Praxis II Citizenship

Answer: B - The Treaty of Versailles did not require Germany to disband its military for 20 years. But it did restrict the military in terms of how many soldiers it could enlist, their terms of service, the number of ships, aircraft, and weapons they could possess, etc. Historians still debate whether the treaty was really as punitive as Germany claimed it to be. However, the true severity of the treaty was only of secondary importance. By far, the most important aspect of the treaty was how the German people responded to it. The difficult rebuilding years after the war (which would have been difficult for Germany even if they had won the war) were compounded by the Great Depression, resulting in a period of extreme hardship. For the next decade, Germany blamed all of their hardships on the Treaty of Versailles. Some of the treaty’s terms were undeniably harsh-particularly the demand that Germany accept responsibility for all wrongdoing in the war when they were not solely responsible. But the resentment toward the treaty and those who imposed it percolated for a decade, directly facilitating the rise of the Nazi Party, Adolf Hitler, and, eventually, a return to world war.