A Perfidious Distortion of History

by Jurgen Tampke

  Pflanze, Bismarck and the Development of Germany, p. 508.

  Wawro, The Franco-Prussian War, p. 283.

  Gall, Bismarck. Der weiße Revolutionär, p. 450.

  J.H. Morgan, The German War Book (John Murray, London, 1915), pp. 54–55.

  See pp. 32–33 in this book.

  Hans-Ulrich Wehler, Deutsche Gesellschaftsgeschichte, 1849–1914, p. 730.

  Cited in Wolfgang Mommsen, Max Weber und die Deutsche Politik, p. 78.

  The most outspoken exponent of this approach was Friedrich Naumann. A number of left-liberal reformers went to Australia and New Zealand, where labour parties by the turn of the century had become politically very influential, and indeed in some states had already gained government. Note the author’s Wunderbar Country: Germans look at Australia, 1850–1914 (Hale and Iremonger, Sydney, 1982), pp. 3–89.

  Cited in Mark Hewitson, ‘The Wilhelmine Regime and the Problem of Reform: German debates about modern nation states’, in Geoff Eley and James Retallack (eds) Wilhelmism and its Legacies: German modernities, imperialism, and the meaning of reform, 1890–1930, p. 77.

  Treitschke, cited in Eley and Retallack, op. cit., p. 80.

  Frank B. Tipton, A History of Modern Germany Since 1815, p. 245.

  Cited in Gerhard R. Ritter, Das Deutsche Kaiserreich, 1871–1914, pp. 300–1.

  Verhandlungen des Reichstages, XII, vol. 227, Stenografische Berichte (Norddeutsche Verlagsanstalt, Berlin 1907), pp. 44–63.

  Cited in Manfred Scharrer, Die Spaltung der deutschen Arbeiterbewegung, p. 21.

  John A. Moses, Australia and the Kaiser’s War, 1914–18 (Broughton Press, St. Lucia, 1993), p. 10.

  Richard J. Evans, The Coming of the Third Reich, p. 34.

  Diarmuid Jeffreys, Hell’s Cartel: IG Farben and the making of Hitler’s war machine, p. 49.

  Horne and Kramer, German Atrocities, 1914, pp. 145–51.

  Op. cit., p. 151.

  Volker R. Berghahn, Germany and the Approach of War (MacMillan, Basingstoke, 1973), p. 207.

  Chapter Two: The Great War

  Barbara Tuchman, August 1914, p. 173–74.

  Op. cit., p. 174.

  Horne and Kramer, German Atrocities, 1914, pp. 10–78; Tuchman, August 1914, pp. 247–49, 296–316.

  See pp. 176–178 in this book.

  Cited in Jeffreys, Hell’s Cartel, pp. 55–56.

  Op. cit., pp. 57–58.

  Hans-Ulrich Wehler, Deutsche Gesellschaftsgeschichte: 1914–1949, p. 143.

  Cited in Fritz Fischer, War of Illusions, p. 518.

  Cited in Alan Kramer, Dynamic of Destruction: culture and mass killing in the First World War, p. 93.

  Wehler, Deutsche Gesellschaftsgeschichte: 1914–1949, pp. 31–38.

  Fritz Fischer, Weltmacht oder Niedergang. Deutschland im ersten Weltkrieg, p. 64.

  See pp. 82–83 in this book.

  Robert F. Wheeler, USPD und Internationale, p. 25.

  Fischer, Weltmacht oder Niedergang, pp. 98–107; Wehler, Deutsche Gesellschaftsgeschichte, pp. 162–74.

  David R. Woodward, ‘Britain in a Continental War: the civil-military debate over the strategical direction of the Great War of 1914–1918’, Albion, 12, 1 (1980), p. 37.

  Cited in op. cit., p. 45.

  Sterling Kernek, ‘The British Government’s Reactions to President Wilson’s “Peace” Note of December 1916’, The Historical Journal, vol. XII (1976), p. 750.

  Op. cit., pp. 762–73.

  Barbara Tuchman, The Zimmermann Telegram (Constable, London, 1959), pp. 113–14; Ignaz Miller, Mit vollem Risiko in den Krieg, 1914–1918, p. 95.

