Was Versaille too harsh for Germans?

>Germany remained a unified state
>most of Germany was left unoccupied and the occupied parts were eventually relinquished by the allies
>the leaders weren't imposed by the Allies and Germans were allowed to elect their own leaders
>Germany was allowed to keep many disputed territories: most of Upper Silesia, Masuria, southern Schleswig
>Germany was allowed to keep an army
>most of the initial reparations weren't even enforced and they were eventually forgotten
>Germany kept most of it's industry

Whaaa. The evil Versailles took our magical powers way. Allies and their tricknology be keeping us down.

Why did Austria gain so much crim Brest-Litovsk if they didn't contribute anything meaningful to the central powers? I mean the ottomans had gallipoli at least

Not nearly enough given, how they've begun to prepare for a an all-out conflict while everyone else, including the Soviet Union, was trying to avoid it.

>including the Soviet Union

That's just the land occupied by Austro-Hungarian troops, the treaty of Brest-Litovsk didn't grant any annexations to AH

The Soviet Union was actively preparing for war, they just weren't ready for a war against Germany when:

A) there are smaller, "easier" to conquer countries like Finland and Poland which they invaded first

B) Stalin had just purged the best minds in his military

They planned to invade Germany, then the rest of Europe, after it was all weakened by war and the Soviet army was ready. Instead, they got surprise invaded before they were ready. I don't think it's fair to say they were trying to avoid all-out conflict at all.

ANY punishments imposed on Germany would've been too harsh, considering all sides were equally at fault for WW1. However, Versailles was an atrocity and wasn't even possible for Germany to recover from.

Germans should've just fucking killed everyone.

Of course it was too harsh. The world blamed Germany for the war, when that wasn't the case at all. Germany was the scapegoat because they were the toughest to defeat.

>'Cuz Japan was way worse than Germany during the war, unless you believe the exaggerated "6 million jews holocausted" meme.
Japan wasn't doing an industrial genocide, right?

No, it was a rather weak treaty that wasn't even enforced fully. The Germans broke its stipulations numerous times with no consequences.

Germans were butthurt because they lost the war without having the Western allies set foot into their country, and then gobbled up the myth about the stab-in-the-back because it was too hard for them to accept they lost militarily.

>ANY punishments imposed on Germany would've been too harsh, considering all sides were equally at fault for WW1

That's not how it works when you lose a wa-

>Germans should've just fucking killed everyone.

oh

>ANY punishments imposed on Germany would've been too harsh, considering all sides were equally at fault for WW1

t. brainwashed faggot
Ever tried to make your own research about the oubreak of WW1 instead to listening to what they told you on Reddit?

Nope, just good ol' fashioned regular genocide. I'd rather be gassed than raped and tortured to death, or set on fire, or gunned down in a line and left to bleed out.

>In terms of direct money transfers the post-WW2 settlement (there was no real peace treaty actually) was more advantagous to Germany.
Except no, you are completely wrong. Germany received a ton of foreign aid in the interwars era and practically didn't pay reparations.

>wasn't even possible for Germany to recover from
>they recovered
I don't understand

This. Basically everyone of the other Central Powers got a harsher treaty than Germany did

Honestly it could be too harsh or not harsh enough but the truth is that it was an uneffective treaty. Also for everyone on the harsh camp realize to get what you want would require starting up the war again which would bexpect political suicide and almost impossible.

Spot the /pol/ user
And its 11million not 6 you nazi peice of shit

Wow are you really that thick?

read a book, kid

idiot

I think you are the one who must read a book you inbread peice of shit
My grandfather was a holocaust survivor nazi scum are you going to say he was making it up?

>They planned to invade Germany, then the rest of Europe, after it was all weakened by war and the Soviet army was ready
[citation needed]

>implying it would have changed anything
Germany wasn't officially allowed to rearm the way they did, and yet they still did so. Nobody was willing to tell them to stop because people were still too shaken from WW1. Even if you made Versailles twice as harsh it would have had no effect with nobody to enforce it.

Also
>should of

To me it looks more like Germany tried everything in their power to avoid WW1.

NOPE, nor was it enforced harsh enough, honestly the HRE should have been remade as a unified Germany is a dangerous Germany, especially when you keep Austria out of it

>everything in their power
How about letting Russia duke it out, and make deal with France that if either of you intervenes the other can as well

>all those neutrality declarations from irrelevant countries somehow negate the fact Germany attacked four countries in a row

Are you a literal retard so easily fooled by appearances?
The other pic is the same timeline but with only mattering actions on it

To me it doesnt

>considering all sides were equally at fault for WW1
> equally at fault

read the ultimatum sent to serbistan before you spew shit, fucking mongrel

>austro-hungary owned crimea

Time to reconquer it, its our right and duty!

