Did germans deserve the terms of the Versailles treaty?

No. The answer does not have to await a detailed analysis, since the formulation of the question calls for a negative answer. The question involves a conclusion to be taken that affects people by the mere fact that they share a nationality. The same kind of rejection would follow for  questions of equivalent format involving  americans, jews, arabs, gipsies, women, japanese, etc. This type of statements are racist in an ample sense of the word. Very often we simplify facts by transfering responsabilities for wrongdoings to a religion, race or nationality. This is unfair and should be avoided. Most of the wrongdoings are usually the act of a small collection of citizens who take decisions in the name of a much bigger set. Guilt and responsability should go hand in hand. The leaders usually are given the capacity to decide for the rest and they count for it with  access to information and the capacity to surround themselves with the brightest minds that can clarify the possible  outcome of their decisions.

Let us take an example which might look controversial for some. In my opinion the invasion of Irak during Bush Jr. presidency was a criminal act which incurred in flagrant violation of international laws. An aggression done not in response to menace of any kind. The arguments which were conveyed to the population of the United States were obviously flawed. I would even call them ridiculous. The result of the invasion was devastating in terms of casualties involving civilians. Furthermore, it created a partially failed state that has generated the emergence of the Islamic State regime which is a much bigger menace than what Saddam Hussein regime represented. If there was justice in the world, George W. Bush and others (including Tony Blair and Jose Maria Aznar) would have been  prosecuted. I would easily call these people criminals, but  I would never extend the responsibility to the american population. It is true that Bush was in power because he won an election with votes of a large fraction of the population. Clearly others voted against, and even those that voted in favour are very frequently misinformed by the propagandistic machinery of the state  about what is really at stake in an election, and what options do the candidates represent. Very frequently the big options are not even available. You cannot blame someone for dumbness and ignorance, otherwise in one sense or other everybody should be guilty.

So why did I write this blog then? And, why did I chose that particular title out of a large set of possible options? There are two reasons. The first is that  it is now generally accepted that the conditions imposed upon the german population as a result of the Versailles treaty caused an incredible amount of suffering which ultimately acted as a germ  for the nationalistic feelings which helped Adolf Hitler to get into power, with the dramatic consequences which that had later. Thus, I would say that, from this perspective, most people would accept that the treaty was really a bad decision on the part of the victors of the Great War.  The second reason why I chose the title is to counterbalance similar statements conveyed in german media about the situation in which the greek population is summoned as a result of their public debt. German citizens should think twice before adhering to such statements in which the "greek population"  supposedly deserves their situation for being spendthrift and lazy. Certain greek politicians adopted decisions which certainly acted as potentiators if not generators of the debt itself. Curiously, Samaras who is certainly one of the main actors, together with Goldman Sachs, is still around and even speaking  out his  opinions as if they were to be trusted. Suffering is far from proportionate to guilt. The greek bankers and the traditional politicians  have a lot of responsabilty, while the suffering goes to the weakest sector of the greek population.  Not only that,  it seems, that in the world we live,  the bigger the  blame the easier to get  pardon. Forgiveness is all around. Mr Juncker has been forgiven for forgiving tax payments  to large companies. In Spain we have forgiven the debts of many banks, for bad decisions taken despite having a staff of analists. However, banks do not forgive debts of the citizens who were caught by the crisis, which few politicians or economic actors warned about.

As a summary: Yes, if you are a german citizen you should not  buy the lowbrow argument about the greek debt and much less allow yourself to make statements about the greek population as a result of this. This goes the other way too. I reject an emergent feeling in Greece, Spain and other countries of contempt  against  germans. Let Angela Merkel and her cabinet take the blame.  For the voters it is mostly  a question of dumbness and ignorance.