  See pp. 76–77 in this book.

  Cited in Tuchman, The Zimmermann Telegram, p. 7.

  Tuchman, op. cit., pp. 160–64.

  Paul E. Fontenoy, ‘Convoy System’, in Spencer C. Tucker (ed.), The Encyclopedia of World War I: a political, social and military history, vol. 1 (ABC-CLIO, Santa Barbara, 2005), pp. 312–14.

  David R. Woodward, ‘The Origin and Intent of David Lloyd George’s January 5 War Aim Speech’, The Historian, vol. 34 (November 1971), p. 25.

  Op. cit., pp. 25–27; W. B. Fest, ‘British War Aims and German Peace Feelers during the First World War (December 1916–November 1918)’, The Historical Journal, 15, 2 (June 1972), pp. 300–02.

  Woodward, ‘Origin’, pp. 34–35.

  William R. Keylor, ‘Versailles and International Diplomacy’, in Manfred F. Boemeke, Gerald D. Feldman, and Elisabeth Glaser, The Treaty of Versailles: a reassessment after 75 years, pp. 474–76.

  Wehler, Deutsche Gesellschaftsgeschichte: 1914–1949, p. 154.

  Cited in Doug Newton, British Policy and the Weimar Republic, p. 185.

  The Treaty of Bucharest was signed in the Romanian capital on 7 May 1918 between the Central Powers and Romania. Romania had to cede territories to Bulgaria and Austria–Hungary, and the Central Powers took control of Romania’s oil possessions.

  Chapter Three: Paris

  Cited in Antony Lentin, Lloyd George, Woodrow Wilson and the Guilt of Germany: an essay in the prehistory of appeasement, p. 4.

  Op. cit., p. 30.

  Lawrence C. Gelfand, ‘The American Mission to Negotiate Peace: an historian looks back’, in Boemeke et al., The Treaty of Versailles, p. 189.

  H.W.F. Temperley, A History of the Peace Conference of Paris, vol. 1, p. 433.

  Op. cit., p. 439.

  Ibid.

  Alan Sharp, Consequences of Peace. The Versailles Settlement: aftermath and legacy, 1919–1920, pp. 101–2.

  Alan Sharp, ‘The Genie That Would Not Go Back into the Bottle: national self-determination and the legacy of the First World War and Peace-settlement’, in Seamus Dunn and T.G. Fraser, The First World War and Contemporary Ethnic Conflict (Routledge, London, 1996), p. 9.

  Keylor, ‘Versailles and International Diplomacy’, p. 476.

  Cited in Lentin, Lloyd George, Woodrow Wilson and the Guilt of Germany, p. 32.

  Cited in Manfred F. Boemeke, ‘Woodrow-Wilson’s Image of Germany, the War-guilt Question, and the Treaty of Versailles’, in Boemeke et al., The Treaty of Versailles, pp. 610–11.

  Boemeke, ‘Woodrow-Wilson’s Image of Germany’, p. 611.

  Op. cit., p. 612.

  Keylor, ‘Versailles and International Diplomacy’, p. 492.

  MacMillan, Peacemakers: the Paris conference of 1919 and its attempt to end war, p. 175.

  Paul Birdsall, Versailles: twenty years after (Archon Books, Hamden Connecticut, 1962), pp. 36–37.

  The Times, 13 December 1918.

  MacMillan, Peacemakers, p. 66.

  Op. cit., p. 188.

  Temperley, A History of the Peace Conference of Paris, vol. 2, p. 235.

  MacMillan, Peacemakers, p. 56.

  Cited in W.J. Hudson, Billy Hughes at Paris: the birth of Australian diplomacy (Thomas Nelson, Melbourne, 1978), p. 78.

  Carol Finke, ‘The Minorities Question at the Paris Peace Conference: The Polish Minority Treaty, June 28, 1919’, in Boemeke et al., The Treaty of Versailles, pp. 252–53.

  Jürgen Tampke, Czech-German Relations and the Politics of Central Europe: from Bohemia to the EU, pp. 32–44.

