How the Germans Cheated the Versailles Treaty 

MEFO Bills, obviously. It only cost them -0.05 political power each time they renewed them.

USSR : That is some impressive tank manoeuvres, who you training against? Germany : No one...........

Boy Germany is surely building a lot of tractors

Fun fact: rocket artillery was developed by germany to avoid restrictions on artillery.

Ah the Irony, The Brittish had called their land ships 'Tanks' to maintain secrecy and prevent the Germans from finding out what they were before their implementation in ww1. Then the Germans call their Tanks 'Tractors' to stop the Brittish and French from finding out that they were subverting the treaty.

Your tractors have some mean looking cannons mounted on them. Ja. Gut for removing gophers, Mein Herr.

Noo noo we aren't building panzers... we are building tractors, beautiful tractors. Why the 75mm kanone you ask? Well you know those damned mole rats? This kanone will be a *final solution* for that *question*.

Amazing how the USSR and Germany were working together and not a few years later were fighting each other in the bloodiest theatre of war in history. Humans are strange creatures.

Finally got around to watching this, most Superlative as always. In just thirty three minutes and 18 seconds you efficiently covered how Germany cheated, while TV documentaries just consist of 50 percent filler noise at best. It is why I don't watch TV.

Just one look at the amount of sources for this video makes my head spin. Outstanding work sir. Have you thought about collaboration with TIK? I find your two channels superior to anything else out there when it comes to WW2. I would add that I muted the match ManUtd vs Sevilla in order to watch this.

What was it that you said in your A7V video? "You know it's German because they measure the driving distance of multi ton war machines in millimetres." 19:00 :P

The french marshal Foch said "that's not a peace we got, that's a 20 years truce" said in 1919... (If you are wondering no he wasn't alone, some people foresaw this as well such as de gaulle)

Had captions on. "Secret rearmmament orogram" Captions: "secret ramen program"

5:57 As I said these are early signs of movie prduction. The production quality is improving fast and as always great and detailed video, i will surely watch it multiple times!

XD Rest of Europe was like: "The German military no longer exi-

i never knew a simple strategy game would unleash a whole unending interest in military history, (hoi 4)

Gee, I wonder why WW2 happened with this well thought-out and fair treaty.

A BIG THANK YOU to my Patreons here, who allowed me to dig deeper for my videos: www.patreon.com/mhv Also check out the follow-up on "What the Allies knew?" ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-NPP9sm9sGeQ.html

*They see me rollin’. They hatin’. Tryn’ to catch me ridin’ dirty...*

US, France, and Britain: Why is farming in Germany so dangerous that their tractors need turrets?

Still the best history channel on RU-vid. Nobody can touch this level of professionalism.

There is a great book on the history of gliders called "On Silent Wings" which talks about how glider clubs in German schools and universities were used as a foundation to train pilots during the interwar period. There were thousands of such clubs and German gliders were record setters. I was really glad you mentioned this.

Probably, it took more time to make this video, than to coquer France.

Seen how long this video is so I paused it and went to go get my Gew98 to clean while watching

This is one of the most important videos to understand WWII you ever done. I've long waited for it.

18:45 1,5 meters isnt much tbh

My good man, the Versailles treaty had limits not only to germans but also to other nations. By 1927, Germany was the only country which actually had honored in full the Versailles Treaty, where countries like France and English had broke it already and nearly doubled military power. This being a fact, why not a video like: how the allies cheated on the Versailles Treaty prior to Germany ? :)

Germany interwar period : Import goods Trade Actually german interwar period : Secreat rearm Train so many soldiers and generals Build many fighters and planes Got funding from MEFO German-Soviet cooperation

If that was a Soviet Womble reference, it was appreciated.

Person: "Uhhh why is there a 75mm gun on the 'tractor'" German: "Theres obviously a massive vermin problem in the soviet union, its for pest control"

Oh yes cmon lads 30 min vid. thanks MHV

Greetings from Finland and thank you yet another great video! We still have the submarine Vesikko on display as a museum ship in Suomenlinna, Helsinki. It acted as a prototype for the German IIA-class of submarines. After WWII, Soviet Union banned, among other things, Finnish navy from ever having submarines, but fortunately we obeyed it as unquestioningly as the Germans obeyed Treaty of Versailles and Vesikko was spared from scrapping, although it was a close call. It is one of five still existing pre-WWII submarines in the world. Finnish-German cooperation also produced Vetehinen-class of submarines, which was originally going to act as a base for the German 700 ton submarine, though a Spanish-German 750 ton submarine was chosen for that instead. That submarine became the famous VII-class submarine. All of the Finnish submarines survived the war and claimed kills. Though their main contribution was mining the Gulf of Finland and locking the Red Baltic Navy in Leningrad. After the war, all the submarines, except Vesikko, were sold for scrap to Netherlands.