Its six million PEOPLE, not just jews. Gypsies, homosexuals, retards, and prisoners of war.
All of them were forced into labor camps, and practically slave labor, something Germany also did in WWI. Many of them were supposed to be killed when the camps were abandoned due to the war going bad, and most were indeed killed.

>Its six million PEOPLE, not just jews. Gypsies, homosexuals, retards, and prisoners of war.

No it was around 6 million Jews, on top of that, though, were 2-3 million Soviet POWs, 2 million Polish civilians, and another 1-2 million assorted undesirables (other slavs, gypsies, freemasons, liberals, gays, disabled people etc)

The total death toll was around 11 - 13 million people, though exact numbers are difficult due to the destruction of records, overlapping categories, unrecorded deaths etc.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust_victims

You forgot the otherkins

Its six million jews and an additional five million others

>Crimes of the white race
>White Race
>Germans

The main issue was the feeling of guilt. Germany had no guilt after WW1. After WW2, which was unambiguously their fault--for fuck's sake people were giving them free bits of other countries, Europe was THAT dedicated to peace, and Germany still fucked up--Germans were forced to do actual soul searching. It was basically "wait, are WE the baddies" on a national level.

Good

>They planned to invade Germany, then the rest of Europe, after it was all weakened by war and the Soviet army was ready. Instead, they got surprise invaded before they were ready

Any sources to support that claim?And before you decide to mention Suvorov, just keep in mind that he is a notorious revisionist who mainly adheres to post Cold-War hysteria.

Are you out of your mind? Every other Central Power was punished harsher than Germany was, especially Austro-Hungary.

>11 million

Youre thinking of communism user

...

Yes.

t. butthurt German shills

>implying the ultimatum to Serbia wasn't designed to be completely unacceptable
>implying the Serbian response wasn't completely reasonable, going way farther than the Austrians expected, even agreeing to demands like censoring anti-Hapsburg publications that would have required an amendment to the Serbian constitution, only rejecting one demand that would have turned Serbia into an Austrian puppet state, and even Wilhelm said it removed all cause for war
>implying Germany just asked for French neutrality, and didn't demand they turn over several fortresses as well
>implying France didn't pull its troops back from the frontier to signal to Germany its peaceful intentions
>implying Germany didn't care because they wanted a war because they were worried about Russia's military reform program and figured they could only win if they attacked before it was completed

Read some post-60s historiography instead of parroting what you learned in high school faggot

>that edit
Every time

Ther's no edit though
He just removed the irrelevant "x declares neutrality" between German war declarations

Here's the timeline from another website

epic

Stay mad, naziboo

Depends. The allies decided it would be best to curbstomp Germany until it was no longer powerful. This was intended to keep peace but failed, it caused rising nationalisn and the second wirkd war. So if you want to take that route, you would have to be even harsher.

From keeping peace, I think it would have been better to have a light treaty. Make Germany give back Aslace-Lorraine, pay some moderate repriations, occupy it for a few years, and throw something in to calm down the alliance system and the balkans. Perhaps an independent Yugoslavia.

From what's really fair, Germany tried to avoid the war. France and Russia really did seem to want one, given their early actions. The alliance system was bound to cause something, and I put most of the blame on Austria-Hungary, Serbia, France, abd Russia. Germany and the U.K were the only ones trying to avoid it. So I would see giving Serbia some land and repreations as the fairest treaty.

>From what's really fair, Germany tried to avoid the war. France and Russia really did seem to want one, given their early actions

You're a pathetic revisionist cretin
Look at the timeline of the outbreak instead of spiting nonsense

>From what's really fair, Germany tried to avoid the war
>and I put most of the blame on Austria-Hungary, Serbia, France, abd Russia. Germany and the U.K were the only ones trying to avoid it.

Do you live in a parallel dimension by any chance?

>Germany tried to avoid the war. France and Russia really did seem to want one

Kys

>germany shouldn't have been forced to pay reparations
given they came and invaded a neutral country, then systematically dismantled its entire industrial base I'd say at the very least paying back all the damage done to that country would have been a guaranteed requirement

which is something the germans actually refused to do even with versailles

If Europe had followed our plan nazism would never had happened.

How is saying that Germany got a better treaty than the other Central Powers shilling what are you talking about

My point is you're likely Germans.

hey Veeky Forums, would you rather:
>have Germany pay massive reparations to the point you're rich for like 200 years while Germany will be in a state of poverty for 200 years, but still exists.
or
>Exterminate every single German and erase their existence, Germany become just one giant no-go zone owned by no one, but you get no reparations for damages the Germans caused

>Depends. The allies decided it would be best to curbstomp Germany until it was no longer powerful.
France did. Britain didn't want France to be the only continental superpower. America wanted a strong trading partner in Germany.

