The treaty concluded at Versailles to end the Great War of 1914— 1918 has been widely blamed for fostering the subsequent emergence of NationalSocialism . The treaty’s indemnity and reparations clauses are cited for causing the successive financial crises that destabilized the Weimar Republic. Its requirement that Germany assume sole responsibility for the conflict, the “War Guilt clause,” is seen as an insult to national pride permanently discrediting the Republic that accepted it. Yet, at the same time, Versailles left the essential elements of German power intact and maintained Germany’s existence as an independent state. The result was a peace that fell between two stools. Neither conciliatory nor punitive, it fostered the confusion and destabilization on which the Nazis thrived.
