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The war guilt question () is the public debate that took place in Germany for the most part during the
Weimar Republic The Weimar Republic, officially known as the German Reich, was the German Reich, German state from 1918 to 1933, during which it was a constitutional republic for the first time in history; hence it is also referred to, and unofficially proclai ...
, to establish Germany's share of responsibility in the
causes of the First World War The identification of the causes of World War I remains a debated issue. World War I began in the Balkans on July 28, 1914, and hostilities ended on November 11, 1918, leaving 17 million dead and 25 million wounded. Moreover, the Russian Civi ...
. Structured in several phases, and largely determined by the impact of the
Treaty of Versailles The Treaty of Versailles was a peace treaty signed on 28 June 1919. As the most important treaty of World War I, it ended the state of war between Germany and most of the Allies of World War I, Allied Powers. It was signed in the Palace ...
and the attitude of the victorious
Allies An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not an explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an alliance are calle ...
, this debate also took place in other countries involved in the conflict, such as in the
French Third Republic The French Third Republic (, sometimes written as ) was the system of government adopted in France from 4 September 1870, when the Second French Empire collapsed during the Franco-Prussian War, until 10 July 1940, after the Fall of France durin ...
and the United Kingdom. The war guilt debate motivated historians such as
Hans Delbrück Hans Gottlieb Leopold Delbrück (; 11 November 1848 – 14 July 1929) was a German historian. Delbrück was one of the first modern military historians, basing his method of research on the critical examination of ancient sources, using auxiliary ...
,
Wolfgang J. Mommsen Wolfgang Justin Mommsen (; 5 November 1930 – 11 August 2004) was a German historian. He was the twin brother of historian Hans Mommsen and the great-grandson of Theodor Mommsen. Biography Wolfgang Mommsen was born in Marburg, the son of the ...
,
Gerhard Hirschfeld Gerhard Hirschfeld (born 19 September 1946 in Plettenberg, Germany) is a German historian and author. From 1989 to 2011, he was director of the Stuttgart-based Bibliothek für Zeitgeschichte / Library of Contemporary History, and has been a pr ...
, and
Fritz Fischer Fritz Fischer may refer to: * Fritz Fischer (historian) (1908–1999), German historian * Fritz Fischer (medical doctor) (1912–2003), Waffen-SS doctor * Fritz Fischer (biathlete) Friedrich "Fritz" Fischer (born 22 September 1956) is a former ...
, but also a much wider circle including intellectuals such as
Kurt Tucholsky Kurt Tucholsky (; 9 January 1890 – 21 December 1935) was a German journalist, satire, satirist, and writer. He also wrote under the pseudonyms Kaspar Hauser (after the Kaspar Hauser, historical figure), Peter Panter, Theobald Tiger and Ignaz Wr ...
and
Siegfried Jacobsohn Siegfried Jacobsohn (28 January 1881–3 December 1926) was a German journalist, editor and theatre critic. In 1905 he founded the magazine ''Die Schaubühne'' (The Schaubühne) and in 1918 renamed it ''Die Weltbühne'' (The Weltbühne), of whi ...
, as well as the general public. The war guilt question pervaded the history of the Weimar Republic. Founded shortly before the signing of the
Treaty of Versailles The Treaty of Versailles was a peace treaty signed on 28 June 1919. As the most important treaty of World War I, it ended the state of war between Germany and most of the Allies of World War I, Allied Powers. It was signed in the Palace ...
in June 1919, Weimar embodied this debate until its
demise Demise is an Anglo-Norman legal term (from French ''démettre'', from Latin ''dimittere'', to send away) for the transfer of an estate, especially by lease. It has an operative effect in a lease, implying a covenant "for quiet enjoyment". The ...
, after which it was subsequently taken up as a campaign argument by the
Nazi Party The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party ( or NSDAP), was a far-right politics, far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported the ideology of Nazism. Its precursor ...
. While the war guilt question made it possible to investigate the deep-rooted
causes of the First World War The identification of the causes of World War I remains a debated issue. World War I began in the Balkans on July 28, 1914, and hostilities ended on November 11, 1918, leaving 17 million dead and 25 million wounded. Moreover, the Russian Civi ...
, although not without provoking a great deal of controversy, it also made it possible to identify other aspects of the conflict, such as the role of the masses and the question of Germany's special path to democracy, the ''
Sonderweg (, "special path") refers to the theory in German historiography that considers the German-speaking lands or the country of Germany itself to have followed a course from aristocracy to democracy unlike any other in Europe. The modern school of ...
''. This debate, which obstructed German political progress for many years, also showed that politicians such as
Gustav Stresemann Gustav Ernst Stresemann (; 10 May 1878 – 3 October 1929) was a German statesman during the Weimar Republic who served as Chancellor of Germany#First German Republic (Weimar Republic, 1919–1933), chancellor of Germany from August to November 1 ...
were able to confront the war guilt question by advancing the general discussion without compromising German interests. A century later, debate continues into the 21st century. The main outlines of the debate include: how much diplomatic and political room to maneuver was available; the inevitable consequences of pre-war armament policies; the role of domestic policy and social and economic tensions in the foreign relations of the states involved; the role of public opinion and their experience of war in the face of organized propaganda; the role of economic interests and top military commanders in torpedoing deescalation and peace negotiations; the theory; and the long-term trends which tend to contextualise the First World War as a condition or preparation for the Second, such as
Raymond Aron Raymond Claude Ferdinand Aron (; ; 14 March 1905 – 17 October 1983) was a French philosopher, sociologist, political scientist, historian and journalist, one of France's most prominent thinkers of the 20th century. Aron is best known for his ...
who views the two world wars as the new
Thirty Years' War The Thirty Years' War, fought primarily in Central Europe between 1618 and 1648, was one of the most destructive conflicts in History of Europe, European history. An estimated 4.5 to 8 million soldiers and civilians died from battle, famine ...
, a theory reprised by Enzo Traverso in his work.


Terminology

The term ''war guilt question'' used in English scholarship is a calque of the German term which is a German compound noun made up of ("war guilt") + ("question", "issue").
Article 231 Article 231, often known as the war guilt clause (), was the opening article of the reparations section of the Treaty of Versailles, which ended the First World War between the German Empire and the Allied and Associated Powers. The article did ...
of the Treaty of Versailles is at the heart of the issue; also known as the "War Guilt Clause", article 231 delineated German responsibility for the war. English and French were the official languages of the treaty; in French, it was known formally as '' Article 231 du traité de Versailles'' or less formally as ("war guilt clause"); and in German, as the '' Kriegsschuldartikel'' ("war guilt" + , "clause"). Additional terms are seen in English sources, such as ''war guilt thesis'', ''Versailles war guilt thesis,'' and others.


Background: World War I

The question of German war guilt () took place in the context of the German defeat by the Allied Powers in
World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
, during and after the treaties that established the peace, and continuing on throughout the fifteen-year life of the
Weimar Republic The Weimar Republic, officially known as the German Reich, was the German Reich, German state from 1918 to 1933, during which it was a constitutional republic for the first time in history; hence it is also referred to, and unofficially proclai ...
in Germany from 1919 to 1933, and beyond.


Outbreak of war

Hostilities in
World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
took place mostly in Europe between 1914 and 11 November 1918, and involved mobilization of 70 million
military personnel Military personnel or military service members are members of the state's armed forces. Their roles, pay, and obligations differ according to their military branch (army, navy, marines, coast guard, air force, and space force), rank ( office ...
and resulted in over 20 million military and civilian deaths (exclusive of fatalities from the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, which accounted for millions more) making it one of the largest and deadliest wars in history. By July 1914, the
great powers A great power is a sovereign state that is recognized as having the ability and expertise to exert its influence on a global scale. Great powers characteristically possess military and economic strength, as well as diplomatic and soft power ...
of Europe were divided into two coalitions: the
Triple Entente The Triple Entente (from French meaning "friendship, understanding, agreement") describes the informal understanding between the Russian Empire, the French Third Republic, and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. It was built upon th ...
, later called the " Allied Powers", consisting of
France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...
,
Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...
, and the United Kingdom (and its Empire); and the
Triple Alliance Triple Alliance may refer to: * Aztec Triple Alliance (1428–1521), Tenochtitlan, Texcoco, and Tlacopan and in central Mexico * Triple Alliance (1596), England, France, and the Dutch Republic to counter Spain * Triple Alliance (1668), England, the ...
of
Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...
,
Austria-Hungary Austria-Hungary, also referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Dual Monarchy or the Habsburg Monarchy, was a multi-national constitutional monarchy in Central Europe#Before World War I, Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. A military ...
, and
Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...
(the "Central Powers"). After a series of events, ultimatums, and mobilizations, some of them due to interlocking alliances, Germany declared war on Russia on 1 August. Within days the other powers followed suit, and before the end of the month the war extended to Japan (siding with the United Kingdom) and, in November, to the Ottoman Empire (with Germany). After four years of war on multiple fronts in Europe and around the world, an Allied offensive began in August 1918, and the position of Germany and the Central Powers deteriorated, leading them to sue for peace. Initial offers were rejected, and Germany's position became more desperate. Awareness of impending military defeat sparked revolution in Germany, proclamation of a republic on 9 November 1918, the abdication of
Kaiser Wilhelm II Wilhelm II (Friedrich Wilhelm Viktor Albert; 27 January 18594 June 1941) was the last German Emperor and King of Prussia from 1888 until his abdication in 1918, which marked the end of the German Empire as well as the Hohenzollern dynasty ...
, and German surrender, marking the end of
Imperial Germany The German Empire (),; ; World Book, Inc. ''The World Book dictionary, Volume 1''. World Book, Inc., 2003. p. 572. States that Deutsches Reich translates as "German Realm" and was a former official name of Germany. also referred to as Imperia ...
and the beginning of the
Weimar Republic The Weimar Republic, officially known as the German Reich, was the German Reich, German state from 1918 to 1933, during which it was a constitutional republic for the first time in history; hence it is also referred to, and unofficially proclai ...
. The Central Powers collapsed, with the new Republic capitulating to the victorious Allies and ending hostilities by signing the
Armistice of 11 November 1918 The Armistice of 11 November 1918 was the armistice signed in a railroad car, in the Compiègne Forest near the town of Compiègne, that ended fighting on land, at sea, and in the air in World War I between the Entente and their las ...
in a railroad car.


