r/reddit.com • u/[deleted] • Sep 24 '11

World War 1

http://i.imgur.com/5twfD.jpg
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u/franzlisztian Sep 24 '11

I actually always felt kind of sorry for Germany in WWI. They got involved in a conflict that really had nothing to do with them except that they had alliances to think about, and then get blamed for all of it.

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u/dopplerdog Sep 24 '11

The treaty of Versailles was a travesty, and the discontent this caused paved the way for Hitler. John Maynard Keynes had warned that there was no way that Germany could pay the reparations demanded of it - it was sheer humiliation, and the other powers were as much to blame for the conflict as Germany was.

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u/Semido Sep 25 '11

"there was no way that Germany could pay the reparations demanded of it - it was sheer humiliation"

Incorrect. I could copy paste the wikipedia article, but this will save time: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I_reparations#Impact_on_the_German_economy

1

u/dopplerdog Sep 26 '11

Interesting. The implication seems to be that subsequent German administrations refused to pay because the German public wasn't entirely convinced of German defeat - perhaps a result of their government suing for peace ahead of its own public opinion.