*To be fair the Allies broke the treaty of versailles already in 1929.* The Treaty of Versailles stated that Germany would be the first country to reduce its military power, which the germans did till 1929 : 100.000 men in the army , no air force , small navy. Now after the germans reduced their military power the ALLIES should have followed next , as it is written in the treaty of versailles , after all the First world war was ment to be the war to end ALL wars. But guess what? The Allies greatly improved their military strength. France invested heavily in its army and the US and UK invested heavily in their Navy. Due to that Hitler didnt feel bounded to the treaty of versailles anymore in 1935. The Allies had 6 years to reduce their military power but they didnt do anything in that regard.

Or "How the Treaty of Versailles Guaranteed WWII." Don't play, they knew what they were doing. The Brits and french had a secret treaty with Poland that if *Germany* invaded Poland, France and Britain would come to it's aid. But if Russia, or anyone else, invaded, the Poles we're on their own.

Your use of Soviet Vomble icon gets me every time : ) It's so subtle. You're a master of humour.

This is one of your best videos, Military History Visualized. This is quite comprehensive for a RU-vid video, and I love this longer format. MHV, do keep up the great work! :)

Man, I didn't think I would watch a whole 30 minute video simply about the specifics of the Versailles treaty, and then I did. Excellent video, MHV!

I think you saved Indy and the crew of The great war loads of research :D

In the 30's Germany firearms manufacturers bought out foreign companies to produce firearms. Under different names they sold weapons commercially to countries like Japan and obviously Germany. Steyr Mannlicher was one such company. They produced MP34's for export to a load of countries including Germany and Japan.

I always thought Versailles, (And the lesser known Trianon) are proof that when you have an enemy that you wish to destroy, humiliating him and forcing him into a despair-inducing situation is probably counter productive. The idea of war without hatred is hard for many to gasp to begin with, and terms that come close to an attempt at sabotaging a nation's chance of survival don't make it much easier for the defeated population to leave old gripes behind. In the end, it seems that it's true that the best way to destroy your enemy is to make him your friend. Call me crazy, but I think the reconstruction of the Axis powers and their integration into the world community after WW2 have been more successful measures to prevent further conflict than Versailles was. Plus, I it's safer in the long term. One never knows, maybe one day the tables will be turned and one's nation will be weakened, maybe even defeated. Then it's better if the old enemy is not waiting for you with a crowbar, an old gripe, and a desire for revenge, but rather with a helping hand to repay your own magnanimousness.

Extremely useful. Weimar is a time alluded to, but seldom detailed, in histories. This helps connect dots between the two wars so that the student sees more of the whole picture..

Great video as always, and eye opening, especially with the German/Soviet cooperation in the 20s and early 30s! Would you ever do a video on the Nazi economy? I think it would be interesting to see how it was, while clearing up any misconceptions that people may have.

Great video, saw it in 3 sitings, kept coming back due to your fantastic curation of information and the simple yet precise delivery, thank you

I just love how the British tank in 16:42 is represented with a cup of tea 😂.

Franz:"We are not allowed to build tanks!" Hans:"No problem, just call them tractors" vladimir:"Hue brother, good idea!"

One of the rare objective video about 2nd World War, congratulations

Well done! I really like this video being more extensive and longer than usual.

12:41 I see womble, I like Also because it was a good video

Thoroughly enjoy your videos. As a fellow historian also brought up in the Rahnke-tradition your research heavy-restrained conclusions- approach is refreshing in a world awash with anglo-saxon "never let the facts get in the way of a good theory". Keep up the good work :-)

wow, You are the FIRST person (that i know of) who in english speaks about German-soviet cooperation... that was continued in WW2 thats a SUB

MHV just a thought. Do you think you could make a sort of series where you analyze a country's industrial capabilities? Just a thought

I'm currently doing an essay on WW1 and how it led to WW2. This video was amazingly helpfull, I'll be sure to mention you in my sources.