Concluding peace

Though hostilities ended on 11 November, a formal state of war continued for months and various treaties were signed amongst the former belligerents. The
Paris Peace Conference Agreements and declarations resulting from meetings in Paris include: Listed by name Paris Accords may refer to: * Paris Accords, the agreements reached at the end of the London and Paris Conferences in 1954 concerning the post-war status of Germ ...
set terms for the defeated Central Powers, created the
League of Nations The League of Nations (LN or LoN; , SdN) was the first worldwide intergovernmental organisation whose principal mission was to maintain world peace. It was founded on 10 January 1920 by the Paris Peace Conference (1919–1920), Paris Peace ...
, rewrote the map of Europe, and under the terms of
Article 231 Article 231, often known as the war guilt clause (), was the opening article of the reparations section of the Treaty of Versailles, which ended the First World War between the German Empire and the Allied and Associated Powers. The article did ...
of the
Treaty of Versailles The Treaty of Versailles was a peace treaty signed on 28 June 1919. As the most important treaty of World War I, it ended the state of war between Germany and most of the Allies of World War I, Allied Powers. It was signed in the Palace ...
, imposed financial penalties in which Germany had to pay
reparations Reparation(s) may refer to: Christianity * Reparation (theology), the theological concept of corrective response to God and the associated prayers for repairing the damages of sin * Restitution (theology), the Christian doctrine calling for re ...
of 132 billion
gold marks The German mark ( ; sign: ℳ︁) was the currency of the German Empire, which spanned from 1871 to 1918. The mark was paired with the minor unit of the pfennig (₰); 100 pfennigs were equivalent to 1 mark. The mark was on the gold standar ...
(US$33 billion) to the Allied Powers. In addition, Article 231 stated that "Germany accepts responsibility of Germany and her allies causing all the loss and damage..." but was mistranslated or interpreted in Germany as an admission by Germany of responsibility for causing the war. This, plus the heavy burden of reparations was taken as an injustice and national humiliation, and that Germany had signed "away her honor".


Innocence campaign

This sense of an unjust and excessive financial burden imposed by the victorious Allied Powers based on a misplaced accusation of blame for having caused the war caused resentment and anger in Germany and resulted in vigorous efforts on multiple fronts to oppose it, including diplomatic, propagandistic, and others. These efforts to deal with the war guilt question began during treaty negotiations in Paris, continued throughout the life of the Weimar Republic, and contributed to the rise of the NSDAP (Nazi) Party—which seized power in 1933, bringing the Weimar Republic to an end—and to 1939 and the outbreak of World War II. Furthermore, the harsh terms of land reduction of Germany after World War I, which reduced Germany's land size by 13 percent, aggravated and intensified tensions between Germany and the European Allied powers, and lead to calls to retake the lost land.


In the Weimar Republic


Treaty of Versailles


Overview and Treaty clauses

The four great powers led by
Woodrow Wilson Thomas Woodrow Wilson (December 28, 1856February 3, 1924) was the 28th president of the United States, serving from 1913 to 1921. He was the only History of the Democratic Party (United States), Democrat to serve as president during the Prog ...
for the Americans,
Georges Clemenceau Georges Benjamin Clemenceau (28 September 1841 – 24 November 1929) was a French statesman who was Prime Minister of France from 1906 to 1909 and again from 1917 until 1920. A physician turned journalist, he played a central role in the poli ...
for the French,
David Lloyd George David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor (17 January 1863 – 26 March 1945) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1916 to 1922. A Liberal Party (United Kingdom), Liberal Party politician from Wales, he was known for leadi ...
for the British and
Vittorio Emanuele Orlando Vittorio Emanuele Orlando (; 19 May 1860 – 1 December 1952) was an Italian statesman, who served as the prime minister of Italy from October 1917 to June 1919. Orlando is best known for representing Italy in the 1919 Paris Peace Conference with ...
for the Italians met to prepare the peace treaty. Rather than sticking to Wilson's
Fourteen Points The Fourteen Points was a statement of principles for peace that was to be used for peace negotiations in order to end World War I. The principles were outlined in a January 8, 1918 speech on war aims and peace terms to the United States Congress ...
, the European vision quickly took hold. Decisions were made without Germany, which was excluded from the debates. France, which had served as the main battleground, wanted to ensure a peace of revenge through Clemenceau: "The time has come for a heavy settling of scores". The Treaty of Versailles was above all a "treaty of fear": each former enemy tried to protect his own country. Moreover, the Allies still behaved like enemies when they presented the peace conditions to the German delegation, which finally was invited to attend on 7 May 1919. The deadline for ratification of the treaty was in fifteen days; after that, military operations could resume.


War Guilt Clause as the basis for reparations

Article 231 of the Treaty states: The treaty was interpreted in Germany as assigning the role of aggressor in World War I to Germany and her allies alone. It meant an initial isolation of Germany, which saw itself as the scapegoat for the misdeeds of the other European states before the World War. The perceived one-sided apportionment of blame to Germany triggered a national debate. The signatures by Hermann Müller and Johannes Bell, who had come to office through the
Weimar National Assembly The Weimar National Assembly (German: ), officially the German National Constitutional Assembly (), was the popularly elected constitutional convention and de facto parliament of Germany from 6 February 1919 to 21 May 1920. As part of it ...
in 1919, fed the
stab-in-the-back myth The stab-in-the-back myth (, , ) was an antisemitic and anti-communist conspiracy theory that was widely believed and promulgated in Germany after 1918. It maintained that the Imperial German Army did not lose World War I on the battlefield, b ...
propagated primarily by
Paul von Hindenburg Paul Ludwig Hans Anton von Beneckendorff und von Hindenburg (2 October 1847 – 2 August 1934) was a German military and political leader who led the Imperial German Army during the First World War and later became President of Germany (1919� ...
and
Erich Ludendorff Erich Friedrich Wilhelm Ludendorff (; 9 April 1865 – 20 December 1937) was a German general and politician. He achieved fame during World War I (1914–1918) for his central role in the German victories at Battle of Liège, Liège and Battle ...
and later by
Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his suicide in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the lea ...
. Historians today take a more nuanced view of the causes of World War I than is expressed in the treaty. Article 231 was not intended to evaluate historical events, but to legally and morally legitimize the peace terms that were disadvantageous to the German Reich. Moreover, the German Empire was to be held financially liable for the damage to land and people that the German imperial troops had caused, especially in France. The Treaty of Versailles therefore laid the groundwork for the reparation claims against the German Reich, in an amount which was not initially determined. The representatives of the German Empire therefore protested Article 231 not merely for reasons of self-justification, but with the aim of undermining the moral basis of the enemy's demands as a whole. The
reparations Reparation(s) may refer to: Christianity * Reparation (theology), the theological concept of corrective response to God and the associated prayers for repairing the damages of sin * Restitution (theology), the Christian doctrine calling for re ...
burdened the new republican state; whilst large cash payments of reparations were not made during the period of hyperinflation, their indirect effects were one of several potential causes of the
hyperinflation In economics, hyperinflation is a very high and typically accelerating inflation. It quickly erodes the real versus nominal value (economics), real value of the local currency, as the prices of all goods increase. This causes people to minimiz ...
of 1921 to 1923.


Impact in Germany

Before the treaty was signed on 28 June 1919 the government of the
Reich ( ; ) is a German word whose meaning is analogous to the English word " realm". The terms and are respectively used in German in reference to empires and kingdoms. In English usage, the term " Reich" often refers to Nazi Germany, also ca ...
was already talking about an upheaval. President
Friedrich Ebert Friedrich Ebert (; 4 February 187128 February 1925) was a German politician of the Social Democratic Party of Germany, Social Democratic Party (SPD) who served as the first President of Germany (1919–1945), president of Germany from 1919 until ...
spoke on 6 February 1919 upon the opening of the Reichstag, of "revenge and plans for rape". Germany was stunned by the terms of the treaty. The government claimed it was a ploy to dishonor the German people. The impact of the treaty was first and foremost moral. The moral punishment was a heavier burden to bear than the material one. Treaty clauses that reduced territory, the economy, and sovereignty were seen as a means of making Germany morally grovel. The new Weimar Republic underscored the unprecedented injustice of the treaty, which was described as an act of violence and a . Article 231, the so-called "
War Guilt Clause Article 231, often known as the war guilt clause (), was the opening article of the reparations section of the Treaty of Versailles, which ended the First World War between the German Empire and the Allied and Associated Powers. The article did ...
", put the responsibility for the war on Germany. Germany was required under the treaty to return territories taken and redraw the border between Belgium and Germany. For Foreign Minister Brockdorff-Rantzau, recognition of Germany as having sole culpability was a lie. He resigned in June 1919 to avoid having to sign the treaty, which bore the seeds of its own rebuttal. Brockdorff-Rantzau had moreover said before the Allies at Versailles: "But also in the manner of waging war, Germany wasn't the only one to make mistakes, each nation made them. I do not wish to respond to accusations with accusations, but if we are asked to make amends, we must not forget the armistice." The violence with which the treaty was imposed forced the Germans to refute it. By its nature, the treaty deprived the Weimar Republic of any historical confrontation with its own history. The thesis of responsibility derived its strength from the fact that for the first time, a country's responsibility had been officially established.


