It’s one of those little things that irks me so much. I remember reading something about how the reparations germany had to pay were not at all excessive (especially when compared to other wars at the time).
Someone brought it up, so naturally, I’d like to counter it.
I don’t know much about that, but many people try to blame the whole war on the reparations which is ridiculous. Socialism was rising all across europe and would have offered a much better resolution. Fascism was a western conspiracy that started in the United States. Without the support of the united States bourgeoisie there would never have been fascism in Europe. If the rest of Europe would have cooperated with the USSR there would never have been a war.
The same people who blame reparations will also excuse the rest of the West’s inaction because of fear of another war. Their inaction was deliberate. They were all conspiring together. Fascism was only possible in Germany and Europe. Churchhill did what he could. The US bourgeoisie attempted a fascist coup but failed.
They do what they do to whitewash the evil into something sympathetic and to distract from its continuing forms.
The whole blaming it on reparations, partly if not fully, honestly just reeks of soft nazi propaganda. Oh these poor Krauts, look at what the world made them doooooooo. The entire focus of the sentiment chooses to look at the allied side’s reaction to Germany in WW1 as opposed to the needless destruction the germans conducted, and not to mention, Germany going on to break the treaty how many fucking times? Like gee, you know what might’ve prevented WW2? Hitler not breaking the treaty of Versailles. I couldn’t find any “official” thing on the matter, but someone on Quora made some pretty good points:
No, it was not fair, it should have been much harsher.
The Germans destroyed all industry in Northern France which was about 50 % of the French heavy industry. France still hadn’t recovered when World War Two broke out.
France was utterly broke and couldn’t even pay their disabled veterans a pension until 1924.
All Belgian industry was hauled off to Germany and Belgium never recovered. The Germans took all cattle, all horses, all agricultural equipment and even most dogs.
As the Germans withdrew from Northern France and Belgium, they implemented a scorched earth policy destroying roads, bridges, water wells, houses, churches, everything. They left a wasteland behind and various areas are still unpopulated after more than a century.
As the Germans withdrew, they used poison gas on the civilian population to kill as many innocent people as they could … even while they were negotiating an armistice.
The Germans deported hundreds of thousands of people and put them in concentration camps in Germany where they were used as slave labourers.
The Germans got away with their war crimes, they got away with their crimes against the civilian population, and they even got to keep the industrial assets they had stolen.
So, the treaty was all but fair.
Frankly, I think Germany should’ve been dissolved.
actually, “Niko Vasileas” makes some pretty good points with sources! :0
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Superimperialism talks a lot about this as well. The actions of the Americans in the interwar period were really strange from an international finance perspective, but shaped the playing field of WWII and set the stage for the American hegemony to come.
Weirdly enough, even though France and Britain had no chance to pay their war debts to the US without first receiving German reparations, the Americans refused to connect these two debts in principle. The investment of private American capital in Germany came right back to the US treasury as well, as that was the only means the Germans had of paying reparations, and reparations payments were the only way the Allies had to pay the war debts.
Why thank you! This is actually quite useful :)!
I never knew that the debt was actually mostly purchased. That alone really puts the whole waah waah unfair reparations myth
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Seems like the evil people say came out of nowhere was well defined before Hitler was ever born.
History is never taught. Even I, who tries my best with the little time I have, am caught off guard by what you’ve said.
At the very least Germany should never have been allowed to reunify.
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I think we do ourselves a huge disservice when we define fascism as racism and genocide at scale. This allows the interests of capital to shift us ever closer to fascism (in the original economic sense) while most people are entirely unaware, as the overtly evil elements we have been taught to associate with Nazi fascism either don’t exist (yet) or are done more quietly and under more acceptable names.
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Nazi Germany didn’t only oppress through Race; Nazis also oppressed demographics through Psychiatry.
Aspergers syndrome is a psychiatric
diagnosissublabel (remember, no objective testing is used here or in Autism… or in any psychiatric diagnosis) of Autism created by Hans Asperger, a Nazi collaborator. It was a “high functioning”.“High functioning” autism was given to children if they acted weird but could speak or write. Hans referred children who could speak or do stuff as “high functioning”. Children who didn’t fit this were given “low functioning” autism and sent to Nazi clinics to be murdered.
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