Germany Made Off "Like Bandits" In World War I

 

Thierry Etienne Joseph Rotty

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Senior Controller at NATOFeb 24

Would there have been a WWII if the reparations had been more reasonable and less humiliating in the Treaty of Versailles?

More reasonable? Less humiliating?

Let’s look at some cold facts:

1. The Germans hauled off all Belgian industry and got to keep it.
2. The Germans hauled off half of the French heavy industry and got to keep it.
3. The Germans hauled off all valuables in the areas they occupied: jewelry, porcelain, chandeliers, antiques, etc. and got to keep it.
4. The Germans hauled off all farm animals and even dogs and got to keep it.
5. The Germans hauled off most cars, trucks, and bicycles in the areas they occupied and got to keep it.
6. The German scorched earth policy in the West destroyed bridges, tunnels, roads, railroads, canals, telephone poles, power lines, water wells, etc. It went unpunished.
7. Once the Armistice negotiations began, the German artillery fired its remaining chemical shells at civilian targets only to maximize casualties … they were never punished.
8. The Germans slaughtered thousands of civilians and were never punished.
9. The Germans hauled off hundreds of thousands of civilians to work in concentration camps and were never punished.

The Belgian economy never recovered.

The French were still rebuilding when the Germans came back in 1940. Some areas were so devastated life there is still not possible

German veterans got a pension from 1919 onward, France was so destitute the French veterans had to wait until 1924.

The hyperinflation in Germany was intentional as most German war debt was domestic, most Allied war debt (mainly with the US) was foreign. Germany paid off its war debt (NOT the reparations) in 1923, Britain in 2006.

With the French and Belgian economy in tatters, that left Britain as main competitor. The hyperinflation in Germany resulted in exports soaring and Germany was the main European exporting country by 1925.

The factories the Germans stole resulted in the German economy booming. Germany had a large industry in 1919 than it had had in 1914.

While life was hard for the Germans between 1921–1923, it was by no ways harder than that of other European countries, to the contrary.

People always look at “how bad the Germans had it”, but they never make the comparison with other countries. Germans had more food, better housing, no border disputes, an intact infrastructure and an intact medical infrastructure. German factories could produce enough medication.

Other countries had less food (especially those whose livestock had been hauled off), a destroyed infrastructure; no medical system to speak of, and border clashes or just open war in Eastern Europe.

Germany was the leading European country when it came to providing social housing by 1925, leaving Britain well behind.

The Versailles Treaty should have been far harsher. Or better still, we should have marched on Berlin, take back what was ours, and take away what we could use from the Germans for damages suffered.

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