Reactions


Calls for an International tribunal

While representatives of the Independent Social Democratic and the
Communist Communism () is a sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology within the socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered on common ownership of the means of production, di ...
parties tended to emphasize the moral war guilt of the imperial leaders and associated it with social rather than legal consequences, the provisional government in Berlin in early 1919 called for a "neutral" international court to exclude the question of war guilt from the upcoming Paris peace negotiations. With similar objectives, a number of national liberals, including
Max von Baden Maximilian, Margrave of Baden (''Maximilian Alexander Friedrich Wilhelm''; 10 July 1867 – 6 November 1929),Almanach de Gotha. ''Haus Baden (Maison de Bade)''. Justus Perthes, Gotha, 1944, p. 18, (French). also known as Max von Baden, was a Germ ...
, Paul Rohrbach,
Max Weber Maximilian Carl Emil Weber (; ; 21 April 186414 June 1920) was a German Sociology, sociologist, historian, jurist, and political economy, political economist who was one of the central figures in the development of sociology and the social sc ...
,
Friedrich Meinecke Friedrich Meinecke (October 20, 1862 – February 6, 1954) was a German historian with national liberal and antisemitic views who supported the Nazi invasion of Poland. As a representative of an older tradition, he criticized the Nazi regime ...
,
Ernst Troeltsch Ernst Peter Wilhelm Troeltsch (; ; 17 February 1865 – 1 February 1923) was a German liberal Protestant theologian, a writer on the philosophy of religion and the philosophy of history, and a classical liberal politician. He was a member of ...
,
Lujo Brentano Lujo Brentano (; ; 18 December 1844 – 9 September 1931) was a German economist and social reformer. Biography Lujo Brentano, born in Aschaffenburg into a German Catholic intellectual family (originally of Italian descent), attended school in ...
and Conrad Haußmann, founded a "Working Group for a Policy of Justice" (Heidelberg Association) on 3 February 1919. It attempted to clarify the question of guilt scientifically, and wanted to have the degree of culpability and violations of international law examined by an arbitration court. It combined this with criticism of the policy of the Entente powers toward Germany and fought their alleged "war guilt lie" even before the Treaty of Versailles was signed. A four-member delegation of the Association was to reject the Allied theories of war guilt on behalf of the Foreign Office and, to this end, handed over a "Memorandum on the Examination of the War Guilt Question" (also called the "Professorial Memorandum") in Versailles. After the Allies rejected the proposals and demanded instead the extradition of the "war-culpable individuals", Otto Landsknecht (
MSPD The Majority Social Democratic Party of Germany (German: , MSPD) was the name officially used by the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) between April 1917 and September 1922. The name differentiated it from the Independent Social Democratic ...
Bavaria) called for a national state tribunal on 12 March 1919, to try them. This was supported by only a few
SPD The Social Democratic Party of Germany ( , SPD ) is a social democratic political party in Germany. It is one of the major parties of contemporary Germany. Saskia Esken has been the party's leader since the 2019 leadership election together wi ...
representatives, including
Philipp Scheidemann Philipp Heinrich Scheidemann (26 July 1865 – 29 November 1939) was a German politician of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). In the first quarter of the 20th century he played a leading role in both his party and in the young Weimar ...
. As a result, ex-general
Erich Ludendorff Erich Friedrich Wilhelm Ludendorff (; 9 April 1865 – 20 December 1937) was a German general and politician. He achieved fame during World War I (1914–1918) for his central role in the German victories at Battle of Liège, Liège and Battle ...
attacked him violently and accused the government representatives of treason in the sense of the stab in the back myth. After the conditions of Versailles became known, they demanded the deletion of the paragraph on the extradition of the "war-guilty".


Landsberg project

On 12 March 1919 Minister of Justice Otto Landsberg proposed a bill to establish an international tribunal to analyze events before and during the war. This bill originated in a proposal made by the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs
Wilhelm Solf Wilhelm Heinrich Solf (5 October 1862 – 6 February 1936) was a German scholar, diplomat, jurist and statesman. Early life Solf was born into a wealthy and liberal family in Berlin. He attended secondary schools in Anklam, western Pomerania, a ...
on 29 November 1918. For Solf, the creation of a neutral commission was the only way to bring international peace, to create lasting guarantees against possible wars, and to restore the confidence of the people. Solf's proposal was based on the analysis of the political situation and the negotiations between the powers in July 1914 and the positions taken by their respective governments. Solf laid the foundations for a neutral scientific research that should eventually provide a "complete and faithful picture of reality". For this reason, he proposed to publish all the acts of the powers involved in the war, even going so far as wishing to question the personalities who determined the history of their own countries at the time of the outbreak of war as well as any witnesses having important evidence. Few social-democratic representatives supported the project, one exception being
Philipp Scheidemann Philipp Heinrich Scheidemann (26 July 1865 – 29 November 1939) was a German politician of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). In the first quarter of the 20th century he played a leading role in both his party and in the young Weimar ...
. The Landsberg project was rejected by the Allies, who demanded that the major German war criminals be handed over to them, and abandoned this idea in 1922.


Propaganda response

At the beginning of World War I, all of the main combatants published bound versions of diplomatic correspondence, with greater or lesser accuracy, partly for domestic consumption and also partly to influence other actors about the responsibility for the war. ''
The German White Book ''The German White Book'' () was a series of propaganda publications by the WWI German government. The full title of the 1914 version was "''The German White Book about the outbreak of the German-Russian-French war''" and documents German claims ...
'' was the first of these to appear, and was published in 1914, with numerous other
color books Color (or colour in Commonwealth English; see spelling differences) is the visual perception based on the electromagnetic spectrum. Though color is not an inherent property of matter, color perception is related to an object's light absorpti ...
appearing shortly thereafter by each of the major powers. After the conclusion of the war and the draconian aspects of the Treaty of Versailles, Germany launched various propaganda efforts to counter the imputation of guilt upon Germany by the victorious Allies, starting with the War Guilt Section (), run by the Foreign Ministry (). Two additional units were created in April 1921, in an effort to appear to be independent of the ministry: the Center for the Study of the Causes of the War (), and the Working Committee of German Associations . In addition, the Weimar National Assembly established an inquiry into guilt for the war on 20 August 1919. Its four subcommittees were tasked with examining the causes of the war, what brought about its loss, what missed opportunities for peace had presented themselves, and if international laws had been broken. The inquiry continued for thirteen years, until the Nazi Party victory in the election of July 1932. The inquiry's findings were hampered by lack of cooperation from both the government and the military and were in general watered down and deflected blame away from Germany.


War Guilt Section

The position of the SPD party majority, which was tied to its own approval of the war from 1914 to 1918 and left the imperial administrative apparatus almost untouched, continued to determine the domestic political reappraisal of the war. With an eye to the
Paris Peace Conference (1919–1920) The Paris Peace Conference was a set of formal and informal diplomatic meetings in 1919 and 1920 after the end of World War I, in which the victorious Allies set the peace terms for the defeated Central Powers. Dominated by the leaders of Br ...
, that began on 18 January 1919, by late 1918 the Foreign Office had already established the "Bülow Special Office" (), named after former Reich Chancellor
Bernhard von Bülow Bernhard Heinrich Karl Martin, Prince of Bülow ( ; 3 May 1849 – 28 October 1929) was a German politician who served as the chancellor of the German Empire, imperial chancellor of the German Empire and minister-president of Prussia from 1900 to ...
and which had been set up after the armistice. Its role was to collect documents from various sources, including the Bolsheviks, for use by to counter the Allied allegations at Versailles. The documents collected by the Special Bureau were used in German negotiations in Paris, as part of the "Professors' Memorandum" presented to the allies on 27 May 1919. It was probably written by von Bülow, but signed by the professors for "patriotic reasons". In 1919, this became the "War Guilt Section" (), and its purpose was to counter the war guilt accusation of the Allies. In the same way that color books did, the Office collected documents to counter accusations that Germany and Austria-Hungary had planned the world war and had "intentionally" disregarded the international
law of war The law of war is a component of international law that regulates the conditions for initiating war (''jus ad bellum'') and the conduct of hostilities (''jus in bello''). Laws of war define sovereignty and nationhood, states and territories, ...
. This was also intended to provide foreign historians and journalists with exculpatory material to influence public opinion abroad. The department also acted as an "internal censorship office", determined which publications were to be praised or criticized, and prepared official statements for the
Reich Chancellor The chancellor of Germany, officially the federal chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, is the head of the federal government of Germany. The chancellor is the chief executive of the Federal Cabinet and heads the executive branch. Th ...
on the subject of war guilt.
Theodor Schieder Theodor Schieder (11 April 1908 – 8 October 1984) was an influential mid-20th century German historian. Born in Oettingen, Western Bavaria, he relocated to Königsberg in East Prussia in 1934 at the age of 26.  . 56/sup> He joined th ...
later wrote about this: "In its origin, the research was virtually a continuation of the war by other means." However, documentation from the War Guilt Section was not considered by the delegates of the victorious powers at the Paris Conference or in the years that followed. The only concession from the Allies, was waiving their demand for extradition of the German "main war criminals" after 1922.


Center for the Study of the Causes of the War

The Center for the Study of the Causes of the War () was a "clearinghouse for officially desirable views on the outbreak of the war" and for circulating these views faster and more broadly. The center was created by the War Guilt Section in order to bring to the public documents which would unify public opinion towards the official line. It was prolific, with Wegerer writing more than 300 articles.


Working Committee of German Associations

The
Working Committee of German Associations The war guilt question () is the public debate that took place in Germany for the most part during the Weimar Republic, to establish Germany's share of responsibility in the causes of the First World War. Structured in several phases, and lar ...
() was an umbrella organization founded in 1921 by the German Foreign Ministry, as part of an attempt to gain control over German patriotic organizations which were calling for a revision of the Treaty of Versailles and its war guilt clause. It had a board of directors and a business office under Dr. Hans Draeger, and had about 2,000 member organizations in the 1920s. Its mission was to forge a uniform public opinion about the war by moderating extreme protestations of innocence on the right, and of acquiescence in accusations of guilt on the left. In practice, this amounted to silencing those admitting any guilt on the part of Germany, with the intent of strengthening German resolve at home to seek revision of the treaty. To further this aim, the Committee held seminars, conducted special workshops for the press, unions, and liaison personnel; and held exhibitions, conventions, and rallies. The Committee exploited and distributed the War Guilt Section's documentary collections, and circulated works of foreign revisionists from the United States and Britain. They did not solely address the question of war guilt, but also of reparations, armaments, colonies, the Rhineland issue, minorities, the
League of Nations The League of Nations (LN or LoN; , SdN) was the first worldwide intergovernmental organisation whose principal mission was to maintain world peace. It was founded on 10 January 1920 by the Paris Peace Conference (1919–1920), Paris Peace ...
, through guides, pamphlets, and broadsides. They used works of foreign revisionists to strengthen the case for exculpation at home, while striving to maintain a united front at home in order to influence revisionists abroad, such as the American
Harry Elmer Barnes Harry Elmer Barnes (June 15, 1889 – August 25, 1968) was an American historian who, in his later years, was known for his historical revisionism and Holocaust denial. After receiving a PhD at Columbia University in 1918 Barnes became a pro ...
.