Versailles was barely a slap on the hand of a still extremely potentially powerful, but pissed off, giant.

>From what's really fair, Germany tried to avoid the war. France and Russia really did seem to want one, given their early actions. The alliance system was bound to cause something

No, they didn't, they gave the Austrians carte blanche instead of convincing them to stay out of Serbia. They are the ones who decided to turn what could have been a localized conflict between Austro-Hungary and Russia into a complete world war.

>itt angry Anglo

Wut? Hitler killed more Russians than Jews.

I think you misunderstood my post. I was agreeing with the guy who said the treaty wasn't harsh enough.
If not I really have no idea what you think you mean.

No it was too harsh. The desperation that was caused by the terms of surrender was too much and could only lead to poverty, then extremism and then violence. After ww2 we took a much better approach by helping rehabilitate them economically so there was no reason for war and there was mutual benefit for all nations
t. not retarded enough to major in history

Germany was in the right to support Austria and Russia mobilised first.

Serbia was a terrorist rogue state.

See .

Of course not, Germany should've been divided into pre-1871 states

>Serbia was a terrorist rogue state.

t. Von Hortzendorf

>they gave the Austrians carte blanche instead of convincing them to stay out of Serbia.
There was absolutely no way for Austria to stay out of Serbia. Austria was Great European power in a state of shock after having been publicly humiliated and the Balkans was their backyard. Why would they tolerate terrorist activity in their backyard?

In the same sense you could blame Russia for meddling at the Balkans and backing Serbian terrorists. Would Serbia have declined Austria if they weren't certain that Russia had their backs? Would Russia have backed Serbia if they weren't certain that France would have their backs?

In the end, it is fairly obvious that Russia used Serbian nationalist ambition and the pretence of pan-slavism to infiltrate the sphere of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Austria was in the right and Germany was in the right to back their only remaining ally on the continent.

>send the Serbs a laughably terrible ultimatum designed to be denied

Go read it, it's completely unreasonable and ridiculous.

Also, the fact that Serbia managed to raise such a large army compared to its population and run a highly successful guerrilla campaign which completely embarrassed the Austrians proves that the Serbians were willing to fight as hard as they could against the Austrians, with or without Russia.

That might as well be the case. I'm not saying Serbia was in the wrong to resist Austria, I'm saying Russia was in the wrong playing with matches near a powderkeg. It's not like Germany wanted to intervene against Serbia, they merely wanted Russia to stay neutral.

>Russia was wrong to prevent an ally from being steamrolled for no reason

Austria had all reason in the world since they had reason to suspect that the local government tolerated terrorist activity and was unwilling to root it out sufficiently.

Russia on the other hand had absolutely no business intervening at the Balkans which was within the sphere of Austria-Hungary.

>States have no interest in preventing other powers gain more power in their vicinity

Go read some Realism you pleb.

Also, the Serbs agreed to charge the Black Hand, they just didn't want the Austrians to prosecute them in Serbian territory. You can't just accept another country's judiciary; that's the first sign of annexation.

>You can't just accept another country's judiciary; that's the first sign of annexation.
If said country is incapable of doing things properly you'll have to give them a helping hand.

What do you think happened to Afghanistan after 9/11?

Why do you think are people killed with drones in Pakistan?

This was exactly the same situation. Except that Russia was backing the country that was harbouring terrorists - and France was aiding them in that. Russia had no business meddling at the Balkans, they played with fire and it blew up.

Again, Russia was only protecting a far weaker ally, and Austria could have sent reasonable demands instead of the insanity they sent to Belgrade.

How anyone can ignore that Austria was in the wrong for asking so much, or that Germany was in the wrong for essentially telling them "Do what the hell you want, we have your back" is mindblowing, double that after they invaded and raped neutral countries if it means blindsiding France.

>Again, Russia was only protecting a far weaker ally
Russia wasn't acting out of goodness of their heart. That sort of narrative does not work at that scale.

They were acting for two reasons:

- Russia had been humiliated due to their loss to Japan. They had to save face as a European Great Power and had to regain credibility.

- Russia had for a long time been trying to infiltrate the Balkans and this was a good opportunity. Pan-Slavic solidarity is just a nicer term for Russian Imperialism. They had no interest in an independent Serbia, they had an interest in expanding their sphere of influence and weakening Austria-Hungary in the process.

>If said country is incapable of doing things properly you'll have to give them a helping hand.

The level of revisionist shit you spew is infuriating. Austria was absolutely jockeying for war and the ultimatum was designed to be rejected. No sane country would allow another country to perform judiciary tasks within your borders. They even agreed to suppress anti-Austrian propaganda but no country could accept giving up judiciary powers.