  Cited in Jaroslav Kučera, Minderheit im Nationalstaat. Die Sprachenfrage in den tschechisch-deutschen Beziehungen, 1918–1938, p. 38.

  Kučera, op. cit., p. 53.

  Christopher Clark, The Sleepwalkers: how Europe went to war in 1914, pp. 21–22.

  Margaret MacMillan, The Uses and Abuses of History, pp. 86–87.

  See pp. 79–81 in this book.

  MacMillan, Peacemakers, pp. 249–51.

  Op. cit., pp. 265–78.

  Op. cit., p. 300.

  Trevor Wilson, The Myriad Faces of War: Britain and the Great War, pp. 589–91.

  Lentin, Lloyd George, Woodrow Wilson and the Guilt of Germany, p. 14.

  Hudson, Billy Hughes at Paris, pp. 38–39.

  MacMillan, Peacemakers, p. 201.

  Bruce Kent, The Spoils of War: the politi
cs, economics and diplomacy of reparations 1918–1932, p. 67.

  Keylor, ‘Versailles and International Diplomacy’, p. 500; Sally Marks, ‘The Myth of Reparations’, Central European History, vol. 11 (1978), p. 232.

  In the end, it was decided that France would receive 42 per cent of the share, Britain 38 per cent, and the remaining 20 per cent would be divided among the smaller powers.

  MacMillan, Peacemakers, p. 182.

  Stephen A. Schuker, ‘The Rhineland Question: West European security at the Paris Peace Conference 1919’, in Boemeke et al., The Treaty of Versailles, p. 307.

  Lentin, Lloyd George and the Lost Peace, p. 57.

  Fritz Klein, ‘From a misunderstood defeat to an unwanted peace’, in Boemeke et al., The Treaty of Versailles, p. 205.

  Ibid.

  Sally Marks, ‘Smoke and Mirrors: in smoke-filled rooms and the Galerie des Glaces’, in Boemeke et al., The Treaty of Versailles, p. 350.

  Op. cit., p. 351.

  Chapter Four: Versailles

  Cited in Lentin, Lloyd George and the Lost Peace, p. 84.

  Marks, ‘Smoke and Mirrors’, p. 351.

  Lentin, Lloyd George and the Lost Peace, pp. 87–88.

  Marks, ‘Smoke and Mirrors’, p. 352.

  Op. cit., p. 355.

  MacMillan, Peacemakers, pp. 478–80.

  Fritz Klein, ‘Between Compiègne and Versailles: the Germans on the way from a misunderstood defeat to an unwanted peace’, in Boemeke et al., The Treaty of Versailles, pp. 205–06.

  Wolfgang J. Mommsen, ‘Max Weber and the Peace Treaty’, in Boemeke et al., The Treaty of Versailles, p. 543.

  Klaus Wiegrefe, ‘Der verschenkte Friede. 90 Jahre nach Versailler Vertrag’, Der Spiegel, 28, 2009, p. 53.

  Lentin, ‘A Comment’, in Boemeke et al., The Treaty of Versailles, p. 238.

  Klaus Wiegrefe, ‘Der verschenkte Friede’, p. 53.

  Cited in Temperley, A History of the Peace Conference of Paris, vol. 2, p. 276.

  Op. cit., p. 230.

  M.S. Anderson, Europe in the Eighteenth Century, 1713–1783 (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York, 1966), p. 31.

  Robert Boyce, The Great Interwar Crisis and the Collapse of Globalization, pp. 53–55.

  Wolfram Fischer, ‘Die Weimarer Republik unter den weltwirtschaftlichen Bedingungen der Zwischenkriegszeit’, in Hans Mommsen, Dietmar Petzina and Bernd Weisbrod Industrielles System und die politische Entwicklung in der Weimarer Republik (Droste, Düsseldorf, 1974), pp. 28–31.

  Temperley, A History of the Peace Conference of Paris, vol. 2, pp. 300–01.

  United Nations Whitaker Report; ‘Germany admits Namibia genocide’, BBC News, 14 August 2014. In 2004, the German government recognised and apologised for the event, but refused to pay financial compensation to the victims’ descendants.