Dealing with the issue and responsibilities


Potsdam ''Reichsarchiv''

From 1914 on, the German army exerted a great influence on German historiography. The
General Staff A military staff or general staff (also referred to as army staff, navy staff, or air staff within the individual services) is a group of officers, Enlisted rank, enlisted, and civilian staff who serve the commanding officer, commander of a ...
was responsible for writing war reports until 1918, when the Potsdam ', founded by
Hans von Seeckt Johannes "Hans" Friedrich Leopold von Seeckt (22 April 1866 – 27 December 1936) was a German military officer who served as Chief of Staff to August von Mackensen and was a central figure in planning the victories Mackensen achieved for German ...
, took over. The Foreign Office conducted the historiography of the Weimar Republic in parallel with the ''
Reichswehr ''Reichswehr'' (; ) was the official name of the German armed forces during the Weimar Republic and the first two years of Nazi Germany. After Germany was defeated in World War I, the Imperial German Army () was dissolved in order to be reshaped ...
'' and its administrative staff, who were largely opposed to democracy. The also worked to refute German responsibility for the war, and for war crimes. To this end, it produced technical reports for the parliamentary commission and published eighteen volumes on the subject of "The First World War 1914–1918" from 1925 until it was taken over by the
German Federal Archives The German Federal Archives or Bundesarchiv (BArch) (, lit. "Federal Archive") are the national archives of Germany. They were established at the current location in Koblenz in 1952. They are subordinated to the Federal Commissioner for Culture ...
() in 1956. Until 1933, the methods of historical criticism used were: * methodical interrogation of witnesses and analysis of reports from subordinate military services where collections of military mail become new historical sources. * Some of the criticism of the
Supreme Army Command The ''Oberste Heeresleitung'' (, "Supreme Army Command", OHL) was the highest echelon of command of the army (''Heer'') of the German Empire. In the latter part of World War I, the Third OHL assumed dictatorial powers and became the ''de facto'' ...
, especially against Helmuth von Moltke and
Erich von Falkenhayn Erich Georg Sebastian Anton von Falkenhayn (11 September 1861 – 8 April 1922) was a German general and Ottoman Field Marshal who served as Prussian Minister of War and Chief of the German General Staff during the First World War. Falkenha ...
, was officially admitted, which relieved their successors, Hindenburg and Ludendorff, of their responsibility. * The primacy of government policy and the traditional German attraction to "great leaders" contradicts, in part unintentionally, the logic of the legend which arose from fateful forces, of non-responsibility for the war. Nevertheless, some aspects remain to be studied, such as the influence of the economy, the masses, or ideology, on the course of the war. The evolution towards a "
total war Total war is a type of warfare that includes any and all (including civilian-associated) resources and infrastructure as legitimate military targets, mobilises all of the resources of society to fight the war, and gives priority to warfare ov ...
" is a concept that is still unknown.


Acknowledging the question

While most of the German media denounced the treaty, others believed that the question of responsibility for the war should be dealt with at a moral level. One example was ''
Die Weltbühne ''Die Weltbühne'' (, ‘The World Stage’) was a German weekly magazine for politics, art and the economy. It was founded in Berlin in 1905 as (‘The Theater’) by Siegfried Jacobsohn and was originally a theater magazine only. In 1913 it ...
'' ("World Stage"), a left-liberal journal founded in November 1918. According to its editor,
Siegfried Jacobsohn Siegfried Jacobsohn (28 January 1881–3 December 1926) was a German journalist, editor and theatre critic. In 1905 he founded the magazine ''Die Schaubühne'' (The Schaubühne) and in 1918 renamed it ''Die Weltbühne'' (The Weltbühne), of whi ...
, it is absolutely necessary to expose the faults of pre-war German policy and to acknowledge responsibility in order to achieve a prosperous democracy and a retreat from militarism. On 8 May 1919, a few days after the bloody repression of the
Bavarian Soviet Republic The Bavarian Soviet Republic (or Bavarian Council Republic), also known as the Munich Soviet Republic (), was a short-lived unrecognised socialist state in Bavaria during the German revolution of 1918–1919. A group of communists and anarchist ...
,
Heinrich Ströbel Heinrich Ströbel (7 June 1869 – 1 September 1944) was a Socialism, socialist Germany, German journalist, poet, publicist, Social Democratic Party of Germany, SPD and later Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany, USPD politician who was ...
wrote in ':
Carl von Ossietzky Carl von Ossietzky (; 3 October 1889 – 4 May 1938) was a German journalist and Pacifism, pacifist. He was the recipient of the 1935 Nobel Peace Prize for his work in exposing the clandestine German rearmament. As editor-in-chief of the magazin ...
and
Kurt Tucholsky Kurt Tucholsky (; 9 January 1890 – 21 December 1935) was a German journalist, satire, satirist, and writer. He also wrote under the pseudonyms Kaspar Hauser (after the Kaspar Hauser, historical figure), Peter Panter, Theobald Tiger and Ignaz Wr ...
, contributors to the review, supported the same point of view. On 23 July 1919, Tucholsky wrote a review of
Emil Ludwig Emil Ludwig (25 January 1881 – 17 September 1948) was a German-Swiss author, known for his biographies and study of historical "greats." Biography Emil Ludwig (originally named Emil Cohn) was born in Breslau (now part of Poland) on 25 Ja ...
's book ''July 14'': A pacifist movement was formed in the Weimar Republic, which demonstrated on 1 August, anti-war day. Its members came from different backgrounds: left-wing parties, liberal and anti-militarist groups, former soldiers, officers and generals. They took on the question of responsibility. The role of their women in their
pacifist Pacifism is the opposition to war or violence. The word ''pacifism'' was coined by the French peace campaigner Émile Arnaud and adopted by other peace activists at the tenth Universal Peace Congress in Glasgow in 1901. A related term is ''a ...
transformation is also worth noting. : Hans-Georg von Beerfelde, , Major , the lieutenant captains Hans Paasche and Heinz Kraschutzki, Colonel ,
Fritz von Unruh Fritz von Unruh (; 10 May 1885  – 28 November 1970) was a German expressionist dramatist, poet, and novelist. Biography Unruh was born in Koblenz, Germany. A general's son, he was an officer in the German army until 1912, when he ...
but also Generals Berthold Deimling,
Max von Montgelas Max or MAX may refer to: Animals * Max (American dog) (1983–2013), at one time purported to be the world's oldest living dog * Max (British dog), the first pet dog to win the PDSA Order of Merit (animal equivalent of the OBE) * Max (gorilla) (1 ...
and . At the first pacifist congress in June 1919, when a minority led by Ludwig Quidde repudiated the Treaty of Versailles, the
German League for Human Rights The German League for Human Rights () was founded on 16 November 1914 as the pacifist group ''Bund Neues Vaterland'' (New Fatherland League) by pacifist activist Lilli Jannasch and others. Among its members: Albert Einstein, Carl von Ossietzky, ...
and the made the question of responsibility a central theme. The independent Social Democrats and
Eduard Bernstein Eduard Bernstein (; 6 January 1850 – 18 December 1932) was a German Marxist theorist and politician. A prominent member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), he has been both condemned and praised as a "Revisionism (Marxism), revisi ...
were moving in the same direction and managed to change the representation put forward by the Social Democrats that war was a necessary condition for a successful social revolution. This led to the reunification of a minority of the party with the Social Democrats in 1924 and the inclusion of some pacifist demands in the 1925


Historians of the Sacred Union


Historians with minority views


Walter Fabian

Walter Fabian, journalist and social-democratic politician, published ''Die Kriegsschuldfrage'' in 1925. His book, although out of print a year after publication, was one of the books banned after Adolf Hitler came to power and examines the events that led to the war. The general opinion of German historians at the time was that responsibility for the outbreak was shared among various countries, of which Germany was only one, and that Germany had made no advance war preparations, certainly not for a long war. Fabian's book went against the general opinion, and acknowledged that Germany was largely to blame for the outbreak of war because of the attitude of its leading politicians.


= Pre-war policy

= Fabian's first field of research was the domination of pre-war politics by (), which Fabian characterizes as "Europe's downfall". The system of alliances set up in the summer of 1914 and its complexity made the outbreak of war inevitable.
Otto von Bismarck Otto, Prince of Bismarck, Count of Bismarck-Schönhausen, Duke of Lauenburg (; born ''Otto Eduard Leopold von Bismarck''; 1 April 1815 – 30 July 1898) was a German statesman and diplomat who oversaw the unification of Germany and served as ...
had recognized the usefulness of this policy at the time; Germany's central location in Europe pushed politicians like Bismarck to form alliances to avoid the nightmare scenario of possible encirclement. After having ensured the neutrality of Russia and Austria-Hungary in 1881 with the singing of the
League of the Three Emperors The League of the Three Emperors or Union of the Three Emperors () was an alliance between the German, Russian and Austro-Hungarian Empires, from 1873 to 1887. Chancellor Otto von Bismarck took full charge of German foreign policy from 1870 to h ...
, the
Reinsurance Treaty The Reinsurance Treaty was a diplomatic agreement between the German Empire and the Russian Empire that was in effect from 1887 to 1890. The existence of the agreement was not known to the general public, and as such, was only known to a handful ...
was signed in 1887. The isolation of France was the basis of Bismarckian policy in order to be able to ensure the security of the Reich.


= The July Crisis and mobilization

= The
assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand was one of the key events that led to World War I. Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir presumptive to the Austria-Hungary, Austro-Hungarian throne, and his wife, Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg ...
of Austria served as a catalyst for war and "reflected the sharp tension that prevailed between Austria and Hungary for a number of years" The carte blanche given by William II to the Austrian emperor had, according to Fabian, also other reasons, in particular the willingness of Germany to wage a preventive war for fear of Russian mobilization. In marginal notes on a report by German ambassador
Heinrich von Tschirschky Heinrich Leonhard von Tschirschky und Bögendorff (15 August 1858 – 15 November 1916) was a German diplomat and politician, who served as Foreign Secretary and head of the Foreign Office from 24 January 1906 to 25 October 1907. Early life Born ...
, William II wrote "The situation with the Serbs must be dealt with, and quickly. Walter Fabian judged the ultimatum addressed to
Serbia , image_flag = Flag of Serbia.svg , national_motto = , image_coat = Coat of arms of Serbia.svg , national_anthem = () , image_map = , map_caption = Location of Serbia (gree ...
to be impossible: "Austria wanted the ultimatum to be rejected; Germany, which according to Tirpitz already knew the main points of it on July 13, wanted the same thing." Fabian showed that Germany had an undeniable share of responsibility in the war. Even if the emperor and chancellor
Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg Theobald Theodor Friedrich Alfred von Bethmann Hollweg (29 November 1856 – 1 January 1921) was a German politician who was chancellor of the German Empire, imperial chancellor of the German Empire from 1909 to 1917. He oversaw the German entry ...
tried to defuse events at the last moment, the army threw its full weight into the effort in order to force the situation.
Chief of Staff The title chief of staff (or head of staff) identifies the leader of a complex organization such as the armed forces, institution, or body of persons and it also may identify a principal staff officer (PSO), who is the coordinator of the supportin ...
von Moltke The Moltke family is an old German noble family. The family was originally from Mecklenburg, but apart from Germany, some of the family branches also resided throughout Scandinavia. Members of the family have been noted as statesmen, high-ranking ...
sent a telegram in which he stated that Germany would mobilize, but William II asserted that there was no longer any reason to declare war since Serbia accepted the ultimatum. Various futile attempts at peace were made, such as the proposal of 27 July to hold a four-power conference.


