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Comment by corimaith | Hacker News Reader

The Treaty of Versailles main problem was that it wasn't really crippling enough to destroy Germany but still enough to hurt. But most of that was at the chaotic early years of the Weimar Republic, which by the 1920s had stabilized the situation with American loans.

It was the effects of the Great Depression and internal politicking that gave power to Hitler. The Nazis hatred wasn't directed to the West that enacted that treaty, it was to the east for the Communists and the "subhuman" minorities.

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Germany defaulted on some of the payments and France responded to that by occupying Ruhr (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupation_of_the_Ruhr). That took out a substantial portion of Germany's production capacity, but they were mandated to keep paying the reparations. The German state tried to keep up with that by printing money, triggering hyperinflation and paving way to the Nazi regime.

When you combine that with Germany and Prussia's lack of access to steel it meant nobody could make anything whatsoever. The impact of not being able to import steel and French occupation of the one major remaining steelworks plant in Krupp is one of the handful of reasons why Prussia was dissolved and absorbed into the greater Weimar Republic nine years later. Prussia couldn't handle the debt caused from the two years of no steel and coal at a time where the republic was so poor they were asking the English and Americans for loans they knew they couldn't repay.

You've got the dates mixed up. The era of hyperinflation and the occupation of the Ruhr occurred from 1921 to 1925, after which the "Weimar Golden years" occurred where the NSDAP were a small minority. The Great Depression occurred in 1929, which promptly crashed the German Economy. Unlike in 1921, this time the government chose austerity which caused great hardship and radicalized much into either the NSADP or KPD. The ruling centrists weren't able to govern without support of either, hence they planned to use Hitler as a "puppet" between the President and the Vice Minister. That plan backfired, although it is to note Hindenburg could have fired Hitler at any time.

There's a BBC documentary which does a good job of detailing the political plotting of the time: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/m00084td/rise-of-the-...

Afaik, the printed money to continue paying all the wages for the workers in the occupied area, who went on strike, due to the occupation. Don't think they could pay reparations with freshly printed Reichsmark.

Could be! Adam Tooze's book about the Nazi regime's finances was a good read and there were details about this, but I might have misremembered (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/711592.The_Wages_of_Dest...).

Hitler had insisted on meeting in the exactly same rail car, within which the German surrender of WW1 had been signed, to have the French sign their surrender in WW2. If that's not a sign of hate, I don't know what is.

This was more of a gesture towards the aristocracy that was still heavily present in the Army. For some context, the french also insisted that the 1919 Treaty of Versailles was signed in the same place as the 1871 Treaty of Versailles (which was similarly harsh).

>If that's not a sign of hate, I don't know what is.

No doubt Hitler had a lot of hate.

But this case is clearly a sign of revenge.

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