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Archive 1 |
So I see this problem on this page as well as many different references to it, in that Article 231 of the Treaty of Versailles was a short clause accusing Germany of starting the war unprovoked and that Germany accepted this claim. I would post the text, but I'm not sure if it is considered public domain. A lot of what is discussed is contained in Part VIII of the Treaty, entitled Reparations. Article 231 was just the preface establishing Germany's guilt while Article VIII addressed a lot of what is contained in this article. I would change it myself, but I'm not very good with this whole editing deal and thought maybe a more experience user could do it. –Anonymous
Because Germany's the only one who's being held responsible in terms of actions and reparations.
I think the article shows an obvious bias towards the German point of view in its construction. To say things to the effect that the treaty caused people to "starve to death" seems to make the explicit opinion that the treaty destroyed the German economy above all other things, which is the subject of a great deal of debate (and thus should not be stated from one viewpoint). In fact, in Tipton's A History of Modern Germany Since 1815 the author argues that Germany had all the means necessary to pay reparations and they were paid at first by simply printing currency and later industrial goods (generally not taxation). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gryps5 ( talk • contribs) 03:06, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
I have removed the following line: "The Weimar government was forced to sign this in 1919. The signing of this later led them to be called the ' November Criminals'" as it is totally false. The reason why Weimar leaders were called November Criminals, and this is perhaps only stating the obvious reflects the anger on the German right over the November Revolution of 1918, which was the supposed "stab in the back" that led to Germany's defeat in World War I. So in other words, what got the German right all worked up in the inter-war years was Germany's defeat in November 1918, not Article 231 in June 1919. The term is November Criminals after all, not June Criminals. By besides for being untrue, this line serves the frankly apologetic purpose of making it sound like it was the Treaty of Versailles that discredited the Weimar Republic and brought National Socialism to power in 1933. This is really wrong here; true, the Nazis and many other Germans were all agitated over the Treaty of Versailles, but as I think the label "November Criminals" suggests, it was Germany's defeat in 1918 as opposed to an allegedly harsh and humiliating Versailles treaty that really excited German public opinion. By putting that line into this page, someone is trying to make it sound like it was really the fault of the Allies by being so mean to the Germans at Versailles that brought the Nazis to power, a claim that is false it is offensive. -- A.S. Brown ( talk) 01:30, 16 January 2010 (UTC)
Thank you for your supportive comments, Flamarande. Thank you for all good work here in improving this article I’m not as much of an expert as I would like to be, but citing from the article by Sally Marks, who is in fact a leading expert on international relations in Europe in the 1920s, here it is goes:
“The myths about German reparations begin with the Versailles Treaty. The much-criticized “war guilt clause”, Article 231, which was designed to lay a legal basis for reparations, in fact makes no mention of war guilt. It does specify “the responsibility of Germany and her Allies for causing all the loss and damage to which the Allied and Associated Governments and their nationals have been subjected as a consequence of the war imposed upon them by the aggression of Germany and her Allies”. That Germany committed an act of aggression against Belgium is beyond all dispute. Further, upon the theory of collective responsibility, the victors incorporated the same clause, mutatis mutandis, in the treaties with Austria and Hungary, neither of whom interpreted it as a declaration of war guilt. In later years, however, German politicians and propagandists fulminated endlessly about “unilateral war guilt”, convincing many who had not read the treaties of their injustice on this point.
While Article 231 of the Versailles Treaty established an unlimited theoretical liability, Article 232 in fact narrowed German responsibility to civilian damages as defined in an annex. Much ink has been wasted on the fact that civilian damages were stretched to cover war widows’ pensions and allowances for military dependents. In reality, since the German reparations bill was established in 1921 on the basis of an Allied assessment of German capacity to pay, not on the basis of Allied claims, these items did not affect German liability, but merely altered distribution of the receipts.”(Marks, Sally The Myths of Reparations" pages 231-255 from Central European History, Volume 11, Issue # 3, September 1978 pages 231-232)
In a footnote on page 232, Marks further writes:
"After Germany protested against Article 231, Allied language in response became intemperate (see for instance, FRUS PPC, 6: 926-929), but did not charge Germany with "unilateral war guilt". Random examples of statements by German officials concerning "unilateral", "sole", or "exclusive" war guilt may be found in FRUS PPC, 3:418, 6:38-40, 42, 12: 17; Great Britain, Foreign Office, Documents on British Foreign Policy, 1919-1939 (hereafter DBFP), se 1, 15: 320, Public Record Office, London (hereafter PRO), German declaration, Sept. 26, 1925, F.O. 371/10740.
