106 years ago today, January 18, 1919 (December 17, 1918, the Paris Peace Conference was held. The plenary meeting of the Paris Peace Conference was being held in the mirror hall of the Royal Palace of Louis XIV. British Prime Minister Lloyd George, Italian Prime Minister Orlando, French Prime Minister Clemenceau and US President Wilson. Just after the end of World War I, the imperialist powers began to draw up a peace treaty with Germany and redivide the world. On January 18, 1919, a Peace Conference was held at the Palace of Versailles in Paris. 1000 representatives from 27 victorious countries participated, including 70 plenipotentiaries. Soviet Russia was not invited, and Germany, as a defeated country, was turned away. The meeting is controlled by the Supreme Council (the "Top Ten" meeting) composed of two representatives from each of the five countries: the United States, Britain, France, Italy and Japan. On March 25, the 10-member decision-making meeting was reduced to a "big four" meeting: U.S. President Wilson, British Prime Minister Lloyd George, French Prime Minister Crimenceau, and Italian Prime Minister Orlando. In fact, major issues are decided by representatives of the United States, Britain and France. At the plenary meeting on April 28, the Covenant of the League of Nations was unanimously adopted. The Peace Conference lasted for half a year. The victorious countries such as the United States, Britain, France, Japan and Italy wanted to get more of the stolen goods and weaken their opponents who competed for hegemony after the war. Therefore, there were many contradictions and fierce infighting between them, and often got into a row. In order to dominate the European continent, France tried to completely weaken Germany. However, the United States and Britain wanted Germany to continue to maintain a certain degree of strength to contain France's hegemony, so they tried their best to oppose it and forced France to make concessions to the United States and Britain on the German issue. Japan's main goal is the Far East. It wants to monopolize Germany's colonial interests in Shandong, China. Although this request was opposed by the United States, Japan threatened to refuse to join the League of Nations and sign a peace treaty, forcing the United States to change its attitude. Behind the back of China, the United States, France and Japan concocted a solution to the Shandong issue that seriously damaged China's sovereignty. In addition, the imperialist powers are also fighting openly and secretly on many issues such as the League of Nations. After fierce competition and mutual compromise, on June 28, the victorious powers finally signed the "Peace Treaty with Germany", or the "Peace Treaty of Versailles", in the famous Mirror Hall of the Palace of Versailles on the outskirts of Paris. Because the conference transferred Germany's pre-war privileges in Shandong to Japan, seriously damaging China's interests, the China representatives refused to sign the Treaty of Versailles. The Treaty of Versailles consists of 15 parts and 440 articles. The first part is the Covenant of the League of Nations, and the rest are articles dealing with Germany. The terms for dealing with Germany are very strict, mainly covering four aspects: borders, compensation, colonies and arms limitation. According to the peace treaty, Germany would lose 1/8 of its original territory and 1/10 of its population by redrawing the borders. Germany had to hand over all its colonies and hand them over to the victorious power in accordance with the principle of mandate. The peace treaty also stipulated that the German General Staff should be dissolved, the universal compulsory military service system should be abolished, the total number of the German Army should not exceed 100,000, and the possession of submarines and other restricted armaments was not allowed. Regarding Germany's compensation, the Peace Council failed to make a decision on the total amount of compensation and the proportion of the income received by various countries. It only stipulated that a special compensation commission should be established to establish the total amount of compensation before May 1, 1921 (it was later determined that Germany should pay a total of 132 billion gold marks). Before that, 20 billion gold marks should be paid first. These provisions of the Treaty of Versailles are a true record of imperialism's re-division of the world. In fact, there is only a temporary compromise between the imperialists, and the inherent contradictions between them cannot and cannot be eliminated. Extended reading by China Representative Gu Weijun: Success and Failure of the Paris Peace Conference Extended reading: Success and Failure of the Paris Peace Conference During the Ruhr Incident, the French bicycle brigade entered the Ruhr industrial area of Germany. Hitler accompanied by Himmler reviewed the SS Hitler and his generals On January 18, 1919, at the Palace of Versailles in Paris, France, the first world-scale treaty conference in human history was held. Germany, the defeated