I wrote a paper about this! Awesome video, you have gotten at the subject a bit better than me actually. Toll!

You described how the development of key personnel allowed for the rapid expansion of the Wehrmacht once restrictions were ignored. Would be interested in a comparison with the expansion of the US Army, which also went through an extremely fast expansion in 40-41 without the development of key personnel. How do these two expansions compare?

Instead of asking how Germany cheated the treaty of Versailles, why not ask how the treaty of Versailles cheated Germany?

Coming back to this. Probably my favorite of your videos.

Bro, you are amazing! The information you give and the way it is presented is just outstanding! Keep up the good job man!!!

Why is the swastika a banned symbol but not the hammer and sickle?

Great video, hope you continue to use more maps in your videos, because it gives a nice break from the one-coloured screens (which sometimes can be a bit monotonous), and it's nice to mentally place the places you mention. great work

No, that's ok, we don't need too many tractors. We'll just keep with the horses, you can't eat tractors.

At 18:45, instead of writing 1500km as you said, you wrote 1500mm, which I’m not sure about you, but that’s not an impressive range.

What I never realy understood is: While the allies, mainly great britan and france, dictated the restrictions on germany, they apparently never botherd to actualy enforce them. Why? What is the point of setting up rules, if you don't enforce them?

Interestingly, Germans trained the Soviets in the high tech of the time, and saw the capabilities of their heavy industry, the potentials of it. Then in the late 30's they thought they can beat them. Well, maybe they thought it was all basically West of Volga, and Kirov North of it, and Stalin did only later rise the factories east of the Urals. Which the Germans couldn't really estimate, how strong that was.

Corum's book is really a must read for anybody interested in the strategic situation post-ww1. I read it years ago, exceptionally well written!

in short. make thing illegal -> people will be pissed -> they always find a way

“How the Germans cheated the Treaty of Versailles?” They didn’t follow it. There you go, I just saved you 33 minutes of your life lmao.

Ich finde das einfach klasse was sie hier machen. Die Dateien sind überragend. Weiter so!!! (Haben sie auch ein Kanal auf Deutsch?)

Awesome video, as always! I love the way you focus on strategy, however I'd also love a political, and perhaps a more personal, run-through of the actions that lead to the final breach of the Versailles Treaty.

"This is not a peace treaty, this is a 20 year ceasefire" -the german representatives when signing the treaty

The Versailles contract was a reason why ww2 could start.. Special Thanks to French and UK...

I spent two week looking after projectors at night at the Siegasalle, The German Victory column in the center of tierpark . The statue of Bismark with the two blacksmiths hiden behindit, making swords whilst looking over there shoulder, is the best German joke i saw.

Also, the draconian measures taken to disarm Germany immediately after the War had the unintended but clearly forseeable effect of setting the stage for a complete modernization of Germany's military. Since basically their entire force structure had been carved to the bone, they had no choice but to rethink everything (everything they were allowed to, anyway - Hitler never bothered to involve his "strategy" with any but a very few top generals) about how each branch of the Nazi armed forces would be organized, equipped, and operated. There was no need to worry about how to extend the operating life of their existing weapons stocks since these had all been taken from them. The period between the wars was a period of extraordinary advancement in weapons and combat tactics, and Germany took full advantage of this in a planned, cohesive way. Other nations saw these phenomena as something of a curiosity and only integrated the "new" ways of waging war in fits and starts and had to learn very hard, difficult lessons as Germany emerged publicly as the dominant military power in Europe.

The development of rockets circumvented the artillery restrictions.

As usual, an excellent analysis.

Great presentation of how Germany cheated Versailles treaty. If (Example) i had been Germany i would have chafed, struggled, fought, N tried to find away to break the constraints of the travesty of Versailles. I would have wanted to strike against N beat those that blamed me for start of the Conflict N then saddled me (Germany) with a debt that would finally have been paid off in 1988.

Germans: these are not tanks these are just car modifications.

Germany cheated the treaty that was forced only to them, as if they were only ones who started the war. The treaty of Versailles was the starting point of ww2.

