Following Germany’s Bread Crumb Trail

In the German public, there was little acceptance that the Germans had been defeated in war. The higher commands, also known as the German High Command, claimed that the army had not been defeated in battle, they evaded responsibility for the defeat, and blame was attributed by many to the civilian elements, mainly Socialists, Communists and Jews. They wouldn’t accept the responsibility of the war or that they did anything wrong. The people continually grew resentful towards the reparations, which were perceived much harsher due to the German leaders’ deliberate misrepresentation. The reparations that the Germans had to pay were the rules to the Treaty of Versailles. It was a supposable set of 132 billion gold marks. However the actual amount they had to pay was 50 billion gold marks. It was stated that the 112 billion marks in “C bonds” were actually a strategy to fool the public into thinking they owed more than the real amount. (There was A, B and C bonds, they only ever planned on collecting the A and B bonds). They paid 20 billion gold marks, a worth of about five billion U.S. or one billion British pounds. The rest was in goods or assets. The economic problems that the payments brought, and with the already existing resentment with their imposition/situation. The reparations were considered one of the largest factors leading to the rise of Hitler and his dictatorship. In some of the history books revolving around Germany’s perspective of the Treaty argued that the Germans could have paid the reparations. But it was more the fact that they were unwilling to pay, not unable or incapable. They were one of the only/richest countries who had the money to pay the expenses of the war. In the 1920’s the Germans had two strands of foreign policy that were not mutually exclusive. The Fulfillment Politics went through the motions of the reparation hoping something would fail and lead to a