country, was waiting outside the meeting, while Russia was not invited. U.S. President Wilson, British Prime Minister Lloyd George, and French Prime Minister Crimenceau are the three giants controlling the peace conference. On June 28, representatives of all participating countries collectively signed the Treaty of Versailles. The peace treaty mainly punished and weakened Germany, redrew Germany's borders, and established a demilitarized zone 50 kilometers east of the Rhine River. With the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, the world calmed down after World War I. Most countries pin their hopes on the international league's arms limitation agreement and the restructuring of the European landscape, hoping to curb future wars. The victorious countries also believed that they had won the final battle to end all wars. However, despite the establishment of mechanisms to maintain future peace, Germany, a defeated country, is quietly emerging, which will once again affect the peace of all mankind. France and Belgium occupied Germany's Ruhr industrial zone just ended. In the defeated country of Germany, conflicts between the extreme left and the extreme right continued, and both sides hired soldiers returning from the battlefield of World War I as paramilitary forces. In November 1918, on the ruins of war, under the strong pressure of U.S. President Wilson's insistence on abolishing the absolute monarchy, Germany established the Weimar Republic ruled by the Social Democratic Party. The small army of the Weimar Republic, together with the army of the far-right party, strangled the efforts of Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg to establish a Soviet republic in a pool of blood. In March 1920, a senior German military general and his henchmen attempted to overthrow the government of the Republic. The government was forced to flee from Weimar to Dresden. On the other hand, after the Paris Peace Conference, the issue of German war compensation remained unresolved. The Allied Compensation Commission made a new decision in 1921, requiring Germany to compensate the victorious countries a huge sum of US$33 billion within 30 years. In the same year, after Germany paid its first reparations, it submitted a request to the Allies to defer payment of reparations for the following year. On January 11, 1923, France and Belgium jointly sent troops to occupy the German Ruhr region on the pretext of Germany's deliberate failure to fulfill its coal supply obligations. During the occupation of the Ruhr area by French and Belgian troops, the entire Ruhr industrial area of Germany was turned into factory graves. Hundreds of thousands of Ruhr workers were unemployed or even expelled. During this period, serious inflation occurred throughout Germany. In fact, France and Belgium did not gain any practical benefits from the occupation of the Ruhr area; on the other hand, due to strong international pressure, they eventually withdrew their troops from there. Hitler launched a beer hall coup Through the Ruhr incident, Germany's far left and far right felt the weakness and incompetence of the government, so riots continued. Conflicts are particularly serious in Bavaria, and civil war has also contributed to the rapid development of right-wing organizations. It was against this background that Adolf Hitler began his career of political adventure. In 1889, Hitler was born in the small town of Braunau on the Austrian-German border. As a boy, Hitler once dreamed of becoming a painter and once wandered on the streets of Vienna. During World War I, Hitler was a corporal in the 16th Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment in Germany. In 1919, he joined the newly established German Workers 'Party in Munich with less than 100 members. Hitler added the word "National Socialism" to the "German Workers 'Party" and became the National Socialist German Workers' Party, or the Nazi Party for short. With inflammatory speeches and tough political skills, Hitler quickly became the leader of the Nazi Party. The criticism of the Treaty of Versailles won him a lot of support, and even won the appreciation of Ludendorff, who was once the German chief of staff. Hitler believed that the time was ripe for armed seizure of power and the re-establishment of the Greater German Empire, so on November 8, 1923, he and Ludendorff jointly planned a coup d'etat. That evening, at the Bergblau Beer Hall in Munich, which can accommodate 3000 people at a time, the Bavarian governor, military commander and police chief were convening a meeting. Hitler led a group of stormtroopers, suddenly broke into the beer hall, kidnapped these dignitaries, and announced the overthrow of the state government. This is the famous "beer hall coup" in German history. Hitler and Ludendorff had hoped to seize the Weimar regime through a coup and tear up the Treaty of Versailles. However, it backfired and the coup failed. The international situation is conducive to Germany's development and the international situation seems to be conducive to Germany. In May 