c4: The Peace Treaty

“No, I haven’t.” The young man in the lead stammered, clearly intimidated by Akado’s presence.

Akado took a step forward and pointed to the Iron Cross on his chest with his left hand. The back of that hand was covered in thick scars, a shocking sight. He saw the three young men take a small step back before he spoke again. “The men here are all heroes willing to bleed for this country. And you want to persuade them to accept humiliation for the sake of a false peace?”

“Get out!” Hitler, now with powerful support, roared.

“Get out!” The fighting spirit of the wounded soldiers in the room was ignited. They much preferred to accept the idea that they were heroes; at this moment, that narrative resonated deeply with them.

The young man on the chair took another step back, missed his footing, and tumbled to the floor, provoking a wave of mocking laughter. Amid the jeers, the three young men fled the hall of the wounded.

“Akado!” Hitler, having found an outlet for his anger, raised his right hand and shouted.

The wounded soldiers followed his lead, chanting, “Akado! Akado!”

With a loud clatter, a steel mess tin was thrown to the floor. Hitler, sitting next to Akado, complained furiously, “These damned Bolsheviks! One day, I’ll round them all up! And have every single one of them hanged!”

“Anger is useless,” Akado said with a smile. “Every ideology has its reasons for existing. By this point in the war, it’s true that not many people support it anymore.”

“No! I would rather die fighting on the front lines than accept defeat! The British! The French! And the damned Americans!” Hitler waved his fists, speaking with great agitation.

But the war would not change its course because of the indignation of one minor figure. On the third day, November 9, 1918, an old pastor rushed to the small town of Pasewalk in Pomerania to deliver a stunning piece of news to Hitler and the others who were preparing to return to the front.

“Gentlemen, I am Pastor Bogel. I regret to inform you that the House of Hohenzollern no longer wears the German crown. Germany has become a republic,” the old pastor said, the words coming out with great difficulty.

“Oh God, what are you saying? His Majesty the Kaiser, he, he…” Hitler stared blankly at the old pastor. Akado saw his lips tremble, his voice twisting into an unnatural tone. Those who have never lived under an imperial system cannot understand this kind of heartfelt worship and obedience, but this feeling was real, and sometimes, it was etched into one’s very soul.

Looking around, Akado saw that many men had already fallen to their knees, weeping. Others were shouting and yelling. The sudden collapse of the empire they had sworn to serve clearly filled them with sorrow and grief, and an even more potent emotion—despair.

Yes, despair. Hitler was already in despair. The war in which he had placed so much hope was lost. The spiritual pillar of his life had collapsed. He no longer knew what he was living for, or why he was even breathing.

Akado wanted to deliver a passionate speech, just as he had a few days ago, to verbally thrash the old pastor and send him away. But he realized that in the face of the historical reality about to unfold, all words were pale and powerless. The German Kaiser had indeed stepped down from the stage of history, and the curtain had not yet been raised on the stage that would belong to Germany’s zenith.

Watching the commotion around him, Akado whispered softly, “God, if I must kneel to survive, then please grant me a longsword. I would rather die holding it on the battlefield, fighting for freedom.”

“Mr. Akado, you are a true German, a true German soldier,” Hitler said, having overheard Akado’s whisper. By now, his face was soaked with tears. He spoke through sobs, like a child who had lost his father.

Patting Hitler’s shoulder, Akado stared at the weeping corporal with a resolute gaze, the force of it rattling the buttons and medals on both their uniforms. “We have to do something, or Germany will be destroyed by that pack of fools!”

“What can we do?” Hitler was lost. He had entertained the idea of entering politics, but the powerful aristocrats and veteran politicians were invincible. He could never defeat such formidable opponents with the rank of a corporal and the status of a commoner.

“We will enter politics!” Akado said firmly. “We can use this trend of people breaking with tradition to win many supporters! We are different from the old nobility and the politicians. We have progressive ideas, and more importantly, we have a stronger conviction!”

“What conviction?” Hitler looked at Akado, puzzled.

“Germany will conquer the world,” Akado said softly, his lips pursed, uttering an oath as heavy as a mountain.

History would ultimately remember this day. That night, a corporal named Adolf Hitler wrote down these words: “Whether to enter politics or to continue as an architect, I once hesitated. Now, I hesitate no longer. Tonight, I have made my decision to enter politics.”

And another young man, Akado, spoke a line that would be forgotten by history: “Germany will conquer the world.”

Let us set aside the wild words of these young men for a moment. In another corner of the world, Allied politicians were racking their brains to give Germany a surprise.

On November 11, Germany surrendered in the Forest of Compiègne.

The following year, on May 7, 1919, the Allied Powers presented the Treaty of Versailles in Berlin, a document drafted unilaterally without any negotiation with Germany. For the people of a nation that had been indulging in fantasy until the very last second, this was a staggering blow.

The Treaty of Versailles stipulated that Germany must return the regions of Alsace and Lorraine, which it had acquired during the Franco-Prussian War.

The treaty stipulated that Germany cede a considerable portion of its eastern territory to Poland, thereby giving Poland access to the sea. East Prussia became an exclave with no border connected to the rest of Germany.