So, if my understanding of the both the text of the Versailles treaty and Marks is correct, I believe that Article 231 says nothing about “war guilt”, but instead says that Germany and her allies started World War I (a point that incidentally has since been confirmed by the research of historians like Fritz Fischer who in case someone wants to accuse me of being anti-German, please note was a German historian,), and establishes that Germany accepts that will pay reparations. This may be going slightly off topic, but I think this is relevant here is that in the 1920s, the German government made a huge effort to undermine the moral validity of the Treaty of Versailles through such pseudo-historical think-tanks like the Centre for the Study of the Causes of the War, and by subsiding the work of pseudo-historians like Harry Elmer Barnes. For more detail, please consult the excellent article by Holger Herwig (who again in case someone wants to accuse me of being anti-German, please note is a German historian), “Clio Deceived: Patriotic Self-Censorship in Germany after the Great War", pages 5–44 from International Security, Volume 12, Issue 2, Fall 1987.
The goal of “restoration of Germany as a great power” and overthrowing Versailles, was something that was shared by every German political party in the Weimar Republic. The only differences were between how to overthrow Versailles, and how far Germany was to be restored to great power status. Through not everybody in Germany necessarily shared the Nazi vision of the “restoration of Germany as a great power” (through a great many did), everybody in Germany was opposed to the Versailles treaty. As part of the work of overthrowing Versailles, there was a tremendous propaganda effort by the Germans in the 1920s-30s which involved amongst other things destruction of documents, forgeries, and bribery to prove that 1) Germany did not start World War I and 2) that therefore, the Treaty of Versailles was morally invalid. Once one accepts these two propositions, then of course the moral case for revising Versailles in favour of Germany is unassailable. As part of this propaganda campaign (which was very successful by the way), there was a conscious misrepresentation of Article 231 as saying Germany borne the sole “war guilt” for World War I. Everyone says today that appeasement and the widespread acquiescence of the part of Britain and France to Hitler tearing up Versailles is totally unbelievable. I think however that once accepts by the mid-1930s that that too many people had been mislead by people like Barnes into believing that the Germany did not start World War I and that the Versailles Treaty was totally unjust to Germany, that this acquiescence makes more sense. My suggestions for improving this article would be 1) having this article note that through Article 231 says nothing about “sole war guilt”, many people both at the time and today mistakenly believe it does and 2) perhaps something can be brought in about how this misunderstanding of Article 231 helped to persuade people om the interwar period that Versailles was unjust and thus not worth dying for.-- A.S. Brown ( talk) 22:16, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
The following statement appears in the second half of the article: MacMillan states that Germany in fact never paid monetary reparations
The statement that "Germany in fact never paid monetary reparations" is not supported by the reference to MacMillan. On page 480 of reference [3] MacMillan gives the amount of reparations paid by Germany between 1918 and 1932.
A minor note about reference [3]. Richard Holbrooke, who wrote the forward to the book, is not listed as an author in the Library of Congress citation in the book. The full text for the reference should be MacMillan, Margaret, Paris 1919 : Six Months that Changed the World, Random House, 1919. Lcaretto ( talk) 22:33, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
I think the article lacks some neutrality. While it is true that some historians agree that the War guilt clause was not a significant factor in the rise of the NSDAP there is also many historians who think otherwise and do consider the War guilt clause as important in this respect. Further stating only the view of Sally Marks does not add to the neutrality of the article as many historians disagree with the interpretation of reparations/war guilt set forth in the book "the Myths of Reparations" (the title itself isnt very neutral). While I dont think that the view of Marks or McMillan is necessarily wrong I think it would make the article far more useful if it would actually contain both sides of the histiriographic debate and not only advertise Marks. This is especially true for a question such as war guilt since such a question often leads to people getting very emotional and therefore neutrality of the encyclopeadia is vital here. The same counts for the article on war reparations itself, one side of the story may be good if one is writing an essay but an encyclopeadia should be a source of information, not of opinion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.47.166.216 ( talk) 21:18, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
I completely agree-- Clause 231 is obviously quite significant regarding the rise of Hitler. To say that it is a myth that this clause lowered the morale of Germany is very controversial and needs more sources to verify this viewpoint. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.237.170.188 ( talk) 01:30, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
There is WP:UNDUE weight being given to the opinions of Marks and MacMillan. JJL ( talk) 18:16, 28 June 2013 (UTC)
The article is missing information about what damage and loss Germany caused during World War. We should list it in the beginning.-- MyMoloboaccount ( talk) 00:45, 12 December 2013 (UTC)
Considering this edit, Beyond My Ken ( talk · contribs) can you please explain how the article - or particular sections of it - breeches WP:Fringe?