= Supremacy of the army

= "In Germany, too, only the military point of view was decisive." The role of the army explains the mechanisms of the war guilt question. The roots of military supremacy are to be found in Prussia and in the system, established by Bismarck, in which Prussian militarism gained importance in the years after the unification of the Reich. As Helmuth von Moltke the Younger showed, in various wars such as the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, the Chief of the General Staff wielded great power. When war broke out, the military staff intended to emerge victorious within six weeks, thanks to the
Schlieffen Plan The Schlieffen Plan (, ) is a name given after the First World War to German war plans, due to the influence of Field Marshal Alfred von Schlieffen and his thinking on an invasion of France and Belgium, which began on 4 August 1914. Schlieffe ...
. Generals Hindenburg and Ludendorff, having come out of retirement, enjoyed great prestige. In 1916, Hindenburg was appointed Chief of Staff, and in 1917, a monumental statue was erected in Berlin in his honor. William II gradually lost his power, to the benefit of the two generals, who took the country in hand. Ludendorff proposed the institution of a compulsory labor service to increase yields, which he believed to be insufficient. Bethmann Hollweg refused, but the Patriotic Auxiliary Service was established on 5 December 1917. On 13 July 1917, the Chancellor was forced to resign under pressure from the two generals, on 14 July 1917. At the opening of armistice negotiations, Germany was in the grip of revolutionary uprisings. A commission, presided over by Matthias Erzberger, was set up to sign the armistice treaty at Armistice Clearing in
Compiègne Compiègne (; ) is a Communes of France, commune in the Oise Departments of France, department of northern France. It is located on the river Oise (river), Oise, and its inhabitants are called ''Compiégnois'' (). Administration Compiègne is t ...
. Instead of German military personnel carrying out the signing, civilian delegates, representing the Weimar Republic, which had been established nnly two days earlier, signed for Germany. As the generals refused to bear responsibility for the defeat, the general staff circulated an image of the republic as a symbol of defeat. This maneuver was all the more underhanded since Ludendorff had recognized the need for an armistice. Colonel Von Thaer also stated that on 1 October 1918 Ludendorff considered himself defeated. Whereas military propaganda held the socialists responsible for the defeat, Fabian asserted that the defeat was due to the failure of possible peace initiatives. On 21 December 1916, President
Woodrow Wilson Thomas Woodrow Wilson (December 28, 1856February 3, 1924) was the 28th president of the United States, serving from 1913 to 1921. He was the only History of the Democratic Party (United States), Democrat to serve as president during the Prog ...
made a peace proposal. It was refused by Germany, which did not want to hear about American mediation. On 31 January 1917, Chancellor Bethmann Hollweg sent a secret note to Wilson to achieve peace. The German conditions were too high for this initiative to be considered a serious one. Moreover, it would have meant renouncing submarine warfare, which the army did not want under any circumstances since it represented the possibility of destroying 40% of British tonnage. The army did not want a peace in which Germany would be the loser. One goal of their submarine warfare was to pressure Great Britain into suing for peace and allowing Germany to set its own conditions. The only consequence would be the entry of the United States into the war.


Further evolution

On 16 April 1922, the Treaty of Rapallo (1922), Treaty of Rapallo with Soviet Russia was signed, reducing Germany's isolation. Implementation of the treaty was considered treason by some on the far right, and one of the proponents of this policy, Walther Rathenau, was assassinated on 24 June 1922 in Berlin. Matthias Erzberger had been murdered a year earlier. After the 1922 Treaty of Rapallo, Germany renewed contacts with other countries. The borders that were defined by the Treaty of Versailles were also at the heart of the grievances of the German government, which requested their revision. In October 1925, the Locarno Treaties were signed. The signatories pledged to guarantee Germany's borders with France and Belgium, which meant that Germany accepted the loss of Alsace-Lorraine and Eupen-Malmedy. The war guilt question did not block its foreign policy. Foreign Minister
Gustav Stresemann Gustav Ernst Stresemann (; 10 May 1878 – 3 October 1929) was a German statesman during the Weimar Republic who served as Chancellor of Germany#First German Republic (Weimar Republic, 1919–1933), chancellor of Germany from August to November 1 ...
, a man of compromise but above all a defender of German interests, succeeded in getting Germany to join the League of Nations on 8 September 1926. If international relations were calmed, Franco-German relations were also calmed. Stresemann and Aristide Briand shared the 1926 Nobel Peace Prize for their work on the Locarno Treaties.


Decline of the Social Democrats

The refusal to admit the collapse of the German army gave way to the
stab-in-the-back myth The stab-in-the-back myth (, , ) was an antisemitic and anti-communist conspiracy theory that was widely believed and promulgated in Germany after 1918. It maintained that the Imperial German Army did not lose World War I on the battlefield, b ...
, which alleged that the government formed by the socialists betrayed the army by signing the armistice while still in a state of combat. German nationalism, incarnated by the defeated military, did not recognize the legitimacy of the Weimar Republic. This legend weakened the Social Democratic Party of Germany, Social Democratic Party through slander campaigns based on various allegations: namely, that the SDP not only betrayed the army and Germany by signing the armistice, but also repressed the Spartacist uprising, proclaimed the republic, and refused (for some of its members) to vote for war credits in 1914. Hindenburg spoke of the "division and relaxation of the will to victory" driven by internal party interests. Socialists are labeled, the "" ("the homeless"). Hindenburg continued to emphasize the innocence of the army, stating: "The good core of the Army is not to blame. Its performance is as admirable as that of the officer corps. This slander had electoral consequences for the Social Democrats. In the 1920 election, the percentage of SPD seats in the Reichstag (Weimar Republic), Reichstag was 21.6 per cent, down from 38 per cent in 1919. Right-wing parties gradually gained ground, such as the German National People's Party (DNVP), which won 15.1 per cent of the seats compared to only 10.3 per cent in 1919. For five years, the SPD was absent from all governments between 30 November 1923 and 29 June 1928. According to Jean-Pierre Gougeon, the decline of the SPD was due to the fact that it had not sufficiently democratized the country since the proclamation of the Weimar Republic. Judges, civil servants and high-ranking civil servants had not been replaced, and they often remained loyal to the emperor, all the more so since military propaganda blamed the republic for his abdication.


Rise of the National Socialists

Fabian foresaw the consequences that the war guilt question could have for the rise of extremism, which had been awakened in Germany as early as 1920 with the creation of the
Nazi Party The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party ( or NSDAP), was a far-right politics, far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported the ideology of Nazism. Its precursor ...
(NSDAP), which would make the Treaty of Versailles and the question of responsibility its trademark issue: "But the war guilt question can also lead to the poisoning of relations between peoples, it can become a weapon forged for the hand of international nationalism." The #Working Committee of German Associations, Working Committee of German Associations gave its support to Adolf Hitler as early as 1936, in particular through its president, Heinrich Schnee, for whom the "rescue of the fatherland" required "the joint action of all parties on national soil, including the NSDAP". From the second point of the NSDAP's 25-point program, Adolf Hitler demanded that the German people be treated in the same way as other nations and demanded the abrogation of the Treaties of Versailles and of Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye (1919), Saint-Germain-en-Laye. For him, "all German laws are nothing more than the anchoring of the peace treaties". Hitler took part in the war and was very much marked by the military collapse. Antisemitism also made its appearance as did attacks against personalities of Jewish origin, such as the one against Walther Rathenau or Maximilian Harden in 1922. Hyperinflation due to reparations, the economic downturn after the 1929 stock market crash, and the resulting unemployment became campaign themes for NSDAP supporters. The war guilt issue strengthened right-wing extremist movements and led to a radicalization of German society and eventually to the fall of the Weimar Republic.


National Socialism

Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his suicide in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the lea ...
claimed in Mein Kampf in 1925 that all Germans had been for the war: Nevertheless, he saw the initiative for the world war on the side of the Entente, so that the German war guilt for him consisted in the failure of a preventive war: In 1930, the Reichstag faction of the Nazi party demanded, as an amendment to the Law for the Protection of the Republic that the claim that Germany had caused World War I should be punished with the death penalty; and so should other acts such as conscientious objection, demands for disarmament, the "disparagement of living and dead war heroes," and the "disparagement of national symbols" as "military treason" This met with enthusiastic approval from some prominent legal scholars of the time, such as . The amendments were, however, not made. After the Nazi seizure of power in 1933, a "Führer word" by Hitler ended the German war guilt debate following the previously propagated "war guilt lie" and in line with British historians of the appeasement era: Alfred von Wegerer quoted Hitler's statement in the ''Berliner Monatshefte'' in December 1934 and linked it to the expectation that at last the "honor of the nation", which had been "most grievously violated" by the Treaty of Versailles, would be "fully restored". Under the new political guidelines, German historians no longer asked about war guilt but about the politically necessary steps to effectively prevent a new world war allegedly imposed from outside. Julius Hashagen wrote retrospectively about the ''Berliner Monatshefte'' in 1934: "... under the masterful and meritorious leadership of the journal and its staff," German war guilt research had made "considerable progress". Most military historians employed at the Reich Archives welcomed the suppression of the war guilt question in favor of the military war historiography that began in 1934, but the Nazi regime's measures, which they had initially welcomed, were soon directed against some of the historians associated with the journal. On 30 January 1937, Hitler revoked the German signature to the "war guilt article" 231 of the Treaty of Versailles. On 30 January 1939 he justified his war policy in the Reichstag (Nazi Germany), Reichstag with the announcement:
I want to be a prophet again today: If international financial Jewry inside and outside of Europe should succeed once more in plunging the peoples of the world into a war, the result would not be the Bolshevization of the earth and thus the victory of Jewry, but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe.
In the early summer of 1940, the Nazi regime presented the rapid conquest of Belgium and France as the true end of the First World War, transforming the defeat of 1918 into a delayed victory. Liberal historians like
Friedrich Meinecke Friedrich Meinecke (October 20, 1862 – February 6, 1954) was a German historian with national liberal and antisemitic views who supported the Nazi invasion of Poland. As a representative of an older tradition, he criticized the Nazi regime ...
also hailed the victories as a personal gratification.


In other countries

The public media battle didn't wait for the end of the war in countries involved in the war. As their armies began to clash, the opposing governments engaged in a media battle attempting to avoid blame for causing the war, and casting blame on other countries, through the publication of carefully selected documents, basically consisting of diplomatic exchanges, selected and ordered to cast them in the best light possible. Sometimes, according to other combatants, they were misleading, or even falsified. ''
The German White Book ''The German White Book'' () was a series of propaganda publications by the WWI German government. The full title of the 1914 version was "''The German White Book about the outbreak of the German-Russian-French war''" and documents German claims ...
'' appeared on 4 August 1914, and was the first such book to come out. It contains 36 documents. Within a week, most other combatant countries had published their own book, each named with a different color name. France held off until 1 December 1914, when they finally published their ''French Yellow Book, Yellow Book''. Other combatants in the war published similar books: the ''Blue Book of Britain'', the ''Orange Book of Russia'', the ''Yellow Book of France'', and the ''Austro-Hungarian Red Book'', the ''Belgian Grey Book'', and the ''Serbian Blue Book''.


