The Treaty of Versailles imposed harsh terms on Germany after World War 1, including territorial losses, demilitarization, and reparations payments. Germany attempted to circumvent these restrictions through secret military collaboration with the Soviet Union and building arms factories in other countries. German companies also established front companies and sold weapons designs to neutral countries to enable further arms development.

1. Treaty of Versailles
Conditions

2. The main terms of the Versailles Treaty were:
(1) the surrender of all German colonies as League of Nations mandates;
(2) the return of Alsace-Lorraine to France;
(3) cession of Eupen-Malmedy to Belgium, Memel to Lithuania, the Hultschin district
to Czechoslovakia,
(4) Poznania, parts of East Prussia and Upper Silesia to Poland;
(5) Danzig to become a free city;
(6) plebiscites to be held in northern Schleswig to settle the Danish-German frontier;
(7) occupation and special status for the Saar under French control; (8)
demilitarization and a fifteen-year occupation of the Rhineland;
(How do 6 & 7 show a loss of control???)

3. (9) German reparations of £6,600 million;
$1,782,255,617,429.94.
(10) a ban on the union of Germany and Austria;
(11) an acceptance of Germany's guilt in causing the war;
(11) provision for the trial of the former Kaiser and other war leaders;
(12) limitation of Germany's army to 100,000 men from around
13,000,000: with no conscription, no tanks, no heavy artillery, no
poison-gas supplies, no aircraft and no airships;
(13) the limitation of the German Navy to vessels under 100,000 tons,
with no submarines;

4. Reparations Paid By Germany

5. Caption: "I can give him
another injection. In the
state he's in, he won't
notice anything at all “
Explanation: The patient,
representing Germany, is
dripping blood into a pail
titled "reparations," with
various casts and
bandages representing
the treaties and
international agreements
allegedly responsible for
Germany's misery.

6. In the chemical industry war and peace products are often almost identical. Nitrates, ammonia,
etc., are well-known examples. After the First World War the Germans held on to their plants
successfully. By 1926 Germany made a third of all nitrates in the world. Hydrogenation of coal,
synthetic rubber, etc., were all started because of military needs.
An explosion in a chemical factory in Hamburg in 1928, causing the death of eleven persons,
proved that poison gas had been produced—for use by the army.
The use of neutral facilities was in addition to the large scale collaboration with Russia (USSR).
It extended beyond manufacturing to the secret training of army personnel.
Starting their collaboration with the Rapallo Treaty (1921), the contracting powers, the
Russian government and the German Army, had different aims. The Russians wanted to profit
from German industrial technology and were keen on getting an armament industry of their
own to be built by the Germans. The German Army had an interest in producing weapons and
munitions which could not be controlled by the power of Versailles.
This connection led to the construction of an air force. The Junkers airplane factory in
Dessau built airplane factories in Russia. The costs were, of course, to be provided by the army.
Other airplane factories were built near Moscow, and in Samara (Kuibyshev) and Saratow.
Military air personnel got their instruction in Russia. To this end, German officers
dismissed from the army went to Russia as civilians and, after a period
of training there, returned to the army with a higher rank. In addition to
airplanes, the army built a poison gas factory. Krupp had a factory in Russia which produced
heavy artillery, especially howitzers .

7. In 1922, Krupp established Suderius AG in the Netherlands, as a front company for
shipbuilding, and sold submarine designs to neutrals including the Netherlands, Spain,
Turkey, Finland, and Japan. German Chancellor Wirth arranged for Krupp to secretly
continue designing artillery and tanks.

8. Return to the Netherlands
In 1919, Fokker, owing large sums in back taxes (including 14,250,000 marks of income-
tax),[5] returned to the Netherlands and founded a new company near Amsterdam with
the support of Steenkolen Handels Vereniging (now known as SHV Holdings). It was called
Nederlandse Vliegtuigenfabriek (Dutch Aircraft Factory), carefully concealing the Fokker
name because of his WWI involvement. Despite the strict disarmament conditions in the
Treaty of Versailles, Fokker did not return home empty-handed: he managed to arrange an
export permit for a shipment of aircraft parts and complete aircraft, among them 117
Fokker C.I's and 180 other types, such as D.VII and D.VIII. In 1919 six entire trains were
taken across the German-Dutch border. This initial stock enabled him to quickly set-up
shop.
After his company's relocation, vast amounts of Fokker C.I and C.IV military air-planes
were delivered to Russia, Romania and the still clandestine German air-force. Success
came on the commercial market too, with the development of the Fokker F.VII, a smart
high-winged aircraft capable of taking on various types of engines. Fokker would continue
to design and build military aircraft and was delivering aircraft to the Dutch air force.
Among foreign military customers, there was Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway,
Switzerland, Hungary, and Italy. All these countries bought substantial numbers of the
Fokker C.V reconnaissance aircraft, which became Fokker's main success in the latter part
of the 1920s and early 1930s.

9. The official army (Reichswehr) consisted of 4,000 officers, 20,000 noncommissioned
officers, 38,000 Gefreite, and 38,000 soldiers. Of course the army took advantage of any
loophole that existed or could be constructed in the Versailles disarmament rules (14).
Each company continued the tradition of an imperial regiment and got the corresponding
numbers and colors. Since four companies make up a battalion, the battalion
corresponded to a division and the regiment to an army corps. Thus, the Reichswehr threw
a shadow, and the shadow was the larger of the two. The meaning of this shadow was the
image of the Imperial Army.
The officers in the Reichswehr served longer in the same ranks, sometimes up to two
and a half times the length of service in the Imperial Army. Thus, the average officer was
actually a higher-ranking officer in the shadow army. Reserve officers were illegally trained
and advanced in a legally nonexisting reserve. Fifty-eight thousand noncoms were able to
train a much larger army which existed, partly on paper, in the patriotic organizations
forming an illegal reservoir, and in illegal parallel military formations. The instructions in
official manuals were based on the strength of arms and munitions of a great modern
military power and not on the legal 100,000-man army. Since the soldier had to sign up for
twelve years, 8,000 could leave after each twelve years and 8,000 new soldiers could then
be enrolled. In reality, various devices such as unforeseen illnesses were used to justify
large, premature dismissals and new entrants. New soldiers were introduced under the
identification of legal soldiers, so that the formal number remained constant.

10. The legal army maintained close liaison with various groups which trained men in arms,
and had a variety of "cover" identities to shield them from view as military groups. The
Stahlhelm, for example, was a nationalistic, middle-class organization which advocated
the merit of military life and agitated publicly for restoration of the German military
machine. Unlike the Nazis, the Stahlhelm was not a terroristic body. The Nazis started as
a movement of the outcasts of society, the Lumpenproletariat—long-standing
unemployed. This movement, originating with desperate men who had little to lose,
took on a politically fanatic and terroristic character. Here, military methods were
important for use in the party's struggle for political supremacy.
Finally, the illegal military groups included an array of fanatic terroristic organizations,
small in size, but important for their work of political assassination in eliminating first
the leaders of the Revolution, then prominent Republicans, and finally the enemies of
the illegal rearmament.