Do you think that the efficiency of the Wehrmacht was actually improved as a result of the Versailles treaty? I would think that shrinking the military would have the effect of pushing numerous bad habits out of both the enlisted and officer ranks. Many large armies tend to be highly conservative organizations that tend to collect bad habits. The Reichswehr was able to shed many of the bad habits of the Deutsches Heer such as oversupervision of junior leaders and enlisted soldiers.

I am learning German a little bit with the side by side spelling and pronunciation being spoken aloud. Thank you! I have been trying for years to learn on my own, but now some aspects are starting to make sense! :)

MHV, Excellent article! An 'armee d' tente' indeed. Training a core of experts available later as trainers and General Staff was indeed brilliant.

Germany and Russia are still economically made for each other. That alliance is still the only alliance that can ever threaten US domination of the globe. Of course the US knows that and has placed its army from Estonia to Romania to seal off these two players from each other and has a tight control of German politics via the EU, NATO and other methods and Russian economy via isolation and sanctions. Same game is played in Asia with Japan and China, albeit it's easier to play that game because Japan and China were never keen to cooperate.

Where resources are few, you get creative. Enemies, beware.

Superb video! Keep up mate!

I love WWII history, especially channels like this that put REAL TIME and EFFORT!

I wouldn't call it cheating more trying to find a way to survive this. Cheating would imply that there was any kind of agreement but it was basically someone holding a gun on your head screaming "sign it!" In the review not signing would have been better

Interested video, but I believe there are some things to be noted -due to lack of time and bad health, modifications on the list are going to occur as time passes- 1. 1. The Soviet German collaboration. It is interesting, first of all, because Germany was much a capitalist nation. However, socialists were gaining momentum and the soviets tried to gain more support for them by collaborating with the whole nation. So, another reason was political. Build 'The great revolution' step by step, helping each other. 1.2 Another reason why USSR joined this cooperation(apart from politics and technology gains) was the treatment after WW1. Not only that Russia suffered the greatest cassualities, but the war was not even ended and their former allies turned against them, building concentration camps, sabotaging their fleet in multiple occasions, encouraged other nations to invade them(Poland and Japan) and of course invading them. In other words, soviets had nobody else to cooperate with. The West and pro-western nations in Europe attacked and humiliated them. Asian nations, china was in Chaos. They were at war with Japan, which controlled the seas. 1.3 The colaboration ended in the years after Hitlers election. Multiple reasons: soviets supported socialists and communists. Meanwhile, Hitler 'stole' many of those voters. Hitler wanted to exterminate the slavs. And of course,the support he received from the west. 1.4 The years between '33 and '39(Poland) were quite tense between those nations. I would call the peak of those tensions the Spanish Civil War, when they supported opposite sides. Again, the soviet supported side lost.(ironically, it was the one that was legitimate to rule before the war) 2. A question for the author: why focus so much on relationships with USSR, but not other nations. Mainly the support Germany was given after Hitler's election, political and economic. 2.2 (For the interested one) That World Disarmament Conference could win the title of the most idiotic thing ever. Why? Because conclusion, mostly. As far as I remember(or I was told), there were four sides: the French wanted a huge cut in naval forces(because Britain had the best navy, and keeping up with them was too expensive); the british wanted a huge cut in land armies(because the french were better). And then there were the Germans and the Soviets. Soviets proposed that the strong nations should gradually reduce their forces untill everybody is on the same level as the weakes(them or Germany). And the german proposal: let the big militaries not develop themselves too much, but let the smaller ones(meaning Germany) rebuild and expand their armies, thus throwing away Versailles. This proposal won. So the conclusion of Disarmament Conference was that the guys who you blamed for a decade for staring a World War, which chose a leader that calls for the enslavement of half of Europe(including one of the participants) should be let to arm themselves until they reach parity with the strongest militaries. 3, I think a worthy mention should have been the annexation of Czechoslovakia. The final blunde of the Western powers. Not only did they let a nation they signed to protect, be taken by another, but Hitler gained the control of the factory near Pilsen, which produced the Pz 38 (T), which was the backbone of their tank forces in the begining of the war

Thank you MHV. Thats some professional work.

That was excellent. I have no questions left at the moment on this topic as the video answered everything I was curious about. I am curious about the relationship of German training and construction in the USSR to Tukhachevsky’s 1930 plan for modernisation of the Red Army and also to the development of “Deep Battle”.

I find it interesting how Switzerland helped Germany so much yet was still "neutral". Did they see any punishment for this after the war?