France

France's war propaganda, which since 1914 had seen the country as long threatened by Germany and finally attacked under a pretext, initially continued to have the same effect after the end of the war: the official view of history was shaped by works such as the Senate Report by Émile Bourgeois and or former prime minister Raymond Poincaré's document ''How the 1914 War Broke Out''. France's government under
Georges Clemenceau Georges Benjamin Clemenceau (28 September 1841 – 24 November 1929) was a French statesman who was Prime Minister of France from 1906 to 1909 and again from 1917 until 1920. A physician turned journalist, he played a central role in the poli ...
had insisted in 1919 on the contractual establishment of sole guilt on the part of Germany and Austria-Hungary. The payment of reparations for war damage incurred and the permanent weakening of the arch-enemy were the principal motives of this attitude, and were taken up by the public: '"The Krauts will pay for everything!" This was perceived by the French public not only as a justification for reparations, but also as a demonstrative statement of political and moral guilt. The Socialists, too, saw only a partial responsibility on the part of the French in the war and also insisted on Germany's civil liability under Article 231 of the Treaty of Versailles. When Germany was about to be admitted to the
League of Nations The League of Nations (LN or LoN; , SdN) was the first worldwide intergovernmental organisation whose principal mission was to maintain world peace. It was founded on 10 January 1920 by the Paris Peace Conference (1919–1920), Paris Peace ...
in 1925, war guilt was again discussed in France. At that time, the French Yellow Book and the Senate Report were reissued. In contrast, Pierre Renouvin's 1925 book on the July Crisis, ''Origines immédiates de la guerre'' demonstrated falsifications in the Yellow Book, but received little attention. Parallel to the German attempts to show documentary evidence of the innocence of the German Empire in the outbreak of war, the ''Documents Diplomatiques Français (1871-1914)'' were published by the French in three series from 1929 to 1959. At the German Historians Conferences of the 1950s, German and French historians jointly advocated a version of Lloyd George's thesis that none of the governments involved had deliberately sought war. In his 1993 book, Mark B. Hayne advanced the thesis of substantial French complicity. In order to thwart the
Schlieffen Plan The Schlieffen Plan (, ) is a name given after the First World War to German war plans, due to the influence of Field Marshal Alfred von Schlieffen and his thinking on an invasion of France and Belgium, which began on 4 August 1914. Schlieffe ...
, Poincaré and his associates had pushed for the quickest possible Russian mobilization. Stefan Schmidt came to a similar conclusion in 2009 in his research in the Paris archives. The Fischer debate triggered a self-critical view in France of French policy in the years after 1914. criticized Fischer for considering German war aims in isolation from those of the other powers and for neglecting the interactions involved. He also put into perspective the importance of Bethmann Hollweg's ''Septemberprogramm'', on which Fischer based his thesis of continuous German planning for hegemony. A position counter to this was held by Marc Ferro. Following Fischer, and also French and Russian sources, Ferro found the chief responsibility lay with Germany and secondarily with the Entente powers. Germany had the most pronounced desire to wage war.


Great Britain

Until about 1955, the British debate on war guilt fluctuated between a determination of Germany's sole guilt and an equal share of war guilt, or innocence, of all the powers involved. The change in historical viewpoint was strongly influenced by current policies toward Germany. In the summer of 1914, opinions on war guilt in Britain were in part critical of the government and pacifist, partly fatalist or Social Darwinist. After the German invasion of Belgium, Germany alone was considered to have caused the war, even by Prime Minister H. H. Asquith. Thus Leonard Hobhouse, who only shortly earlier had accused the government of not having done enough to prevent the war, now pleaded for "national unity." Oxford historians also placed sole blame on Germany in 1914 and stressed that no propaganda was involved in taking an uncritical view of the Triple Entente's
color books Color (or colour in Commonwealth English; see spelling differences) is the visual perception based on the electromagnetic spectrum. Though color is not an inherent property of matter, color perception is related to an object's light absorpti ...
. William G. S. Adams, who saw the war as a "struggle of liberty against militarism," tried to prove that Germany had deliberately risked a "European conflagration" in order to force England to honor its "moral obligations" to France and Belgium. Analogous to the German document collections, eleven volumes of ''British Documents on the Origin of the war 1898-1914'' were published in Britain from 1926 to 1938. Germany's welcome entry into the League of Nations then triggered a turnaround. Now, British historians such as Paul Kennedy, Michael Howard, and Jonathan Steinberg took into account hitherto neglected economic, social-historical, and military-historical aspects as well as the role of Austria-Hungary. John Gooch, in ''Recent Revelations of European Diplomacy,'' denied that "anyone wanted the war at all." William H. Dawson, who shortly before had seen "German militarism" as the sole cause of the war, now singled out the Alliance system as the culprit. Raymond Beazley wrote as late as 1933: British historians mostly agreed with Fischer's main theses, but subsequently began a nuanced and critical examination of Britain's own responsibility for the First World War. For example, James Joll wrote the following in the introduction to ''Germany's Aims in the First World War'', Carlisle A. Macartney's translation of Fischer's : In 1999, historian Niall Ferguson argued in his book ''The Pity of War'' that the world war was avoidable with the crisis management available to European diplomacy at the time, and that only Britain's entry into the conflict escalated it to a pan-European war. He also argued the Anglo-German naval arms race that influenced Britain's entry into the war was exacerbated by several factors, including the Royal Navy's decision to build dreadnoughts in 1905 and British reluctance to negotiate with Germany. As soon as Germany was no longer considered its number one military and economic competitor, British policy sought alliances with France and Russia. These diplomatic manoeuvres led to the Germans going from perceiving the British as neutral to fearing being encircled; thus strengthening Germany's readiness for war. Ferguson argued Britain's alliances with France and Russia led the German government to perceive war as inevitable after the Russian general mobilization. He denied a significant role of militarism and imperialism as a factor, as well as any significant conflict over colonialism, colonial interests between Germany and Great Britain. However, these theses were mostly rejected despite praise for their economic analyses. Thomas Kühne called Ferguson a historical revisionist. Military historian John Keegan also saw World War I in 1999 as caused not by deliberate action on the part of the powers but by the fatal automatism of the alliances: Like Keith M. Wilson and Michael Brock (historian), Michael Brock, Keegan doubted Germany's primary culpability in the outbreak of war. These historians point to a willingness of the British public to intervene, and the rather confrontational policies of the Foreign Office. According to John Leslie, the real authors of the war were not to be sought solely in Berlin, as the Fritz Fischer school had always maintained, but also in Vienna. In his view, a group of "hawks" in the Austrian Foreign Ministry had unleashed the war. The Scottish military historian Hew Strachan emphasizes the economic competition between Germany and England, Germany's isolation in foreign policy, and what he sees as a disastrous effect of the policy of alliances: According to Paul W. Schroeder, the German fears of encirclement in 1914 were based on reality and resulted from a lack of willingness on the part of Germany and Austria-Hungary to carry out social and political reforms: Australian historian Christopher Clark also disagreed in his 2012 study ''The Sleepwalkers''.


Soviet Union

Following Lenin's theory of imperialism, the Soviet Union's state-imposed view of history assigned the blame for the war to all "capitalist states" and allowed scarcely any independent research into the causes of the war. Beginning in about 1925, attempts were made to exonerate the tsarist system from the central blame that imperial German and Weimar era nationalist historians had assigned to it. To facilitate the view, the Soviet Union published files from the tsarist archives. Soviet historian Igor Bestushev disputed the attempt at national exoneration and stated in opposition to Fritz Fischer:
The examination of the facts shows, on the contrary, that the policy of all the Great Powers, including Russia, objectively led to the World War. The responsibility for the war is borne by the ruling circles of all the Great Powers without exception, notwithstanding the fact that the governments of Germany and Austria, which initiated the war, displayed greater activity because Germany was better prepared for war and Austria's internal crisis was steadily worsening, and notwithstanding the additional fact that the decision on the timing of the war was for all practical purposes ultimately taken by Germany and England.
Marxism's models for explaining guilt for the war assign a major part of the blame for its outbreak to economic factors and big banks. In 1976 Reinhold Zilch criticized the "clearly aggressive aims of Reichsbank President Rudolf Havenstein on the eve of war", while in 1991 Willibald Gutsche argued that in 1914, "in addition to the coal and steel monopolists, [...] influential representatives of the big banks and electrical and shipping monopolies were also not inclined towards peace". This view is disputed by individual studies on the concrete behavior of the business community before the war. Nevertheless, economic interests and structures are also recognized as a factor in the war by historians researching traditional diplomatic history (e.g. Imanuel Geiss).


United States

Academic work in the English-speaking world in the later 1920s and 1930s, blamed the participants more or less equally. In the early 1920s, several American historians opposed to the terms of the
Treaty of Versailles The Treaty of Versailles was a peace treaty signed on 28 June 1919. As the most important treaty of World War I, it ended the state of war between Germany and most of the Allies of World War I, Allied Powers. It was signed in the Palace ...
such as Sidney Bradshaw Fay, Charles A. Beard and
Harry Elmer Barnes Harry Elmer Barnes (June 15, 1889 – August 25, 1968) was an American historian who, in his later years, was known for his historical revisionism and Holocaust denial. After receiving a PhD at Columbia University in 1918 Barnes became a pro ...
produced works that claimed that Germany was not responsible for war. Article 231 of the Treaty of Versailles, which had seemingly assigned all responsibility for the war to Germany and thus justified the Allied claim to
reparations Reparation(s) may refer to: Christianity * Reparation (theology), the theological concept of corrective response to God and the associated prayers for repairing the damages of sin * Restitution (theology), the Christian doctrine calling for re ...
, was invalid. A feature of American "revisionist" historians of the 1920s was a tendency to treat Germany as a victim of the war and the Allies as the aggressors. The objective of Fay and Barnes was to put an end to reparations imposed on Germany, by attempting to prove what they regarded as the moral invalidity of Article 231. The exiled Wilhelm praised Barnes upon meeting him in 1926. According to Barnes, Wilhelm "was happy to know that I did not blame him for starting the war in 1914. He disagreed with my view that Russia and France were chiefly responsible. He held that the villains of 1914 were the international Jews and Free Masons who, he alleged, desired to destroy national states and the Christian religion." The German Foreign Ministry lavished special "care" upon the efforts of both Fay and Barnes with generous use of the German archives, and in the case of Barnes, research funds provided by the German government. The German government liked Fay's ''The Origin of the War'' so much that it purchased hundreds of copies in various languages to hand out for free at German embassies and consulates. The German government allowed books that were pro-German in their interpretation, such as Barnes's ''The Genesis of the World War'', to be translated into German while books such as Bernadotte Schmitt's ''The Coming of War 1914'' that were critical of German actions in 1914, were not permitted to be published in Germany.


