The Versailles Peace Treaty - the pact that ended World War I between the German empire and the Allies - has long been regarded as one of the key causes of World War II. Its requirements for massive reparation payments, it is argued, crippled Germany's economy, de-stabilised the country's political life, and paved the way for Hitler.
Here, Jürgen Tampke disputes this commonplace view, suggesting that Germany got away with its responsibility for World War I, that the treaty was nowhere near as punitive as people think, and that the German hyper-inflation of the 1920s was a deliberate policy to minimise the cost of paying reparations.
This is a controversial and important work of revisionist history, which challenges one of the greatest misconceptions of our times.
A controversial and important work of revisionist history that rebuts the accepted version of the role of the Versailles Peace Treaty in the rise of Nazism and the unleashing of World War II. In this authoritative, Jurgen Tampke disputes this commonplace view. He argues that Germany got away with its responsibility for World War I and its behaviour during it; that the treaty was nowhere near as punitive as has been long felt: that the German hyper-inflation of the 1920s was at least partly a deliberate policy to minimise the cost of paying reparations; and that World War II was a continuation of Germany's longstanding war aims.