The treaty stipulated that Germany cede part of Schleswig to Denmark. Some other areas previously controlled by Germany were either occupied by the Allies or placed under the mandate of the newly formed League of Nations.

The treaty stipulated that after the Allied withdrawal from the Rhineland, the area would become a demilitarized zone where Germany could not station troops or build fortifications.

Of course, the treaty also stipulated that Germany would lose all of its overseas colonies and that the German government would have to pay enormous war reparations to the Allied Powers.

However, in this treaty of over 75,000 words and 440 articles, the most important part concerned the disarmament of Germany.

For whatever reason, the architects of the Treaty of Versailles intended to permanently cripple Germany’s fearsome military might. They destroyed or dismantled most of Germany’s weapons and production facilities, specifically forbidding Germany from possessing the four new weapons that had emerged during the First World War: aircraft, tanks, submarines, and poison gas.

The treaty also systematically weakened Germany’s armed forces. According to its terms, all 14,000 of Germany’s existing aircraft had to be handed over to the Allies or dismantled on the spot. The navy was reduced to a symbolic force of 15,000 men, equipped with obsolete pre-WWI battleships, light cruisers, destroyers, and torpedo boats. On top of that, even most of the merchant marine fleet was confiscated as war reparations.

The most severe blow fell upon the German Army. These proud soldiers, inheritors of the Prussian military tradition, were ruthlessly suppressed.

Before World War I, the German Army numbered two million men. The treaty would shrink this force to a mere 100,000 by early 1920. Enlistment had to be voluntary, and the system of universal conscription had to be abolished.

The General Staff, which had produced countless great German commanders, was completely dissolved. Military academies were closed. The use of tanks, heavy artillery, and poison gas was forbidden. The treaty even had meticulous regulations on the number of light weapons, such as machine guns and rifles, as well as their ammunition.

This treaty was nothing short of a humiliation. One American senator prophetically pointed out: “This is not a peace treaty, it is an armistice for twenty years.” (This is a paraphrase of a famous sentiment, often attributed to Marshal Foch). For this reason, the Treaty of Versailles was not ratified by the U.S. Senate.

On May 7, 1919, the contents of the treaty were made public. The German people were shocked by its harsh terms. Everyone was filled with indignation and a sense of betrayal.

Their hope that the drastic political changes near the end of the war—namely, the abolition of Kaiser Wilhelm II’s autocratic rule and the implementation of a parliamentary democracy—would lessen the severity of the defeat’s punishment was completely shattered.

German citizens took to the streets to protest the treaty. After all, Germany had been defeated in a bewildering manner while it still possessed the potential to fight. To be humiliated to such an extent as a defeated nation was something no one could tolerate.

On June 16, the Allied Powers issued an ultimatum to Germany, demanding that they accept the treaty by the 24th, or the armistice would be voided, and the Allies would “take whatever steps they may think needful to enforce their terms.”

If they rejected the treaty, could the German army resist the inevitable Allied offensive from the west? President Ebert posed this question to the German High Command. “If the High Command thinks that there is any possibility of success in a military resistance,” Ebert said, “I will get the National Assembly to vote for rejection.”

Marshal Hindenburg gave Ebert this reply: “In the event of a renewal of hostilities we can… reconquer the province of Posen and defend our frontiers in the east. In the west, however, we can scarcely count on being able to resist a serious offensive on the part of the enemy, having regard to their numerical superiority and their ability to surround us on both flanks. The success of the operation as a whole is therefore very doubtful, but as a soldier I cannot help feeling that it were better to perish honourably than to accept a disgraceful peace.”

The military indicated that armed resistance would be fruitless and would lead to the annihilation of the army’s precious officer corps, and possibly even the destruction of Germany itself.

Since the military leaders had accepted responsibility, the National Assembly finally voted by a large majority to sign the treaty. When this decision was communicated to the Allied representative in Berlin, Clemenceau, only nineteen minutes remained before the ultimatum expired. Four days later, on June 28, the victorious Allies signed the Treaty of Versailles, and the German government ratified its terms without much delay. The conditions were harsh. Germany was forced to accept sole responsibility for causing the war and to pay for all the damage it had caused. Just nineteen minutes before the Allied deadline, the German government finally yielded, even though the Social Democratic President, Friedrich Ebert, considered the treaty “unrealizable and unbearable.”

The beginning and end of wars never seemed to have anything to do with the little people. The First World War began with the shooting of an archduke and ended with a piece of paper signed by a group of high-ranking officials.

Yes, the First World War ended hastily in a compromise among politicians, just as it had in history. On the very morning German soldiers were eagerly awaiting the order to counterattack, they received the command to retreat.

Hitler was broken. The Austrian infantry regiment he belonged to was disbanded. Just as he was dreaming of shedding his last drop of blood for Germany, the great men of Germany had shamelessly surrendered.

Amid Hitler’s bitter tears and Akado’s reassurances, the First World War came to an end. Germany’s war machine was dismembered, and a feeling of humiliation and outrage filled the entire German nation.