>Russia had for a long time been trying to infiltrate the Balkans and this was a good opportunity. Pan-Slavic solidarity is just a nicer term for Russian Imperialism. They had no interest in an independent Serbia, they had an interest in expanding their sphere of influence and weakening Austria-Hungary in the process.

Wow you just explained every Great Power's motivations ever. Literally nothing wrong with this.

Of course not. I'm merely challenging the narrative of mean Austria bullying poor Serbia and kind Russia giving them a helping hand.

Austria needed to recover somehow from the humiliation they received. And the price would have been a humiliated Serbia. Certainly a small price to pay in comparison to with what actually happened.

>The desperation that was caused by the terms of surrender was too much and could only lead to poverty, then extremism and then violence.
t. Retard

Poverty (and what followed) happened because of something totally unrelated to Versailles

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Depression#Effects

If you believe it was too harsh, then the nazi propaganda is still effect

>What do you think happened to Afghanistan after 9/11?

America didnt have the balls to invade Saudi Arabia and went for muslim countries the terrorist didnt come from instead

It's not only Nazi propaganda though, it's also a Western narrative meant to soothe tensions between Western Germany and the West.

Serbia and Russia had a good, mutually beneficial thing going on, Austria threatened to invade Serbia for BS reasons, Russia tells them to knock it off or else, Austria declares war on Serbia, and Germany proceeds to declare war on the entire world.

The Russians were not aggressors, they were merely protecting their ally (which, of course, has upsides for them, no one has ever denied that)

How anyone can see Austria and Germany as anything else than the aggressors here is completely beyond me.

>How anyone can see Austria and Germany as anything else than the aggressors here is completely beyond me.

Nazibooism is a hell of a drug

France was aching for war in the long term after the humilation of getting alsace-lorraine taken and while the german highcommand saw that they werent a direct threat as their army was still made up of quiet inexerienced recruits yet them reaching out towards russia was a sign that germany wouldnt have been able to fend of an invasion in the coming decades.
Thus, it was seen as a preventive war, not just but for the time a somewhat reasonable decision as france had invaded germany in the past to claim the rhineland.
>THE WHOOOOLE WORLD
Are you american?
Euros had colonies who had to tag along, but a declaration of war towards the whole world is a retarded hollywood mem.

Wilhelms empire was not a an NS state.

>tl;dr the eternal anglo ruins europe once again

>France was aching for war in the long term after the humilation of getting alsace-lorraine taken

That's pure bullshit and you know it
Revanchism hadnt been a thing since the 1890s and pacifism was now the trend in 1910s France
France did all it could to avoid war with Germany during the crisis
-They withdrew their troops 10kms away from the borders to avoid provoking Germany
-They didn't react when a German patrol used this to raid a French village
-They didn't react when Germany declared war on Russia

Despite all that, Germany still declared war on them, and that's what resurrected the old revanchism

>Thus, it was seen as a preventive war, not just but for the time a somewhat reasonable decision as france had invaded germany in the past to claim the rhineland.

Is that a joke?
The only time France invaded the Rhineland was in 1795 because it was then an Austrian possession and Austria was using it as an advanced base to invade France

There was a difference though:
-World war 2 occupation led to a steady rebuilding of democractic structures
-Massive subsidies on infrastructure and nurishment was a help to the population in the occupied countries
-World war 2 saw the home front in Germany being completely destroyed, bringing the actual acceptance of loss in the non-fighting population up
-Fighting troops as well, as they weren't told about iminent victory up until the signing of the peace treaty
-More massive conflicts emerged making Germany an important, engaged member of both systems
- Economy boomed after World war 2 as it only slowly regained ground in the 20s immediately plumiting in 1929
-While boarders were redrawn, the main structure of countries remained the same after World war 2 unlike world war 1, which saw the emergence ob barely functioning states (countries that functioned somewhat well within their empires were now completely segregated from the market, were largely specialized in mostly non-profitable sectors like agriculture, not fully infrastructural connected etc.)
- The end of World war 2 brought a complete system change in land ownership in many countries, while after world war 1 many property issues of the pre-war period remained
- ethnical cleansing in most countries led to the decrease of tensions between minorites and majority ethnic groups unlike after World War I which saw a massive increase in ethnic minorities in countries that formerly didn't have those groups as "minorities" e.g. Hungarians in Romania, Germans in Poland etc.

So no, you can't compare the two, nor was post-World War II punishment harsher than it was before

>nor was post-World War II punishment harsher than it was before

Yes it was
Most of the arguments you gave are unrelated to the ojective harsness of both peace (like the delusion of German soldiers and pleb in late WW1)

>nor was post-World War II punishment harsher than it was before

Yes it was
Most of the arguments you gave are unrelated to the objective harsness of both peaces (like the delusion of German soldiers and pleb in late WW1 or the unrelated economic crisis that happened to happen in 1929)