Dianna Ploss Presents Jim Rizoli, The Treaty of Versailles, June 12, 2022

Holotruther
Published on Jun 14, 2022
More on WW1 and WW2.
Jim basically introduces THE BAD WAR by M.S. King using it as the resource for THE TREATY OF VERSAILLES discussion.

Why did Germany denounce the Treaty of Versailles? Germans of all political shades denounced the treatyâ€”particularly the provision that blamed Germany for starting the warâ€”as an insult to the nation's honour. They referred to the treaty as "the Diktat" since its terms were presented to Germany on a take-it-or-leave-it basis.

Hitlerâ€™s had said in Mein Kampf (1924) that he would abolish the Treaty of Versailles.
(https://www.johndclare.net/EII1.htm)

The first way Hitler broke the Treaty was over Germanyâ€™s armed forces. In 1934, he destroyed the League of Nations Disarmament Conference by demanding equality of arms with France and Britain â€“ this broke the Treaty because it had set up the League with the stated aim of achieving disarmament. At first, Hitler broke the Treatyâ€™s terms by building up his army in secret, drilling volunteers with spades instead of rifles. Then, in 1935, he openly held a huge rearmament rally. The other nations let him get away with it â€“ Britain even made a naval agreement with Germany, accepting that Germany had a right to have a navy of 35% of the British navy (i.e. this broke the Treaty, which said that Germany could only have 6 battleships). After 1936, Hitler reintroduced conscription, and began to pump huge sums into Germanyâ€™s armed forces. Germans were told â€˜guns not butterâ€™. By 1939, Germany had 95 warships, 8,250 airplanes and an army of nearly 1m. men (many more than the 0 planes and 100,000 men stated in the Treaty of Versailles). Hitler even war-tested his armed forces in the Spanish Civil War; in 1936 he told his generals to get ready for war in 4 yearsâ€™ time.

The second way Hitler broke the Treaty was over the Rhineland (declared a demilitarised zone). In 1936, Hitler moved his troops into the zone, claiming that the recent treaty between France and Russia threatened Germanyâ€™s safety. His commanders had orders to retreat if the French army tried to stop them, but this time it was France who did nothing. The League of Nations, busy with the Abyssinian crisis, also did nothing.

The third way Hitler broke the Treaty of Versailles occurred in 1938. The Treaty forbade Anschluss between Germany and Austria. An attempted Nazi putsch in Austria failed in 1934, but in 1938 Hitler tried again. Austrian Nazis organised riots, while Hitler pressurised the Austrian Chancellor Schuschnigg to declare Anschluss. Schuschnigg asked both France and Britain for help, but was refused, so he suggested instead a plebiscite. To prevent the possibility of a â€˜noâ€™ result, Hitler invaded. The Germans were greeted by a frenzied, stage-managed demonstration. Some 30,000 Austrians were imprisoned. Next month, in a referendum, 99% of Austrians voted yes to Anschluss.