German view of Versailles
From Mr lain Smith
Sir: Frank Johnson, with whose column I normally wholeheartedly agree, writes (27 July) in respect of the 1919 Versailles Treaty: 'The Germans of all classes are happy to blame the treaty . . . and the second world war, on Britain, France and the United States . .. educated opinion blaming disaster on someone else's country.'
In the hundreds of articles and dozens of books I have read in German on this subject in the last 40 years, I do not remember once coming across this attitude in this form. Certainly the treaty is regarded as a contributing factor, but only one of many, and I cannot remember any sane person maintaining that the second world war would not have happened without the treaty.
I do not remember the English translation of Sebastian Haffner's Als Englander maskiert, written in 1939 and discovered in 2000 after his death. I bought the German original because of the enthusiastic review of the English translation in The Spectator. I advise Mr Johnson to read it.
lain Smith
Moncao, Portugal
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