"Malcom "Mal" Reynolds" <atlas-...@invalid.invalid> wrote in
message news:atlas-bugged-E3E8...@free.teranews.com...
Doug Says: The murdering of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand was the
pretense for WWI - but it was really based upon disputed boundaries in
the Balkans and unfair trade. Regardless of the multiple reasons for
WWI, the VT treaty signed at the end of WW1 (in that infamous train
car) was so outrageous and draconian it virtually provided Hitler
with a reason and a means, with the complete and overwhelming support
of the German people, to violate its terms and build a military
machine such as the world had never seen before.
Hitler was so obsessed with the Versailles Treaty he forced the French
to sign their WWII surrender in the very same train car as the WW1
Versailles treaty was signed. The German people were convinced the
only way to escape the hyperbolic reparations the VT called for, which
was creating out of control inflation in the German Mark, was to back
Hitler and go to war against the French.
However, what the German people did not know is the French and the
British offered to renegotiate the treaty of Versailles early in
1939 - yet Hitler kept that offer as quiet as he could. Hitler and Dr.
Goebbels knew they could not keep the offer to renegotiate the treaty
of Versailles out of the German press for long, hence Hitler started
WWII in 1939 years earlier than he had planned.
Hitler used the refusal of Poland to return Danzig as his pretense for
invading Poland - but Hitler knew if the German people found out about
the conciliatory efforts of the French and British in respect to the
Versailles treaty, he would lose public support for his war.
Doug Grant (Tm)