Abstract
Reviewed by: Paul Bookbinder, University of Massachusetts Boston, USA
In his study of the process and conflicts instigated by German reparations obligations from 1919 to 1932, Leonard Gomes explores a critical period in German and European history. Conflicts among the victors of World War I regarding the amount of the reparations and the method of collection were key determinants of policies, public discourse and events throughout Europe during this period. The burden of reparations was most specifically a crucial factor in the history of the Weimar Republic. Drawing on the work of others and without additional archival research, Gomes nonetheless does an excellent job of making sense of complex and often misunderstood issues and the conflicting interpretations of historians who have dealt with this period. Studying the reparations question is very challenging, and Gomes quotes Sally Marks’s warning that ‘those who study reparations must cope with technical complexity and political considerations wrapped in great clouds of misdirection and propaganda’ (220).
Gomes sees the failure of the Versailles Treaty as a function of the disputes between England and France over implementation and enforcement and the withdrawal of the Americans from the process by their refusal to ratify the treaty rather than as a result of the terms of the treaty itself or Germany’s incapacity to pay. The treaty was not, as Keynes labelled it, ‘a Carthaginian peace’, and Gomes is sympathetic to the French historian Jacques Bainville’s phrase that the treaty was ‘too mild for its severity’ (35). The severity was in the minds of all Germans but not in most current historians’ analyses. Germany had no willingness to pay and possibly no politically acceptable way to pay, and these conditions were more important than its actual capacity to pay.
The French were determined to establish security and eager to enforce the terms of the treaty while the English were worried about French power and backed away from any security guarantees and a firm policy of enforcement. Gomes also sees some validity in Gerald Feldman’s view that ‘the fact that the Germans successfully cheated everyone in the end does not exculpate those responsible for the folly that began at Versailles’ (220). The folly may well have had more to do with how the British, French and Americans acted following the treaty negotiations than as a result of the terms of the treaty itself.
Gomes sees more positive justifications for and potential results of the French and Belgian occupation of the Ruhr in 1923 than many earlier historians did. He argues that, had Premier Raymond Poincaré not backed away from capitalizing on the potential results of the occupation when he had a victory at hand, France might have achieved a reparations agreement that would have helped its economy and restored its international standing. He quotes André Francois-Poncet, French ambassador in Berlin, who compared Poincaré to a successful poker player ‘who left the table without collecting his winnings’ (123). Gomes is rightly extremely critical of the British commitment to a balance of power theory that made them fear French power, which was modest and never a threat to them, and underestimate German power that was potentially much greater and a threat to them.
Gomes perceptively argues that the German economy was fundamentally sound during the Weimar years even after the losses that resulted from the terms of the Versailles Treaty. All the ingredients for German economic growth were intact, in contrast to the French and English situations, which made their recoveries and growth very difficult. He understands that Germany used the inflation and the disputes between the English and the French to minimize any payments they made to the World War I victors. The Germans were able to use the Dawes Plan and the large private loans that they obtained from the Americans to move their economy forward. They also leveraged the need to pay back the loans to gain American support for delaying and reducing reparations payments. The Dawes Plan essentially succeeded in stabilizing the German economy only because no crisis blocked the frequent and crucial recycling of the loans. In spite of the seeming success of their economy between 1924 and 1928, Germany went too far in letting its international debt get out of hand and then could not resist the world depression.
Gomes, however, argues that the Young Plan of 1928 was a failure. Although Weimar government leaders and major industrialists recognized that it was critical to the functioning of the German economy, right-wing political forces in Germany resisted its implementation in an effort to stop all reparations payments. Adolf Hitler was able to use the referendum on the Young Plan to forge an alliance with Alfred Hugenberg and the Nationalists and Franz Seldte and the Stahlhelm, which brought the Nazis an aura of respectability and favourable news coverage by the Hugenberg press empire. Although the Young Plan survived the referendum and went into effect, the stabilization of loans, which the Dawes Plan had facilitated, was no longer possible.
It would have been difficult for any German leaders to carry through a policy of fulfilment while trying to renegotiate the terms of the treaty, but no good-faith efforts were made. The Weimar leaders did many good things that improved the lives of their people and allowed for a great degree of personal freedom and artistic creativity, and they devised an impressive social welfare state. However, as Gomes, quoting Gerald Feldman, declares, ‘reparations were Weimar’s fatal distraction’ (220). So much time was spent trying to avoid the reparations, manipulate the German currency, and support the boycott in the Ruhr in 1923, that opportunities for financial and tax reform were squandered, and enormous debts were accumulated. While the democratic government of the Republic was successful in avoiding reparations payments by playing on the disputes among the British, French and Americans, this fostering of disunity created major opportunities for Hitler and the Nazis and contributed to the wrecking of the peace and the eventual onset of another war.