Why Was Germany Responsible For World War I?

Retrospectively, the First World War seems as if it was inevitable, but the arms race between the European powers can be conceptualized as a defensive response to the increasing military power by a country’s neighbours. Though some plans were indeed offensive, they were building not towards deliberately offensive maneuvers but rather an attempt to protect their borders should a neighbour invade. Germany’s answer to this in the Schlieffen Plan was an aggressive form of defence, hoping to avoid a war on two fronts, which would require a division of Germany’s forces between French and Russian forces, separated by Germany’s ladmass. General Helmuth von Moltke the Younger foresaw that while the Schlieffen Plan could possibly have Germany manage
In the treaty, Great Britain, France, and the United States blamed Germany unilaterally for being responsible for the war, and they thus shouldered the punishment. Not only did Germany have to pay $33 billion in war reparations, but Germany lost approximately ten percent of their land to other European states, along with their overseas colonies; their military and navy was forced to mostly disband, but Allied troops were only to withdraw from occupation over the period of fifteen years. Adolf Hitler eventually would capitalize on the anger many Germans felt about the injustice of the Treaty of Versailles, but there was anger directly after the war as well. Germany after World War I was rife with political and social tensions that stemmed from their defeat. George Grosz wrote in his autobiography that “Everybody was hated: the Jews, the capitalists, the gentry, the communists, the military, the land-lords, the workers, the unemployed, the “Black Reichswehr, the [Allied] control commissions, the department stores, and again the Jews.” Like many other Germans, Grasz worried about the future of his country and the fate of the Weimar Republic, which was substantially weaker than the German Empire had been before