A Perfidious Distortion of History ─ The Versailles Peace Treaty and the Success of the Nazis

“Anyone who is interested in what remains one of modern history’s most important debates will want to read this.”—Margaret MacMillan, author of Paris: 1919

The Versailles Peace Treaty, the pact between Germany and the Allies that ended World War I, has not enjoyed a positive reputation since its signing in June 1919. Conventional wisdom has it that the treaty’s requirements for massive reparation payments crippled the economy of the Weimar Republic and destabilized its political life. Ultimately, it is believed, the treaty prevented the seeds of democracy sown in the aftermath of the Great War from flourishing, and drove the German people into the arms of Adolf Hitler.

In this authoritative book, Jürgen Tampke disputes this commonplace view. He argues that Germany got away with its responsibility for World War I and its behavior during it; that the treaty was nowhere near as punitive as has been long felt; that the German hyperinflation of the 1920s was at least partly a deliberate policy to minimize the cost of paying reparations; and that World War II was a continuation of Germany’s longstanding war aims.

Jürgen Tampke was born in 1944 in Brandenburg, Germany, and migrated to Australia in 1964. He is the author and editor of numerous books, including Weimar and Nazi Germany and Czech–German Relations and the Politics of Eastern Europe.