  MacMillan, Peacemakers, p. 67.

  These were China, Siam (Thailand), Liberia, Morocco, Egypt, and Turkey.

  Schuker, ‘The Rhineland Question’, p. 276.

  MacMillan, Peacemakers, p. 186.

  Richard J. Shuster, German Disarmament After World War I: the diplomacy of international arms inspection, 1920–1931, pp. 111–27.

  MacMillan, Peacemakers, p. 491.

  Shuster, German Disarmament After World War I, p. 116.

  Harvey Leonard Dyck, Weimar Germany and Soviet Russia, 1926–1933: a study in diplomatic instability, pp. 19–22.

  Shuster, German Disarmament After World War I, p. 79.

  John W. Wheeler-Bennett, The Nemesis of Power: the German army in politics 1918–1945, p. 98.

  Keylor, ‘Versailles and International Diplomacy’, p. 500.

  Wolfgang J. Mommsen, ‘Max Weber and the Treaty of Versailles’, pp. 537–38.

  Temperley, A History of the Peace Conference of Paris, vol. 2. pp. 308–11.

  Op. cit., p. 313.

  Kent, The Spoils of War, p. 62.

  Fischer, ‘Die Weimarer Republik’, p. 32.

  Niall Ferguson, ‘The Balance of Payments Questions: Versailles and after’, in M.F. Boemeke et al., The Treaty of Versailles, p. 415.

  Temperley, A History of the Peace Conference of Paris, vol. 2, pp. 321–22.

  Sally Marks, ‘The Myth of Reparations’, p. 235; Marks, ‘Smoke and Mirrors’, p. 346.

  Sally Marks, ‘Reparations Reconsidered: a reminder’, Central European History, vol. 2 (1969), p. 360.

  Gaston Furt, De Versailles aux Experts(1925), pp. 133-134, cited in and translated by Sally Marks, op. cit. p. 362.

  Op. cit., p. 363.

  Marks, ‘Myth’, pp. 237–38.

  Op. cit., pp. 244–45.

  See pp. 217–218 in this book.

  Boyce, The Great Interwar Crisis and the Collapse of Globalization, p. 135.

  Marks, ‘Myth’, p. 247.

  Stephen A. Schuker, American ‘Reparations’ to Germany 1919–1933 (Princeton Studies in International Finance, Princeton, 1988), pp. 118–19.

  Marks, ‘Myth’, pp. 254–55.

  Boyce, The Great Interwar Crisis and the Collapse of Globalization, p. 37.

  Marks, ‘Myth’, p. 235.

  Fischer, ‘Die Weimarer Republik’, pp. 29–31.

  Ibid.

  Tuchman, August 1914, pp. 306–314; Horne and Kramer, German Atrocities, 1914, pp. 9–41; Wehler, Deutsche Gesellschaftsgeschichte, vol. 4, p. 29.

  Sally Marks, Innocent Abroad. Belgium at the Peace Conference of 1919, pp. 172–73.

  Op. cit., p. 172.

  Op. cit., pp. 183–95.

  Trevor, Wilson, ‘The Significance of the First World War in Modern History’, in R.J.Q. Adams, The First World War 1914–1918 (1990, The MacMillan Press, Basingstoke and London, pp. 14–15), reproduced with permission of Palgrave Macmillan.

  Sally Marks, ‘The Misery of Victory: France’s struggle for the Versailles Treaty’, p. 122.

  See pp. 213–215 in this book.

  Cited in Marks, ‘Smoke and Mirrors’, p. 359.

  Chapter Five: Weimar

  Erhard Lucas, Märzrevolution im Ruhrgebiet, 3 vols (Verlag Roter Stern, Frankfurt Main, 1970–78).

  Richard J. Evans, The Coming of the Third Reich, pp. 139–41. Note also Schuker, American ‘Reparations’.

  Op. cit., pp. 83–84.

  Op. cit., p. 80.

  Op. cit., p. 135–36.

  Richard, J. Evans, In Defence of History, pp. 132–33.

  Cited in Volker Berghahn, Modern Germany: society, economy and politics in the twentieth century (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1983), pp. 66–67.