The policy states "We use the term fringe theory in a very broad sense to describe ideas that depart significantly from the prevailing or mainstream view in its particular field."
This article provides, what is, an overview of what the current mainstream view on the subject. The article provides sources ranging from the actual treaty, to historians from the 1920s to present to give as wide a view as possible to highlight the development of opinions. In particular, several modern encyclopedias have been used in conjunction with anthologies of articles, all of which have been written by the leading historians in the field of the Treaty of Versailles. This has been further laced with comments from other historians, who sometimes only touch on the subject, to provide additional details. EnigmaMcmxc ( talk) 09:34, 13 January 2014 (UTC)
There are a few problems I see with this article, primarily revolving about the Long-term political impacts section and the Historical assessment section, which are in my view muddled and poorly organized.
Hopefully some of this is helpful as you prepare the article for another run at FAC. Parsecboy ( talk) 20:57, 28 May 2014 (UTC)
Per H:ARC, does anyone object to setting up automatic archiving of this talk page? It's past 35k and has never been archived before. Chris Troutman ( talk) 00:49, 18 March 2016 (UTC)
I deleted the following statements, which have no references to historian sources: "The historical consensus is that responsibility or guilt for the war was not attached to the article. Rather, the clause was a prerequisite to allow a legal basis to be laid out for the reparation payments that were to be made. Historians have also highlighted the unintended damage created by the clause, which caused anger and resentment amongst the German population."
Actually I have no issue with the second and third periods of the deleted text, they are just repetition of what already written elsewhere in the article.
About the first statement that "responsibility or guilt for the war was not attached to the article": - it is not sourced - it contradicts the letter of art 231: it reads "Germany ... causing all the loss and damage " Germany imposed the war on the allies by aggression...what is this else than am admission of guilt? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.205.194.4 ( talk) 14:41, 16 March 2016 (UTC)
The IP is right and I removed the entire unsourced sentence per WP:EXTRAORDINARY. The entire article here seems to have become rather unbalanced, and not based on clear sources, after 2013. If you read a version of November 11, 2013, you'll find it much more linear and balanced. Nemo 22:31, 20 January 2019 (UTC)
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![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 |
So I see this problem on this page as well as many different references to it, in that Article 231 of the Treaty of Versailles was a short clause accusing Germany of starting the war unprovoked and that Germany accepted this claim. I would post the text, but I'm not sure if it is considered public domain. A lot of what is discussed is contained in Part VIII of the Treaty, entitled Reparations. Article 231 was just the preface establishing Germany's guilt while Article VIII addressed a lot of what is contained in this article. I would change it myself, but I'm not very good with this whole editing deal and thought maybe a more experience user could do it. –Anonymous
Because Germany's the only one who's being held responsible in terms of actions and reparations.
I think the article shows an obvious bias towards the German point of view in its construction. To say things to the effect that the treaty caused people to "starve to death" seems to make the explicit opinion that the treaty destroyed the German economy above all other things, which is the subject of a great deal of debate (and thus should not be stated from one viewpoint). In fact, in Tipton's A History of Modern Germany Since 1815 the author argues that Germany had all the means necessary to pay reparations and they were paid at first by simply printing currency and later industrial goods (generally not taxation). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gryps5 ( talk • contribs) 03:06, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
I have removed the following line: "The Weimar government was forced to sign this in 1919. The signing of this later led them to be called the ' November Criminals'" as it is totally false. The reason why Weimar leaders were called November Criminals, and this is perhaps only stating the obvious reflects the anger on the German right over the November Revolution of 1918, which was the supposed "stab in the back" that led to Germany's defeat in World War I. So in other words, what got the German right all worked up in the inter-war years was Germany's defeat in November 1918, not Article 231 in June 1919. The term is November Criminals after all, not June Criminals. By besides for being untrue, this line serves the frankly apologetic purpose of making it sound like it was the Treaty of Versailles that discredited the Weimar Republic and brought National Socialism to power in 1933. This is really wrong here; true, the Nazis and many other Germans were all agitated over the Treaty of Versailles, but as I think the label "November Criminals" suggests, it was Germany's defeat in 1918 as opposed to an allegedly harsh and humiliating Versailles treaty that really excited German public opinion. By putting that line into this page, someone is trying to make it sound like it was really the fault of the Allies by being so mean to the Germans at Versailles that brought the Nazis to power, a claim that is false it is offensive. -- A.S. Brown ( talk) 01:30, 16 January 2010 (UTC)
Thank you for your supportive comments, Flamarande. Thank you for all good work here in improving this article I’m not as much of an expert as I would like to be, but citing from the article by Sally Marks, who is in fact a leading expert on international relations in Europe in the 1920s, here it is goes:
“The myths about German reparations begin with the Versailles Treaty. The much-criticized “war guilt clause”, Article 231, which was designed to lay a legal basis for reparations, in fact makes no mention of war guilt. It does specify “the responsibility of Germany and her Allies for causing all the loss and damage to which the Allied and Associated Governments and their nationals have been subjected as a consequence of the war imposed upon them by the aggression of Germany and her Allies”. That Germany committed an act of aggression against Belgium is beyond all dispute. Further, upon the theory of collective responsibility, the victors incorporated the same clause, mutatis mutandis, in the treaties with Austria and Hungary, neither of whom interpreted it as a declaration of war guilt. In later years, however, German politicians and propagandists fulminated endlessly about “unilateral war guilt”, convincing many who had not read the treaties of their injustice on this point.