Austria

For Emperor Franz Joseph I, the responsibilities for military action against Serbia were clear at the end of July 1914: "The machinations of a hateful adversary compel Me, in order to preserve the honor of My Monarchy and to protect its position of power ... to take up the sword." However, the Serbian government had sent Vienna a warning in the run-up to the Sarajevo attack, which was not taken seriously. "We started the war, not the Germans and even less the Entente," was the assessment of Leopold Andrian, a former diplomat of the Danube Monarchy, shortly after the war. It had been "about the existence of the fatherland". Chancellor Karl Renner, who headed the Austrian negotiating delegation to Peace Treaty of St. Germain, St. Germain in 1919, took a similar view: The delegation made a confession of war guilt. German historian and expert on the July Crisis Annika Mombauer agrees with this, but also sees Germany as responsible: "...the main part of the responsibility for the outbreak of the war must still be situated in the decisions of Austria-Hungary and Germany".


Post-World War II


West Germany

After the fall of the Nazi regime, conservative historians from the time of the
Weimar Republic The Weimar Republic, officially known as the German Reich, was the German Reich, German state from 1918 to 1933, during which it was a constitutional republic for the first time in history; hence it is also referred to, and unofficially proclai ...
dominated the debates in West Germany by spreading the same theses as before. For example, Gerhard Ritter wrote that "A politico-military situation held our diplomacy prisoner at the time of the great world crisis of July 1914." In , Friedrich Meinecke supports the same idea. Foreign research, such as that of the Italian Luigi Albertini, is not taken into account. In his three-volume critical work, published in 1942-1943 (), Albertini comes to the conclusion that all European governments had a share of responsibility in the outbreak of the war, while pointing to German pressure on
Austria-Hungary Austria-Hungary, also referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Dual Monarchy or the Habsburg Monarchy, was a multi-national constitutional monarchy in Central Europe#Before World War I, Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. A military ...
as the decisive factor in the latter's bellicose behaviour in
Serbia , image_flag = Flag of Serbia.svg , national_motto = , image_coat = Coat of arms of Serbia.svg , national_anthem = () , image_map = , map_caption = Location of Serbia (gree ...
. In September 1949, Ritter, who became the first president of the stated in his opening statement that the fight against the war guilt question at the time of the Weimar Republic finally led to the worldwide success of German theses, which he still maintained in his 1950 essay: "The German thesis that there could be no question of a long-prepared invasion of their neighbours by the Central Powers soon became generalized within the huge international specialist research community."


Fischer controversy

The Hamburg historian
Fritz Fischer Fritz Fischer may refer to: * Fritz Fischer (historian) (1908–1999), German historian * Fritz Fischer (medical doctor) (1912–2003), Waffen-SS doctor * Fritz Fischer (biathlete) Friedrich "Fritz" Fischer (born 22 September 1956) is a former ...
was the first to research all accessible archive holdings according to the war aims of the Central Powers before and during the war. In October 1959 his essay about German war objectives was published. response in (Historical Journal) marked the beginning of a controversy that lasted until about 1985 and permanently changed the national conservative consensus on the question of war guilt. Fischer's book ''Germany's Aims in the First World War'' drew conclusions from detailed analysis of the long-term causes of war and their connection the foreign and German colonialism, German colonial policy of
Kaiser Wilhelm II Wilhelm II (Friedrich Wilhelm Viktor Albert; 27 January 18594 June 1941) was the last German Emperor and King of Prussia from 1888 until his abdication in 1918, which marked the end of the German Empire as well as the Hohenzollern dynasty ...
. Initially, right-wing conservative authors such as Giselher Wirsing accused Fischer of pseudo-history and, like , tried to uphold the
Supreme Army Command The ''Oberste Heeresleitung'' (, "Supreme Army Command", OHL) was the highest echelon of command of the army (''Heer'') of the German Empire. In the latter part of World War I, the Third OHL assumed dictatorial powers and became the ''de facto'' ...
's hypothesis of Russian war guilt. Imanuel Geiss supported Fischer in 1963–64 with a two-volume collection of documents, referring in it to the destruction of important files from the July crisis in Berlin shortly after the war. After a battle of speeches lasting several hours at the 1964 Historians' Day, Fischer's main rival Andreas Hillgruber conceded considerable responsibility of the German leadership under Chancellor Bethmann Hollweg for the outbreak of the war, but continued to deny the Empire's continuous striving for hegemony before and during the war. Gerhard Ritter stuck to his view of a foreign policy "encirclement" () of Germany by the Entente powers, which in his view, had rendered any German striving for hegemony as purely illusory adventurism. German-American historian noted, when Fischer published his findings in 1961, that Fischer instantly rendered obsolete every book previously published on the subject of responsibility for the First World War, and German Septemberprogramm, aims in that war. Fischer's own position on German responsibility for World War I has become known as the "Fischer thesis." Since around 1970, Fischer's work has stimulated increased research into the socio-economic causes of war. These include the orientation toward a war economy, the imperial monarchy's inability to reform domestic policy, and domestic competition over resources.


Contemporary research

Since German reunification in 1990, archives from the former German Democratic Republic, GDR and the Soviet Union have also been evaluated. Prompted by Fischer's theses, researchers increasingly devoted themselves to German policy in the states occupied by the Kaiserreich.
Wolfgang J. Mommsen Wolfgang Justin Mommsen (; 5 November 1930 – 11 August 2004) was a German historian. He was the twin brother of historian Hans Mommsen and the great-grandson of Theodor Mommsen. Biography Wolfgang Mommsen was born in Marburg, the son of the ...
presented concrete plans for the forced expulsion and resettlement of Poles and Jews and, in 1981, blamed government action on the nationalism of important interest groups. Wolfgang Steglich, on the other hand, used foreign archival material to emphasize German-Austrian efforts to achieve an amicable or separate peace since 1915, and lack of crisis management by Germany's opponents. Thomas Nipperdey contradicted sociohistorical explanations in 1991 with his view that the "war, the German readiness for war and the crisis policy" were not a consequence of the German social system. He modified Lloyd George's "slide into war" thesis and referred to disastrous military plans and war decisions of the executive even in parliamentary states. Since the Fischer controversy died down, according to Jürgen Kocka (2003) and
Gerhard Hirschfeld Gerhard Hirschfeld (born 19 September 1946 in Plettenberg, Germany) is a German historian and author. From 1989 to 2011, he was director of the Stuttgart-based Bibliothek für Zeitgeschichte / Library of Contemporary History, and has been a pr ...
(2004), Germany's decisive contribution to the outbreak of war in 1914 has been widely acknowledged, but explained in a . wrote in 2003 that Germany had largely sabotaged efforts at diplomatic deescalation and therefore bore a large share of the blame. 2013 saw the publication of Christopher Clark's ''The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914'', and Herfried Münkler, ', two works that disputed whether Germany contributed any more to the outbreak of the Great War in 1914 through its actions or inactions than the other great powers did. Since their appearance, the debate has once again been considered open, according to some scholars. More recent publications by and large stick to the earlier view, namely that Germany contributed significantly to the fact "that as the crisis widened, alternative strategies for de-escalation did not bear fruit ... Given Germany's policy until 23 July to exert pressure on the Viennese government to take advantage of the situation and to deal with the Serbs, Germany undoubtedly did have a special responsibility". the Central Powers bearing primary responsibility for the outbreak of the war, even if it could not be blamed on them alone. The public debate on longer-term causes of the war continues. Today, it relates primarily to the following topics: * the question of political room for maneuver, or the inevitability of rearmament and the policy of alliances before the war. With this question, the earlier classification of the era as imperialist became more varied and nuanced. In most cases, the common culpability of all European hegemonic powers is highlighted, without diminishing the triggering moves by Germany and Austria. * the role of domestic politics, social tensions, and economic interests in the escalation of foreign policy among all participating states * the role of mob mentality and war experiences and their interaction with war propaganda. This is addressed in the Bruno Thoss essay. * the role of military leaders and military interests that scuttled efforts to de-escalate and to negotiate a peace. * the question of a possible German Sonderweg, German ''Sonderweg'' into the 20th century * the question of influential factors that possibly made the First World War the necessary conditions and preparatory groundwork for the Second World War and its crimes and significantly contributed to the outbreak and course of the Second World War: Thus, many speak of the "Great seminal catastrophe of the 20th century";
Raymond Aron Raymond Claude Ferdinand Aron (; ; 14 March 1905 – 17 October 1983) was a French philosopher, sociologist, political scientist, historian and journalist, one of France's most prominent thinkers of the 20th century. Aron is best known for his ...
sees both world wars as a new "Thirty Years' War". Anne Lipp's (''Shaping Opinion in War'') analyzed how soldiers, military leaders, and wartime propaganda reacted to the front-line experience of mass destruction. Attempts had been made to refute doubts about the defensive character of the war by placing it in an aggressive-nationalist context. offered front-line soldiers heroic images for identification, in order to redirect their horror, and their fears of death and defeat into the opposite of what they had experienced. To the "homeland," the "front-line fighters" were held up as role models to prevent insubordination, desertion, public agitation against a war of conquest, and maintaining solidarity of soldiers and civilians against it. This had created a persistent, mass mentality that set the course for the postwar success of war-glorifying myths such as the
stab-in-the-back myth The stab-in-the-back myth (, , ) was an antisemitic and anti-communist conspiracy theory that was widely believed and promulgated in Germany after 1918. It maintained that the Imperial German Army did not lose World War I on the battlefield, b ...
. In 2002, the historians and emphasized the opportunities for détente between the major European powers that had existed until the assassination in Sarajevo which had not been exploited. Other historians disagreed: in 2003, Volker Berghahn argued that the structural causes of the war, which went beyond individual government decisions, could be found in the alliance system of the European great powers and their gradual formation of blocs. Like Fischer and others, he too saw the naval arms race and competition in the conquest of colonies as major factors by which all of Europe's great powers contributed to the outbreak of war, albeit with differences in degree. He also considered domestic minority conflicts in multinational Austria. Nevertheless, he named the small leadership circles, especially in Berlin and Vienna, as the main culprits for the fact that the July crisis of 1914 led to war. The decision makers had shown a high willingness to take risks and at the same time had aggravated the crisis with mismanagement and miscalculations, until the only solution seemed to them to be the "flight forward" into war with the other great powers.Book review of Volker Berghahn's ''Der Erste Weltkrieg'' ("The First World War"), in


