ermany was humiliated, disarmed and required to pay war reparations and other costs. Due to economic conditions, payments ended in 1931, but the issue contributed to the Weimar Republic's fate and even Hitler's rise to power.
205861
Definitely not. The country as a whole was not culpable for WWI, and for that matter, the leaders of Germany were not culpable. The whole thing could have been solved diplomatically, but as soon as Archduke Ferdinand was killed, Austria demanded certain things, Serbia refused, and there was a cascade of declarations of war. It's absurd to say that Germany was responsible for all of this. At the very least, Britain and France should have mediated the conflict between Austria and Serbia BEFORE it came to declarations of war.\n\nThere's also the fact that the reparations were not about keeping Germany from doing it again, they were about punishment. All they really needed to do after the war was establish monitoring systems to make sure Germany was not rebuilding a military, the one thing they didn't do.
252638
In an obtuse sense...\n\nWilson's unwise venture into the first World War did allow for the punitive Versailles treaty which may be said to have led in part to the second World War.\n\nOur non-membership in the League of Nations helped to render that organization powerless.\n\nHitler did start the shooting war in '39 and fired the first several million rounds.  Britain & France decided to join the party 3 days later.  The Poland they sought to save was re-arranged by Stalin.\n\nRoosevelt's communist leaning diplomacy was certainly responsible for provoking Japan to attack the US and for inducing Germany to declare war on the US thus making the second World War truly worldwide.\n\nRoosevelt's condescending to Stalin left Eastern Europe without Levi's for 50 years and us paying the taxes for the sillyness of the cold war.
113533
Wilson's idea behind the Fourteen Points was to end the Great War in a way that might not lead to a Second Great War by eliminating what he saw as the systemic problems that led to the war. However, the greatest and ultimately insurmountable problem was the idea of "Peace Without Victors."\n\nOn November 11, 1918, as the guns fell silent, over 8 million men had been killed and literally trillions of dollars of property damage had been done. The damage to France's economic infrastructure was so great that it would not recuperate for decades, even if peace had lasted. The leaders of the victorious allies felt that morally and realistically they could not go to their suffering people and ask them to "chalk this up as a lesson learned." Someone had to pay, and at the end of the day, the war had to have accomplished something, no matter how far of a stretch that might be.\n\nWhen Wilson arrived at Paris for the peace conference, he was hailed all across Europe as a saviour of mankind. At the time, those accolades might even have been heartfelt from the people, but the leaders of the European allies knew the feeling would not last forever. The people had been suffering through four years of privation and nightmare and just wanted the war to end, no matter what the cost. As the years would go by, however, and they saw their neighbor on wooden legs and their children living in squalor, the people would very soon come to believe that their momentary feeling of forgiveness to the enemy was actually a moment of weakness, and come to the realization they had been tricked.\n\nAt Versailles, when Germany had withdrawn its army from France, her government was in chaos, her people in revolution and her allies pulled apart, the Western Allies dictated their terms.\n\n1-The war had to have accomplished something: The War Guilt Clause. Germany was forced to declare that the war had been entirely the fault of her government and their actions. The war had thus stopped a raging tyrant from conquering all of Europe and forcing his will on innocent people.\n\n2-Someone had to pay: Reparations. By declaring that the war was her fault, Germany found herself in the moral position of assuming the financial responsibility for the damages. This was vital to the Western Allies, because Germany was the only member of the Central Powers whose territory was still intact and whose industrial capacity was still in place. Austria, which had actually started the war, was torn to shreds and its industrial facilities were being looted by revolutionaries; the Turkish empire was in the hands of rebelling Arab tribes and occupying armies; Germany was forced to pay because she was the only one who COULD pay. The people of Germany were forced to sign a blank check: the Western Allies literally did not know the exact amount of the damage, and would fill it in later. Because France's economy was in ruins, Germany would pay in products, not in money.\n\n3-The next war had to be prevented: Military Concessions. By declaring that the war was her fault, Germany provbed she had been a danger to the safety of the world. The teeth of the wolf would be pulled. Her army would be gutted, her navy surrendered and she was to be denied the acquisition of modern weaponry. Large swaths of territory adjoining the border with France would be devoid of military activity, both offensive and defensive. Also, this would allow France to militarily occupy productive areas of Germany if she tried to default on her debt (France would occupy the Saar region because Germany had not delivered enough telephone poles that month!)\n\nIn the United States, the Fourteen Points was opposed for different reasons. An earlier answer is partly correct, Henry Cabbot Lodge did oppose the League of Nations in part because he had made a deal with Wilson not to use the War for political ammunition. When Wilson went to the conference he brought no Republicans with him, and when he ret
487685
Are you asking in general what they did?  One thing is the Holocaust in which they killed over 6 million Jewish people, as well as political prisoners, gypsies, invalids, etc.  However, that really began after 1939.  Up until then, Hitler focused on labelling these people as scapegoats for why Germany fell so hard economically after WWI.  Besides the Holocaust, the Nazis improved the German economy and military, allowing them to be capable of invading and capturing so many countries during WWII.
433415
That is Europe for you. They want our help in time of war (WW  1, WW 2) but ask them in so called Peace time , forget it..Germany & France are the biggest offenders. They have not forgot we beat Germany & set free France in WW 2. Old grudges last long. Who are they going to blame the next time some nuts blow up a skyscraper in Berlin or Paris. Who will they Yell for help to? The terriost are going to LOVE the EU . THey have more rights to their money then you do yours.