While Article 231 of the Versailles Treaty established an unlimited theoretical liability, Article 232 in fact narrowed German responsibility to civilian damages as defined in an annex. Much ink has been wasted on the fact that civilian damages were stretched to cover war widows’ pensions and allowances for military dependents. In reality, since the German reparations bill was established in 1921 on the basis of an Allied assessment of German capacity to pay, not on the basis of Allied claims, these items did not affect German liability, but merely altered distribution of the receipts.”(Marks, Sally The Myths of Reparations" pages 231-255 from Central European History, Volume 11, Issue # 3, September 1978 pages 231-232)
In a footnote on page 232, Marks further writes:
"After Germany protested against Article 231, Allied language in response became intemperate (see for instance, FRUS PPC, 6: 926-929), but did not charge Germany with "unilateral war guilt". Random examples of statements by German officials concerning "unilateral", "sole", or "exclusive" war guilt may be found in FRUS PPC, 3:418, 6:38-40, 42, 12: 17; Great Britain, Foreign Office, Documents on British Foreign Policy, 1919-1939 (hereafter DBFP), se 1, 15: 320, Public Record Office, London (hereafter PRO), German declaration, Sept. 26, 1925, F.O. 371/10740.
So, if my understanding of the both the text of the Versailles treaty and Marks is correct, I believe that Article 231 says nothing about “war guilt”, but instead says that Germany and her allies started World War I (a point that incidentally has since been confirmed by the research of historians like Fritz Fischer who in case someone wants to accuse me of being anti-German, please note was a German historian,), and establishes that Germany accepts that will pay reparations. This may be going slightly off topic, but I think this is relevant here is that in the 1920s, the German government made a huge effort to undermine the moral validity of the Treaty of Versailles through such pseudo-historical think-tanks like the Centre for the Study of the Causes of the War, and by subsiding the work of pseudo-historians like Harry Elmer Barnes. For more detail, please consult the excellent article by Holger Herwig (who again in case someone wants to accuse me of being anti-German, please note is a German historian), “Clio Deceived: Patriotic Self-Censorship in Germany after the Great War", pages 5–44 from International Security, Volume 12, Issue 2, Fall 1987.
The goal of “restoration of Germany as a great power” and overthrowing Versailles, was something that was shared by every German political party in the Weimar Republic. The only differences were between how to overthrow Versailles, and how far Germany was to be restored to great power status. Through not everybody in Germany necessarily shared the Nazi vision of the “restoration of Germany as a great power” (through a great many did), everybody in Germany was opposed to the Versailles treaty. As part of the work of overthrowing Versailles, there was a tremendous propaganda effort by the Germans in the 1920s-30s which involved amongst other things destruction of documents, forgeries, and bribery to prove that 1) Germany did not start World War I and 2) that therefore, the Treaty of Versailles was morally invalid. Once one accepts these two propositions, then of course the moral case for revising Versailles in favour of Germany is unassailable. As part of this propaganda campaign (which was very successful by the way), there was a conscious misrepresentation of Article 231 as saying Germany borne the sole “war guilt” for World War I. Everyone says today that appeasement and the widespread acquiescence of the part of Britain and France to Hitler tearing up Versailles is totally unbelievable. I think however that once accepts by the mid-1930s that that too many people had been mislead by people like Barnes into believing that the Germany did not start World War I and that the Versailles Treaty was totally unjust to Germany, that this acquiescence makes more sense. My suggestions for improving this article would be 1) having this article note that through Article 231 says nothing about “sole war guilt”, many people both at the time and today mistakenly believe it does and 2) perhaps something can be brought in about how this misunderstanding of Article 231 helped to persuade people om the interwar period that Versailles was unjust and thus not worth dying for.-- A.S. Brown ( talk) 22:16, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
The following statement appears in the second half of the article: MacMillan states that Germany in fact never paid monetary reparations
The statement that "Germany in fact never paid monetary reparations" is not supported by the reference to MacMillan. On page 480 of reference [3] MacMillan gives the amount of reparations paid by Germany between 1918 and 1932.
