German disarmament

The Treaty of Versailles placed severe restrictions on German ownership of munitions and other arms and limited the army to just 100,000 men. Under the terms of the treaty, poison gas, tanks, submarines, and heavy artillery were prohibited to German forces, and Germany could not import or export "war material" (a vague term that was not clearly defined).[1] Germany did not fully accept the terms of the treaty nor even the fact of its own defeat in World War I.[2]

Germany was given two months to surrender all prohibited war material. Disarmament began under the Inter-Allied Military Control Commission on 10 January 1920. The Allies created a list of war material that included flamethrowers, shells, rifles, grenades, armored cars, artillery, fuses and detonators. The list broadly included uniforms, field ambulances, telephones, gas masks, signalling equipment, and optical instruments. This published list was called the "Blue Book".[1]

The German government objected to the broad scope of the Blue Book, which had defined war material so expansively as to include cooking utensils and vehicles needed for basic economic activity and transportation. Responding to this complaint, the Allies decided to sell non-military goods and credit the proceeds as reparations. The Fehrenbach government complained again in January 1921, but the IAMCC would not alter the list, and even expanded it once again in August 1921 to include German uniforms, pants, backpacks, jackets, and tents, which were sold, and helmets, which were destroyed.[1]

Harold Nicolson wrote in 1919 "It will be too awful if, after winning the war we are to lose the peace".[2]

The French and British had different views of what enforced disarmament of Germany meant. The process brought the post-War strategies of the Allies into conflict. The French literature on post-1919 Germany calls it "moral disarmament" based on the French position that the threat of Germany, a combination of geographic, economic, ideological, and demographic factors, was not resolved by the armistice and Versailles Treaty. French political views emphasized the location of Germany on France's border, the nationalist sentiments that had spurred the country to war, and its technical and economic capabilities, still strong, even after the First World War. Disarmament was, to the French, an opportunity to dismantle German capabilities. Not only the physical disarmament, but for the French, a "moral disarmament" was seen as essential for the security of France. In contrast, the British view was one of "continental containment and engagement."[3]

At the end of World War I much of Germany's wartime production capabilities were still intact. Germany's chemical industry was of particular concern. Germany's production of propellant had increased twenty-fold between 1914 and 1918 under the Hindenburg Program. Dyestuffs firms had been converted to manufacture explosives and nitrogen compounds. The Interessengemeinschaft (IG) was an agreement that pooled the resources of eight existing pre-war dye firms in 1916. Their principal factories, located near explosives and munitions plants, supplied the pre-war explosives and powder companies with sulphuric acid and other needed components. Under the terms of the agreement, the IG and powder interests would join interests in a new agreement after the war (with German victory presumed), giving the IG a monopoly in the production of high explosives. This was cancelled under the terms of the Versailles Treaty, but it was not enough to prevent German ambitions to integrate the industrial capacity developed during the war into their military plans. The firms merged to form I.G. Farben in 1925.[2]

The vast industry presented challenges from a disarmament perspective because its industrial capacity had not been damaged during the war and the chemicals it produced were dual use. Phosgene, picric acid, and arsenic were intermediate components needed for production of dyes, pharmaceuticals, and other goods intended for commercial markets. Despite the productive civilian uses, the Allied position expressed in 1919 was "every chemical factory must be regarded as a potential arsenal", but the elimination of Germany's chemicals production capacity was hardly a foregone conclusion.[2]

Using front organizations such as glider clubs for training pilots and sporting clubs, and Nazi SA militia groups for teaching infantry combat techniques, front companies like MEFO for acquiring forbidden weapons, German rearmament began on a small, secret, and informal basis shortly after the treaty was signed, but it was openly and massively expanded after the Nazi Party came to power in 1933

• German rearmament