War guilt question
The war guilt question is the public debate that took place in Germany for the most part during the Weimar Republic, to establish Germany's share of responsibility in the causes of the First World War. Structured in several phases, and largely determined by the impact of the Treaty of Versailles and the attitude of the victorious Allies, this debate also took place in other countries involved in the conflict, such as in the French Third Republic and the United Kingdom.
The war guilt debate motivated historians such as Hans Delbrück, Wolfgang J. Mommsen, Gerhard Hirschfeld, and Fritz Fischer, but also a much wider circle including intellectuals such as Kurt Tucholsky and Siegfried Jacobsohn, as well as the general public. The war guilt question pervaded the history of the Weimar Republic. Founded shortly before the signing of the Treaty of Versailles in June 1919, Weimar embodied this debate until its demise, after which it was subsequently taken up as a campaign argument by the Nazi Party.
While the war guilt question made it possible to investigate the deep-rooted causes of the First World War, although not without provoking a great deal of controversy, it also made it possible to identify other aspects of the conflict, such as the role of the masses and the question of Germany's special path to democracy, the Sonderweg. This debate, which obstructed German political progress for many years, also showed that politicians such as Gustav Stresemann were able to confront the war guilt question by advancing the general discussion without compromising German interests.
A century later, debate continues into the 21st century. The main outlines of the debate include: how much diplomatic and political room to maneuver was available; the inevitable consequences of pre-war armament policies; the role of domestic policy and social and economic tensions in the foreign relations of the states involved; the role of public opinion and their experience of war in the face of organized propaganda; the role of economic interests and top military commanders in torpedoing deescalation and peace negotiations; the Sonderweg theory; and the long-term trends which tend to contextualise the First World War as a condition or preparation for the Second, such as Raymond Aron who views the two world wars as the new Thirty Years' War, a theory reprised by Enzo Traverso in his work.
Terminology
The term war guilt question used in English scholarship is a calque of the German term Kriegsschuldfrage which is a German compound noun made up of Kriegsschuld + Frage.Article 231 of the Treaty of Versailles is at the heart of the issue; also known as the "War Guilt Clause", article 231 delineated German responsibility for the war. English and French were the official languages of the treaty; in French, it was known formally as Article 231 du traité de Versailles or less formally as clause de culpabilité de la guerre ; and in German, as the Kriegsschuldartikel.
Additional terms are seen in English sources, such as war guilt thesis, Versailles war guilt thesis, and others.
Background: World War I
The question of German war guilt took place in the context of the German defeat by the Allied Powers in World War I, during and after the treaties that established the peace, and continuing on throughout the fifteen-year life of the Weimar Republic in Germany from 1919 to 1933, and beyond.Outbreak of war
Hostilities in World War I took place mostly in Europe between 1914 and 11 November 1918, and involved mobilization of 70 million military personnel and resulted in over 20 million military and civilian deaths making it one of the largest and deadliest wars in history. By July 1914, the great powers of Europe were divided into two coalitions: the Triple Entente, later called the "Allied Powers", consisting of France, Russia, and the United Kingdom ; and the Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy. After a series of events, ultimatums, and mobilizations, some of them due to interlocking alliances, Germany declared war on Russia on 1 August. Within days the other powers followed suit, and before the end of the month the war extended to Japan and, in November, to the Ottoman Empire.After four years of war on multiple fronts in Europe and around the world, an Allied offensive began in August 1918, and the position of Germany and the Central Powers deteriorated, leading them to sue for peace. Initial offers were rejected, and Germany's position became more desperate. Awareness of impending military defeat sparked revolution in Germany, proclamation of a republic on 9 November 1918, the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II, and German surrender, marking the end of Imperial Germany and the beginning of the Weimar Republic. The Central Powers collapsed, with the new Republic capitulating to the victorious Allies and ending hostilities by signing the Armistice of 11 November 1918 in a railroad car.