A minor note about reference [3]. Richard Holbrooke, who wrote the forward to the book, is not listed as an author in the Library of Congress citation in the book. The full text for the reference should be MacMillan, Margaret, Paris 1919 : Six Months that Changed the World, Random House, 1919. Lcaretto ( talk) 22:33, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
I think the article lacks some neutrality. While it is true that some historians agree that the War guilt clause was not a significant factor in the rise of the NSDAP there is also many historians who think otherwise and do consider the War guilt clause as important in this respect. Further stating only the view of Sally Marks does not add to the neutrality of the article as many historians disagree with the interpretation of reparations/war guilt set forth in the book "the Myths of Reparations" (the title itself isnt very neutral). While I dont think that the view of Marks or McMillan is necessarily wrong I think it would make the article far more useful if it would actually contain both sides of the histiriographic debate and not only advertise Marks. This is especially true for a question such as war guilt since such a question often leads to people getting very emotional and therefore neutrality of the encyclopeadia is vital here. The same counts for the article on war reparations itself, one side of the story may be good if one is writing an essay but an encyclopeadia should be a source of information, not of opinion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.47.166.216 ( talk) 21:18, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
I completely agree-- Clause 231 is obviously quite significant regarding the rise of Hitler. To say that it is a myth that this clause lowered the morale of Germany is very controversial and needs more sources to verify this viewpoint. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.237.170.188 ( talk) 01:30, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
There is WP:UNDUE weight being given to the opinions of Marks and MacMillan. JJL ( talk) 18:16, 28 June 2013 (UTC)
The article is missing information about what damage and loss Germany caused during World War. We should list it in the beginning.-- MyMoloboaccount ( talk) 00:45, 12 December 2013 (UTC)
Considering this edit, Beyond My Ken ( talk · contribs) can you please explain how the article - or particular sections of it - breeches WP:Fringe?
The policy states "We use the term fringe theory in a very broad sense to describe ideas that depart significantly from the prevailing or mainstream view in its particular field."
This article provides, what is, an overview of what the current mainstream view on the subject. The article provides sources ranging from the actual treaty, to historians from the 1920s to present to give as wide a view as possible to highlight the development of opinions. In particular, several modern encyclopedias have been used in conjunction with anthologies of articles, all of which have been written by the leading historians in the field of the Treaty of Versailles. This has been further laced with comments from other historians, who sometimes only touch on the subject, to provide additional details. EnigmaMcmxc ( talk) 09:34, 13 January 2014 (UTC)
There are a few problems I see with this article, primarily revolving about the Long-term political impacts section and the Historical assessment section, which are in my view muddled and poorly organized.
Hopefully some of this is helpful as you prepare the article for another run at FAC. Parsecboy ( talk) 20:57, 28 May 2014 (UTC)
Per H:ARC, does anyone object to setting up automatic archiving of this talk page? It's past 35k and has never been archived before. Chris Troutman ( talk) 00:49, 18 March 2016 (UTC)
I deleted the following statements, which have no references to historian sources: "The historical consensus is that responsibility or guilt for the war was not attached to the article. Rather, the clause was a prerequisite to allow a legal basis to be laid out for the reparation payments that were to be made. Historians have also highlighted the unintended damage created by the clause, which caused anger and resentment amongst the German population."
Actually I have no issue with the second and third periods of the deleted text, they are just repetition of what already written elsewhere in the article.
About the first statement that "responsibility or guilt for the war was not attached to the article": - it is not sourced - it contradicts the letter of art 231: it reads "Germany ... causing all the loss and damage " Germany imposed the war on the allies by aggression...what is this else than am admission of guilt? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.205.194.4 ( talk) 14:41, 16 March 2016 (UTC)
The IP is right and I removed the entire unsourced sentence per WP:EXTRAORDINARY. The entire article here seems to have become rather unbalanced, and not based on clear sources, after 2013. If you read a version of November 11, 2013, you'll find it much more linear and balanced. Nemo 22:31, 20 January 2019 (UTC)
{{
cite web}}
: Unknown parameter |deadurl=
ignored (|url-status=
suggested) (
help)