  Holger H. Herwig, ‘Clio Deceived: patriotic self-censorship in Germany after the Great War’, in Keith Wilson (ed.) Forging the Collective Memory: government and international historians through two world wars, p. 97.

  Imanuel Geiss, foreword to Hermann Kantorowicz, Gutachten zur Kriegsschuldfrage 1914, p. 18.

  Cited in op. cit., p. 32.

  Walter Schücking and Max Monteglas, ‘Deutsche Dokumente zum Kriegsausbruch (DD), Berlin 1927’, Appendix iv, p. 2, DD 15, cited in Hermann Kantorowicz, Gutachten zur Kriegsschuldfrage 1914, pp. 232–34.

  Op. cit., pp. 235–36.

  DD 554 cited in Kantorowicz, op. cit., p. 253.

  Kantorowicz, op. cit., p. 260.

  DD 323, DD 395, DD 456, p. 176, cited in Kantorowicz, op. cit., pp. 300–01.

  Evans, The Coming of the Third Reich, pp. 136–37.

  Richard Bessel, ‘Why did the Weimar Republic collapse?’, in Ian Kershaw (ed.), Weimar: why did democracy fail?, pp. 126–27.

  Boyce, The Great Interwar Crisis and the Collapse of Globalization, pp. 24–29.

  Robert Skidelsky, John Maynard Keynes, 1883–1946: economist, philosopher, statesman, pp. 191–95.

  Lentin, Lloyd George and the Lost Peace, p. 42.

  Keylor, ‘Versailles and International Diplomacy’, p. 495.

  Ibid.

  Skidelsky, John Maynard Keynes, pp. 220–21; Keylor, ‘Versailles and International Diplomacy’, p. 486.

&nbs
p; Lentin, Lloyd George, Woodrow Wilson and the Guilt of Germany, p. 137.

  Cited in Étienne Mantoux, The Carthaginian Peace or the Economic Consequences of Mr Keynes, p. 5.

  Mantoux, The Carthaginian Peace, pp. ix–xiv.

  Op. cit., pp. 62–63.

  Keylor, ‘Versailles and International Diplomacy’, pp. 501–02; Schuker, American ‘Reparations’, pp. 18–19.

  Schuker, op. cit., pp. 10–11.

  Marks, ‘Reparations Reconsidered’, p. 361.

  ‘On the morning after the German “election” [the Reichstag election of 29 March 1936] I travelled to Basle; it was an exquisite liberation to reach Switzerland. It must have been only a little later that I met Maynard Keynes at some gathering in London. “I do wish you had not written that book’”, I found myself saying (meaning The Economic Consequences, which the Germans never ceased to quote) and then longed for the ground to swallow me up. But he said, simply and gently, “So do I.”’ Elizabeth Wiskemann, The Europe I Saw, p. 53.

  Lentin, Lloyd George, Woodrow Wilson and the Guilt of Germany, pp. 145–46.

  Op. cit., p. 134.

  Michael Graham Fry, ‘British Revisionism’, in Boemeke et al., The Treaty of Versailles, p. 590.

  Lentin, Lloyd George, Woodrow Wilson and the Guilt of Germany, p. 145–46.

  Gordon Martel, ‘A Comment’, in Boemeke et al., The Treaty of Versailles, p. 616; Diane B. Kunz, ‘A Comment’, in Boemeke et al., op. cit., p. 590.

  Boyce, The Great Interwar Crisis and the Collapse of Globalization, pp. 71–72.

  Catherine Ann Cline, ‘British Historians and the Treaty of Versailles’, Albion, 20, 1 (Spring 1988), pp. 51–52.

  Op. cit., p. 50.

  Ibid.

  Op. cit., p. 51.

  Lentin, Lloyd George, Woodrow Wilson and the Guilt of Germany, p. 134.

  Boyce, The Great Interwar Crisis and the Collapse of Globalization, pp. 7–8.

  Op. cit., p. 94.

  Op. cit., p. 137.

  Evans, The Coming of the Third Reich, p. 106.

  Op. cit., p. 127.