so they told their main political enemies the DNVP, DVP and DDP that those who voted for the treaty of versailles weren't being unpatriotic
• What is the policy of fulfillment?

  The acceptance of the Treaty of Versailles by Germany and they'd instead seek to revise the terms of the terms later on
• The Treaty of Versailles made moderates who supported the Treaty of Versailles alienate their support for them