Hacker News Reader

Pretty sure it took two tries also

Blaming WWI entirely on Germany is myopic, and is in part what set the social unrest in the Weimar Republic in the first place. The huge debt was put on Germany, and they were heavily dependent on loans. When the US economy crashed in 1929, they were done for. If Germany did not take the full blame for WWI, WWII arguably never happened. Because someone like Hitler wouldn't have been able to rise to power via a massive social unrest.

I'd say the economic and political effects of the Versailles treaty are exaggerated (especially given how little it was enforced), but yeah.

The idea that Germany was in any way the single country responsible for WWI is absolutely ridiculous.

That is hard to prove contrafactual. The Germany still lost WWI which was massive sticking points for them. The "stab in the back" myth would existed either way, because Germany being having super militarized culture could not admit loss.

The revolution in Bavaria would still happened. And still irk right wing. The democracy would still be rejected and Weimar Republic would still be one massive mess.

Hitler did not gained power just because of social issues.

(And also, less importantly, had Germany won the WWI, they had plans to ask other countries for large reparations. It is not like those were something unheard of at that time.)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com