42225
After Germany's defeat in world war one, then the great depression hit the world. As people lost a lot of money in the stock market, many went bankcrupt. In many countries, those least affected were the money lenders, who most people turned to sell their jewellery and expensive paintings and furniture - just to buy bread and potatos. The money lenders were mainly Jews.\n\nIn Russia, at this time the Czar (king of the country) would routinely arrest the jews and made them suffer just becuse they were rich - this was just to get at their riches. These were called pogroms - another word would be rape and ethnic cleansing...\n\nOf course - I am not arguing whether these riches were made honestly or not, but often people are jealous of others who are doing well while you seem to be losing everything. I guess it human nature...\n\nIn Germany, after the war, things were really bad, they had to pay compensation to many countries for the war damage (called war reparations). This cost so much that the economy was doing really badly. The Germans felt that they were superior than everyone (scientifically and culturally) and hated the fact that they had to pay so much money to other countries.\n\nHitler came onto the scene - with forceful speeches about what a great country Germany was, without focussing on why they were really defeated in the first war, they claimed that - "since we are superior than everone we must have lost the war because we were sabotaged from within our borders - who did this evil thing - must be the jews - they anyway have strange customs and are so rich..." etc\n\nSo once they had a scapegoat, it helped unify the nationalist and made them begin the war mchinery. the rearming of Germany actually reduced unemployment - so actually people were feeling things were getting better.\n\nThen once Germany was war-ready, they launched the war...the rest is word war II and the holocaust...\n\nThe holocaust was a product of a bureaucratic tragedy that emerged from the discussion of the "final solution" as more and more jews were arrested in occupied countries. The Aryan story was just an attempt to unify the Germanic people and nordi people against everyone else, when in fact the slavs and present day Indians are more Aryan than the Germanic peoples, since Aryan people first emerged from the Central Asian steppes (near Mongolia).\n\nInterestingly Hitler's grand mother was a jew. So its quite clear that Hitler was quite insane. I mean its like klling your own family.
475206
That is a huge question...It can be said to lead all the way back to the Treaty of Versailles ending WWI. \n\nTry this. It's concise. http://ehistory.osu.edu/wwii/timeline.cfm
514739
I can understand reparations to the still living Jamanese who were interned during WW2, but the whole thing about getting a check because of ancestral difficulties p*sses me off.  My family came over as indentured servants, working off their trip for the rest of their lives.  If I want a check, I'll work for it
577988
hmmmm. that one is tricky. but take ww2 for ex. the war was a big boost for the economy esp. since it started during the depression. it gave people jobs. and helped with the stock market. socially it wasn't so great though it did help people by boosting there moral as in getting jobs. but on the German front it was devastating to Jews and anyone the Germans persecuted. long term it ended up bringing Communism which as we all know isn't that great. so basically you are looking for anything that would be kinda like that where you could see a drastic impact on all fronts. good luck. hope i helped if not sorry.
378545
It is semantics.  The Germans were beaten.  They gave up.  Surrender by any other name is still surrender.\n\nYou are trying to create an 88 year coverup.  Try reading some history books.
190157
It's invalid.\n\nThe question assumes that the only important input into this was American.  The Treaty was between a number of countries.  The attitudes and negotiating positions of the UK, France etc. were important, too.\n\nWilson was in fact far more realistic than most of the WW1 victors in realising that excessively punitive reparations demands on Germany would be counterproductive.\n\nI hope some of your US History lessons actually acknowledge the existance and importance of other countries in history sometimes!
119220
In the aftermath of the First World War, the Austria-Hungarian empire splintered due to the tensions of nationalism. Some people argue that Wilson's 14 points, which supported nationalism and the rights of free people to independence, was a catalyst for this. However, I believe that the Austria-Hungarian empire was already under the enormous strains of nationalistic pressures before the war, and it was their defeat in the war itself which precipitated its collapse.
282200
Ok, here goes (just a sec)\n\nLooks like France, Italy, Greece, Romania, and Yugoslavia gained territory, and Poland, Czecheslovakia, and the Baltic States were pretty much built entirely.  Anywhere territory was lost, somebody else gained it.\n\nYour losses list is good.\n\nYour settlements question sounds good.\n\nThink about it, who would be pissed by these changes?  Looks like Austria-Hungary was hammered the hardest, but Russia couln't have been pleased.
502531
I think you are referring to the eighth article:\n\nExpenditures by the United States will be paid by funds raised by state legislatures, and apportioned to the states based on the real property values of each. (had to look it up myself, didn't remember what article)...\n\nAnyway, at the time the central concern was a central government that was so powerful, it would drown out the ability of the individual states to conduct business.... this included intruding upon their funds. The United States would then only accept debt developed by war (against England) and carried the US through the Revolutionary war. We were fighting against an 'overpowering' central authority, the founders didn't want to replace one with another. \n\nOf course, after the war (treaty of paris) was signed, the United States could not collect money from the states to pay the military debts, because the states refused to pay up (violating the trust in article 3). So, considering the case, I think it was a weakness and needed to be replaced by our Constitution. There is a necessity for taxes, just taking 1/3 to 2/3 of what you have isn't necessary.
40894
the 19th amendmant was womens sufferage(right to vote)... im pretty sure it was after the war.
120915
In July 1918. \nShortly after the October revolution, Russia unilaterally signed a peace treaty with Germany (Brest peace treaty). In order to resurrect the Eastern front, Allies decided to intervene. More is written in history books. \n\nSee Wikipedia, for example.
200668
hi the politial reason for world war to was that germany was getting deapeper and deaper into dept because of the money it had to pay back to england and france because of the first world war. when the plan falied in the usa to get germany right again because of the stock market crash the germans blamed the jews and saw the answer in expantion. this is what hitler called lebons ral or living space. he invaded a few countries but no on cared untill belgium a small country needed to be crossed through to take tettories in france back that were german untill the end of world war 1 when france took them. so when belgium said no to german troops crossing there lines germany invaded anyway and as a result ww2 started. \nsorry about spelling t