PDF file: History - Advanced Higher - Germany - Education Scotland
PDF file: History - Advanced Higher - Germany - Education Scotland
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SECTION TWO: FOREIGN POLICY - 1918-1933<br />
Source A<br />
We cannot sign a document which our enemies call a peace. Any government which,<br />
by its signature, gives this work of the devil the halo of light, sooner or later will be<br />
driven out of office.<br />
Is this peace a surprise to us? Unfortunately, yes. No one could possibly have<br />
believed in such cunning madness. We all expected a peace of agreement and justice.<br />
We read about it carefully and with good faith what the false prophet across the big<br />
pond promised to us and all the world. Now we can see how Old England and that<br />
revenge-laden chauvinist, Clemenceau, urged on by Foch, put together a peace like<br />
those of the old days. There is not the least trace of an understanding of the times, or<br />
any foresight into the future. There it is - a grey, bureaucrat’s treaty, put together by<br />
small, narrow-minded, hate-ridden politicians. In a few years all this wicked<br />
bungling will be wiped away .<br />
(Alfred von Wegerer, in ‘Der Tag’, 28 May 1919)<br />
Source B<br />
Articles 231 and 232 of the Peace Treaty of Versailles signed on 28 June 1919.<br />
The Allied and Associated Governments affirm, and <strong>Germany</strong> acknowledges, that<br />
<strong>Germany</strong> and her Allies are responsible for all the losses and damage which the<br />
Allied and Associated Governments and their peoples have sustained as a result of the<br />
war unleashed against them by the aggression of <strong>Germany</strong> and her Allies.<br />
… The Allied and Associated Governments demand, and <strong>Germany</strong> undertakes, that<br />
compensation be made for all losses…<br />
Source D<br />
In late June of 1919 Gustav Bauer, a member of the new SPD-Centrist coalition,<br />
acknowledges German acceptance of the Treaty of Versailles.<br />
Surrendering to superior force but without retracting its opinion regarding the<br />
unheard-of injustice of the peace conditions the government of the German Republic<br />
therefore declares its readiness to accept and sign the peace conditions imposed by<br />
the Allied and Associated Governments.<br />
<strong>History</strong>: <strong>Germany</strong>: Versailles to the Outbreak of World War II - 1918-1939 (AH) 56
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