Versailles #85: Thanks for the Mess
When Diplomacy Fails Podcast
Zack Twamley
4.8 • 773 Ratings
🗓️ 6 July 2019
⏱️ 58 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
It's high time we examined where the Germans fit into all of this mess. Having been left with the most unfair treaty in the universe, how could these poor unfortunate Germans possibly repair and move on? My point, as I make many times in this final episodes of our project, is that the German responsibility for this 'moving on' rested with the Germans and the Germans alone. An imperfect Treaty was not an excuse for Nazism. A did not automatically equal B, and the Treaty of Versailles did not have to lead inexorably to WW2. To claim that it did, to recall those few sentences in a textbook which proclaims as such, is to seriously underrate the responsibility of individuals in Germany, Hitler included of course, for what followed.
Few would ever seek to claim that Hitler was justified, but the problem was, he used this Treaty as justification for his earlier successes in peacetime, and while we recognise these successes were wrong, we also let his core argument go unchallenged. If Hitler was wrong to invoke the Treaty when marching into the Rhineland, annexing Austria or seizing the Sudetenland, then it stands that neither he nor his contemporaries were justified in proclaiming that the Treaty of Versailles 'made him do it'. No, it was the German people who made WW2 possible, and setting the record straight in this regard is a mission which is long overdue...
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | History friends, welcome to this episode of the Versailles Anniversary Project. I hope you're doing well. |
| 0:07.0 | Nothing to see here, just another episode of this massive project and, well, what do you know? |
| 0:12.8 | It's actually the last episode. So if you're listening here and you've never listened before, |
| 0:16.4 | you're going to have no idea what's going on. But maybe you like concluding episodes. |
| 0:19.5 | Maybe you don't like listening to hours upon hours of what came before. |
| 0:24.3 | I'm not going to tell you how to live your life, so go ahead and listen. |
| 0:27.6 | But if you're curious about what came before, make sure to track down the other 84 episodes. |
| 0:33.2 | And a huge thanks again must be said to those of you that have supported this podcast on Patreon |
| 0:38.5 | and basically made it possible for me to do this project in the first place. |
| 0:43.1 | In case you weren't aware, this thing took a lot of work, |
| 0:45.4 | and it would not have been possible unless this podcast was my job, |
| 0:49.0 | which it is, and which I'm super, super grateful to all of you lovely history friends for supporting this podcast. |
| 0:54.9 | Without you, I couldn't do it, and I couldn't do stuff into the future as well. |
| 0:59.4 | It's because of you, because of your support, and your very serious generosity and your love |
| 1:04.9 | of history, no doubt as well, that I'm able to do this and also prepare into the future |
| 1:10.1 | so that I can do things like a PhD |
| 1:12.3 | in history while still letting this podcast tick away as we cover the 30 years war and Poland |
| 1:18.2 | is not yet lost from September. I hope you're looking forward to that. If you are, why not tell |
| 1:23.7 | people about it? Because that is still the best way to help this podcast and it's absolutely |
| 1:28.0 | free just tell people by word of mouth if they are interested in history and maybe they'll come and |
| 1:33.2 | check this show out simply put i couldn't do this without you and that is why it's so gratifying to be |
| 1:39.5 | able to reach the end of this series and say thanks Thanks, thanks so much for everything. |
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