Concluding peace
Though hostilities ended on 11 November, a formal state of war continued for months and various treaties were signed amongst the former belligerents. The Paris Peace Conference set terms for the defeated Central Powers, created the League of Nations, rewrote the map of Europe, and under the terms of Article 231 of the Treaty of Versailles, imposed financial penalties in which Germany had to pay reparations of 132 billion gold marks to the Allied Powers. In addition, Article 231 stated that "Germany accepts responsibility of Germany and her allies causing all the loss and damage..." but was mistranslated or interpreted in Germany as an admission by Germany of responsibility for causing the war. This, plus the heavy burden of reparations was taken as an injustice and national humiliation, and that Germany had signed "away her honor".Innocence campaign
This sense of an unjust and excessive financial burden imposed by the victorious Allied Powers based on a misplaced accusation of blame for having caused the war caused resentment and anger in Germany and resulted in vigorous efforts on multiple fronts to oppose it, including diplomatic, propagandistic, and others. These efforts to deal with the war guilt question began during treaty negotiations in Paris, continued throughout the life of the Weimar Republic, and contributed to the rise of the NSDAP Party—which seized power in 1933, bringing the Weimar Republic to an end—and to 1939 and the outbreak of World War II. Furthermore, the harsh terms of land reduction of Germany after World War I, which reduced Germany's land size by 13 percent, aggravated and intensified tensions between Germany and the European Allied powers, and lead to calls to retake the lost land.In the Weimar Republic
Treaty of Versailles
Overview and Treaty clauses
The four great powers led by Woodrow Wilson for the Americans, Georges Clemenceau for the French, David Lloyd George for the British and Vittorio Emanuele Orlando for the Italians met to prepare the peace treaty. Rather than sticking to Wilson's Fourteen Points, the European vision quickly took hold. Decisions were made without Germany, which was excluded from the debates. France, which had served as the main battleground, wanted to ensure a peace of revenge through Clemenceau: "The time has come for a heavy settling of scores".The Treaty of Versailles was above all a "treaty of fear": each former enemy tried to protect his own country. Moreover, the Allies still behaved like enemies when they presented the peace conditions to the German delegation, which finally was invited to attend on 7 May 1919. The deadline for ratification of the treaty was in fifteen days; after that, military operations could resume.
War Guilt Clause as the basis for reparations
Article 231 of the Treaty states:The treaty was interpreted in Germany as assigning the role of aggressor in World War I to Germany and her allies alone. It meant an initial isolation of Germany, which saw itself as the scapegoat for the misdeeds of the other European states before the World War.
The perceived one-sided apportionment of blame to Germany triggered a national debate. The signatures by Hermann Müller and Johannes Bell, who had come to office through the Weimar National Assembly in 1919, fed the stab-in-the-back myth propagated primarily by Paul von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff and later by Adolf Hitler.
Historians today take a more nuanced view of the causes of World War I than is expressed in the treaty. Article 231 was not intended to evaluate historical events, but to legally and morally legitimize the peace terms that were disadvantageous to the German Reich. Moreover, the German Empire was to be held financially liable for the damage to land and people that the German imperial troops had caused, especially in France. The Treaty of Versailles therefore laid the groundwork for the reparation claims against the German Reich, in an amount which was not initially determined. The representatives of the German Empire therefore protested Article 231 not merely for reasons of self-justification, but with the aim of undermining the moral basis of the enemy's demands as a whole. The reparations burdened the new republican state; whilst large cash payments of reparations were not made during the period of hyperinflation, their indirect effects were one of several potential causes of the hyperinflation of 1921 to 1923.
Impact in Germany
Before the treaty was signed on 28 June 1919 the government of the Reich was already talking about an upheaval.President Friedrich Ebert spoke on 6 February 1919 upon the opening of the Reichstag, of "revenge and plans for rape".
Germany was stunned by the terms of the treaty. The government claimed it was a ploy to dishonor the German people. The impact of the treaty was first and foremost moral. The moral punishment was a heavier burden to bear than the material one. Treaty clauses that reduced territory, the economy, and sovereignty were seen as a means of making Germany morally grovel. The new Weimar Republic underscored the unprecedented injustice of the treaty, which was described as an act of violence and a Diktat. Article 231, the so-called "War Guilt Clause", put the responsibility for the war on Germany. Germany was required under the treaty to return territories taken and redraw the border between Belgium and Germany.
For Foreign Minister Brockdorff-Rantzau, recognition of Germany as having sole culpability was a lie. He resigned in June 1919 to avoid having to sign the treaty, which bore the seeds of its own rebuttal. Brockdorff-Rantzau had moreover said before the Allies at Versailles: "But also in the manner of waging war, Germany wasn't the only one to make mistakes, each nation made them. I do not wish to respond to accusations with accusations, but if we are asked to make amends, we must not forget the armistice."
The violence with which the treaty was imposed forced the Germans to refute it. By its nature, the treaty deprived the Weimar Republic of any historical confrontation with its own history. The thesis of responsibility derived its strength from the fact that for the first time, a country's responsibility had been officially established.