To me, the Versailles treaty seems like a big mistake. Not only because it could be circumvented. But also because of the heavy blow it lead to german industries in general. One can only imagine the poverty and unemployment that the german people had to suffer through as a result of it, and both resentment of the way they were treated as well as desperation made people flock to Hitlers cause.

Alongside other measures, the Treaty of Versailles was a "divide and rule"-strategy, by outside powers, intent on gaining power by dividing Europeans. This simple statement or theory, can be validated by simply investigating the events around the turn of the previous century, and cutting out the distortions created by "dissention" (note: "sowing dissention" in systems, is a means used in the "divide an rule"-technique). There is a saying stating that if one cannot explain something in a few minutes, that it is probably false: *At Versailles, Europeans were "divided" with a "ruling".* The divide and rule strategy *of and over* Europeans, can be explained in three seconds... Of course, no superficially observed series of events can be concluded to be "a non-falsifiable theory" (Carl Popper), if there is not a substantial amount of evidence to corroborate it, and if the reader wishes, the comments section under the Histo4y Room channel's "Wilhelm II" documentary, has more than 100 essays going back more than 4 years, to provide more than ample evidence for the theory of how Europeans 1) were once "divide and ruled" over (around 1900), and 2) are *still* being divided and ruled over (around 2000), by outside powers. "The Force" to influence billions of minds is strategy. The most effective of these is the divide and rule/conquer technique. It is also the most misunderstood of all strategies, usually and falsely associated with Nazis, bullies and other evil regimes: wrong. *It is simply a technique used to effect the highest own potential systemic gain with the least own imput, by dividing any potential opposition, mostly via the cheap trick of appealing to people's emotions and biases. Once systemic dependecies have been created, on multiple tiers, these must come to the "divider" for "a ruling".* Every system which does not specifically forbid the divide and rule/conquer technique, will systematically enable it. No human system is immune to it, and neither are democracies, or our revered capitalism, or any form of "meritocracy". One of the core techniques of the divide and rule/conquer strategy is *favoratism:* it is really simple, but no system of power which ever made it to the top, will ever admit how simple it is. Most power players who discover the simplicity of the technique, will try to disguise it and misuse it for own gain, rather than to expose it for what it is: a means of deception, which once exposed and widely-known, will unravel the power it holds over billions of minds. *Power players on all tiers of reciprocal human interaction with an intent of gain motive can never admit that they use the technique themselves, nor can they accuse others directly of employing it, because they all employ it, either directly, or indirectly via proxies.* Therefore *you* as a commoner will hardly ever hear it being discussed and repeated like the proverbial "mantra": it occupies a lowly existence in intellectual debates, even though it is the key to true power. Like the Nazis, all power players regardless of the "system of gain" in question, come up with all kinds of subterfuge to avoid being immediately exposed as playing the game of divide and rule themselves... Enter any hierarchical system of power in any intent of gain model of reciprocal human interaction, and you'll enter a shark tank. *The favorite = the proxy.* Scale it up or down to whichever tier you wish. *All that is needed is a position of superior power.*

A tip for anyone (not English) who speaks English as excellently as this gentleman and is always interested in improving further. The word 'represent' is one of those quirky English words that have two meanings but one spelling. Meaning A : To offer or present something, having already offered or presented it before ... pronounced 're-present'. Meaning B : To be symbolic of something ... pronounced 'rep-resent'. It's a common mistake for foreign people to intend B but use the pronunciation for A, as this gentleman does. The meaning of your sentence will only become clear when your listener (re-runs your sentence in their head) and realises you meant to use the other word. So what you meant to say will be understood by most but not all.

I have yet to see something intelligent coming out of Versailles.

Well the treaty of Versailles guaranteed ww2 to be honest

7:23 Spell correction it's Limhamn with an M not Linhamn. Considered a part of the city of malmö today. My gym is in the very facility the company AB Flygindustri was housed ;) Gutes Video wie immer!

Wow, this channel's format is mega good.

Just in time for my history class lmao

Anothet war? Does anyone really still believe germany would have started ww1? I thought people would be more intelligent and knew more about history.

I am actually from Lipetsk. There is a story that the city was never bombed because Hermann Goering had a girlfriend there. Also Stalin's son Vasily Stalin trained there as a fighter pilot.

Great video its this kind of shit they don't teach you in school. Loved the details and the sources