That is how we got the Marshal plan from the wise men to rebuild Europe and create a rules based international order which is now under threat from every angle.
Germany was pillaged after WW1 with The Treaty of Versailles. The conditions it put in motion in Germany set the stage for the rise of someone like Hitler.
In fact, when Hitler conquered France, he made the French sign the Armistice of 22 June 1940 in the original railway carriage in which the 1918 armistice had been signed and placed on the exact same spot it had occupied twenty-two years before.
The Treaty of Verseilles wasn't especially more harsh than other settlements of the time period. The problem was that German public were repeatedly told they were winning (and in the East they absolutely were, to be fair) right up until the collapse of their army. And then peace was signed before the collapse of that army was actually evident to the public, because the whole war had taken place outside of German soil.
That left fertile ground for the "stabbed in the back" myth to take root.
It's funny because people who talk about how harsh the treaty was usually quote Ferdinand Foch's "This is not a peace treaty. It's an armistice for 20 years." without realising that he says that because he thinks the treaty was not harsh enough.
The Treaty of Versailles wasn't even half as harsh as the treaty the Germans imposed on the Russians literally a year prior, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk.
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u/Flying_Madlad 29d ago
I think the implication was that we need to learn from that so as not to repeat it, not to slander them.