See also

* Article 231 of the Treaty of Versailles * Austria victim theory * Causes of World War I ** American entry into World War I ** Austro-Hungarian entry into World War I ** British entry into World War I ** French entry into World War I ** German entry into World War I ** Italian entry into World War I ** Japanese entry into World War I ** Ottoman entry into World War I ** Russian entry into World War I ** History of the Balkans ** Paris Peace Conference, 1919 * Centre for the Study of the Causes of the War * Commission of Responsibilities * European Civil War * German collective guilt * German question * Germany's Aims in the First World War * Historiography of Germany **
Harry Elmer Barnes Harry Elmer Barnes (June 15, 1889 – August 25, 1968) was an American historian who, in his later years, was known for his historical revisionism and Holocaust denial. After receiving a PhD at Columbia University in 1918 Barnes became a pro ...
** Hermann Lutz ** Max Montgelas ** Pierre Renouvin * Historiography of the causes of World War I * International relations (1814–1919) * International relations (1919–1939) * Manifesto of the Ninety-Three *
Paris Peace Conference (1919–1920) The Paris Peace Conference was a set of formal and informal diplomatic meetings in 1919 and 1920 after the end of World War I, in which the victorious Allies set the peace terms for the defeated Central Powers. Dominated by the leaders of Br ...
* Propaganda in World War I * "War of Illusions" * World War I reparations


References


Notes


Citations


Works cited

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * ''translated from:'' ** * * * . * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *


Further reading


Pre-WW I events

* Jacques Benoist-Méchin, ''Histoire de l'Armée allemande'', Robert Laffont, Paris, 1984. (in French) * Volker Berghahn, ''Der Erste Weltkrieg'' (Wissen in der Beck´schen Reihe). C.H. Beck, München 2003, (in German) * Jean-Pierre Cartier, ''Der Erste Weltkrieg'', Piper, München 1984. (in German) * , ''Les Causes de la Première Guerre mondiale. Essai d'historiographie'', Paris, 1997. (in French) * Niall Ferguson, ''Der falsche Krieg''; DVA, Stuttgart 1999, (in German) * * Imanuel Geiss, ''Der lange Weg in die Katastrophe, Die Vorgeschichte des Ersten Weltkrieges 1815–1914'', Piper, München 1990, (in German) * James Joll, Gordon Martel: ''The Origins of the First World War'' Longman 2006, (in English) * Paul Kennedy, Paul M. Kennedy, ''The Rise of the Anglo-German Antagonism 1860–1914''; Allen & Unwin, London 1980, (in English) * Robert K. Massie, ''Die Schalen des Zorns. Großbritannien, Deutschland und das Heraufziehen des Ersten Weltkrieges'', Frankfurt/Main (S. Fischer) 1993, (in German) *
Wolfgang J. Mommsen Wolfgang Justin Mommsen (; 5 November 1930 – 11 August 2004) was a German historian. He was the twin brother of historian Hans Mommsen and the great-grandson of Theodor Mommsen. Biography Wolfgang Mommsen was born in Marburg, the son of the ...
, ''Die Urkatastrophe Deutschlands. Der Erste Weltkrieg 1914–1918'' (= Handbuch der deutschen Geschichte 17). Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2002, (in German) * Sönke Neitzel, ''Kriegsausbruch. Deutschlands Weg in die Katastrophe 1900-1914'', München 2002, (in German) * Pierre Renouvin, ''Les Buts de guerre du gouvernement français. 1914-1915'', in Revue historique 1966 * Pierre Renouvin, ''Les Origines immédiates de la guerre'', Paris, 1925 * Pierre Renouvin, ''La Crise européenne et la Grande Guerre'', Paris, 1939 * Gerhard Ritter, ''Staatskunst und Kriegshandwerk. Band 3: Die Tragödie der Staatskunst'' München, 1964 (in German) * Volker Ullrich, ''Die nervöse Großmacht. Aufstieg und Untergang des deutschen Kaiserreichs 1871–1918'', Frankfurt/Main (S. Fischer) 1997, (in German)


Contemporary publications from the Weimar Republic

* Camille Bloch/Pierre Renouvin, « L'article 231 du traité de Versailles. Sa genèse et sa signification », in ''Revue d'Histoire de la Guerre mondiale'', janvier 1932 * Hajo Holborn, ''Kriegsschuld und Reparationen auf der Pariser Friedenskonferenz von 1919'', B. G. Teubner, Leipzig/Berlin 1932 (in German) * Heinrich Kanner, ''Der Schlüssel zur Kriegsschuldfrage'', München 1926 (in German) * Max Graf Montgelas, ''Leitfaden zur Kriegsschuldfrage'', W. de Gruyter & co. Berlin/Leipzig 1923 (in German) * :fr:Mathias Morhardt, ''Die wahren Schuldigen. Die Beweise, das Verbrechen des gemeinen Rechts, das diplomatische Verbrechen'', Leipzig 1925 (in German) * Raymond Poincaré/René Gerin, ''Les Responsabilités de la guerre. Quatorze questions par René Gerin. Quatorze réponses par Raymond Poincaré.'', Payot, Paris, 1930 *
Heinrich Ströbel Heinrich Ströbel (7 June 1869 – 1 September 1944) was a Socialism, socialist Germany, German journalist, poet, publicist, Social Democratic Party of Germany, SPD and later Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany, USPD politician who was ...
, ''Der alte Wahn'', dans : ''Weltbühne'' 8 mai 1919 (in German) *
Max Weber Maximilian Carl Emil Weber (; ; 21 April 186414 June 1920) was a German Sociology, sociologist, historian, jurist, and political economy, political economist who was one of the central figures in the development of sociology and the social sc ...
,''Zum Thema der „Kriegsschuld"'', 1919; ''Zur Untersuchung der Schuldfrage'', 1919 (in German)


Debate descriptions

* Fritz Dickmann, ''Die Kriegsschuldfrage auf der Friedenskonferenz von Paris 1919'', München 1964 (Beiträge zur europäischen Geschichte 3) (in German) * Michael Dreyer, Oliver Lembcke, ''Die deutsche Diskussion um die Kriegsschuldfrage 1918/19'', Duncker & Humblot GmbH (1993), (in German) * Jacques Droz, ''L'Allemagne est-elle responsable de la Première Guerre mondiale ?'', in L'Histoire, 72, November 1984 * Sidney B. Fay, ''The Origins of the World War'', 2 Bände, New York 1929 (in English) * Hermann Kantorowicz, Imanuel Geiss, ''Gutachten zur Kriegsschuldfrage 1914'', Europäische Verlagsanstalt 1967, ASIN B0000BRV2R (in German) * * * Georges-Henri Soutou, ''L'Or et le Sang. Les Buts de guerre économiques de la Première Guerre mondiale'', Fayard, Paris, 1989


Fischer Controversy

* Volker Berghahn, "Die Fischer-Kontroverse - 15 Jahre danach", in: Geschichte und Gesellschaft 6 (1980), pp. 403–419. (in German) * . * Klaus Große Kracht, Die zankende Zunft. Historische Kontroversen in Deutschland nach 1945, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2005, (Recension de Manfred Kittel, Institut für Zeitgeschichte, München-Berlin) (in German) * Wolfgang Jäger, ''Historische Forschung und politische Kultur in Deutschland. Die Debatte 1914–1980 über den Ausbruch des Ersten Weltkrieges'', Göttingen 1984. (in German) * Konrad H. Jarausch, Der nationale Tabubruch. Wissenschaft, Öffentlichkeit und Politik in der Fischer-Kontroverse, dans : Martin Sabrow, Ralph Jessen, Klaus Große Kracht (Hrsg.): Zeitgeschichte als Streitgeschichte. Große Kontroversen seit 1945, Beck 2003, (in German) * John Anthony Moses, The Politics of Illusion. The Fischer Controversy in German Historiography, London 1975 (Nachdruck 1985), (in English) * Gregor Schöllgen, Griff nach der Weltmacht? 25 Jahre Fischer-Kontroverse, dans : Historisches Jahrbuch 106 (1986), pp. 386–406. (in German) * Matthew Stibbe, The Fischer Controversy over German War Aims in the First World War and its Reception by East German Historians, 1961–1989. Dans : The Historical Journal 46/2003, pp. 649–668. (in English)


Recent analyses

* . * * Stig Förster (dir.), ''An der Schwelle zum Totalen Krieg. Die militärische Debatte über den Krieg der Zukunft 1919–1939'' (= Krieg in der Geschichte 13). Ferdinand Schöningh Verlag, Paderborn 2002, (in German) * Jürgen Förster, ''Geistige Kriegführung in Deutschland 1919-1945'' (in German) * David Fromkin et William-Oliver Desmond, ''Le Dernier Été de l'Europe : Qui a déclenché la Première Guerre mondiale ?'', Paris, 2004 * Christoph Gnau, ''Die deutschen Eliten und der Zweite Weltkrieg'', PapyRossa-Verlag, Köln 2007, (in German) * * * Markus Pöhlmann, ''Kriegsgeschichte und Geschichtspolitik: Der Erste Weltkrieg. Die amtliche Militärgeschichtsschreibung 1914–1956'' (= Krieg in der Geschichte 12). Ferdinand Schöningh Verlag, Paderborn 2002, (in German) * Jörg Richter, ''Kriegsschuld und Nationalstolz. Politik zwischen Mythos und Realität'', Katzmann, 2003 (in German) * Bruno Thoß et Hans-Erich Volkmann (dir.), ''Erster Weltkrieg – Zweiter Weltkrieg: Ein Vergleich. Krieg, Kriegserlebnis, Kriegserfahrung in Deutschland.'' Ferdinand Schöningh Verlag, Paderborn 2002, (in German)


Other aspects

* Gerhard Besier, ''Krieg - Frieden - Abrüstung. Die Haltung der europäischen und amerikanischen Kirchen zur Frage der deutschen Kriegsschuld 1914-1933'', Göttingen 1982 (in German) * Britta Bley, ''Wieviel Schuld verträgt ein Land?'' CD-ROM, Fachverlag für Kulturgeschichte und deren Vermittlung, Bielefeld 2005, (in German) * * Jörg Richter, Kriegsschuld und Nationalstolz. Politik zwischen Mythos und Realität, Katzmann, 2003 * Mombauer, Annika. "Guilt or Responsibility? The Hundred-Year Debate on the Origins of World War I." ''Central European History'' 48.4 (2015): 541–564. * * * {{Authority control Aftermath of World War I in Germany Causes of World War I, * Guilt Historiography of World War I Politics of World War I Weimar Republic World War I propaganda