1924, Dawes, the first director of the U.S. Department of the Budget, proposed a revised plan for post-war German compensation. The Dawes plan does not approve foreign loans of US$200 million to Germany to pay its debts, but only requires Germany to do its best to pay the reparations stipulated in the treaty. France and the United Kingdom also expressed support for the Dawes plan. With the connivance of this revised plan, Germany's economy began to recover and its international status steadily rose. In September 1926, Germany officially joined the League of Nations. Soon after, he became a permanent member of the Executive Council of the League of Nations. That year, restrictions prohibiting Hitler from speaking in public were also lifted. Hitler decided to abandon the strategy of seizing power through armed insurrection and achieve his political intention through parliamentary struggle: to make the Nazi Party the ruling party and then rule Germany. The suffering of the Germans became a bargaining chip for Hitler to realize his ambitions. In October 1929, the stock price of the Wall Street stock market in New York, USA, plummeted, followed by companies and banks. This stock market disaster also triggered the Great Economic Depression throughout the Western world, with major industrial countries affected to varying degrees. By 1933, when Hitler became chancellor, the German economy had almost come to a standstill, and almost half of the country's 66 million people were struggling on the hunger and poverty line. However, the suffering of the Germans became a bargaining chip for Hitler to realize his ambitions. He turned all this into political power to support himself. On January 30, 1933, Hitler accepted the post of chancellor, but the Nazi Party accounted for only two cabinet members. A month later, a mysterious fire broke out at the Parliament Building. The arsonist was said to be a half-mad Dutchman. Hitler took the opportunity to accuse the leftist parties of being behind the fire and persuaded Hindenburg to impose political restrictions on them. Hitler arrested representatives of the leftist party on the grounds of the Reichstag fire. Subsequently, other political parties were also banned one by one. Von Hindenburg passed away in 1934, which meant that the last shackles on the Nazi Party were completely lifted. Hitler succeeded the German president, combining the positions of president, chancellor and supreme commander of the army. Everyone respectfully called him "Fuhrer" and declared himself "the supreme judge of the German people." At this point, Hitler completed absolute control of the German state power. Hitler rebuilds the German armed forces Hitler proposed the Nazi Party's 25-point program with typical politician tactics. The center of Hitler's thought was blood and soil, in other words, fanatical racism and territorial expansion policies. In 1933, Germany established the "State Secret Police", commonly known as the "Gestapo". By 1939, the secret police had grown to more than 30,000 members. They penetrated and controlled all areas of German society and the German-occupied areas, and owned a large number of prisons and concentration camps. The Treaty of Versailles stipulated that Germany must abolish universal compulsory military service and that the army must not exceed 100,000 people. However, after Hitler came to power, he completely ignored this rule. The first thing to do was to expand the army and re-implement compulsory military service. In 1934, Hitler quickly arrested and executed top leaders of the Stormtroopers. Since then, the SS became the embodiment of the ideology responsible for defending national socialism, an independent body that transformed Nazi racism into a code of conduct. Hitler expands his army and prepares for war Hitler ignored the Treaty of Versailles and committed himself to expanding his army and preparing for war, preparing to create a huge disaster for all mankind. In 1933, after Hitler came to power, he strongly supported the establishment of gliding clubs. In June 1935, Britain and Germany signed a naval agreement, agreeing that Germany would limit the number of surface ships to 35% of the size of the Royal Navy fleet, while the submarine force would be comparable to that of the United Kingdom. In the mid-1930s, Hitler's apparent call for peace successfully disrupted his opponents, leading Britain and France to appease him, mistakenly believing that Nazi ambitions were still under control. On October 19, 1933, Hitler announced Germany's withdrawal from the League of Nations, which increasingly marked that for Hitler, the Treaty of Versailles had expired, and the League of Nations, as the institution for maintaining international peace and security after the First World War, had disappeared in name only.106 years ago today, January 18, 1919 (December 17, 1918, the Paris Peace Conference was held. The plenary meeting of the Paris Peace Conference was being held in the mirror hall of the Royal Palace of Louis XIV. British Prime Minister Lloyd George, Italian Prime Minister Orlando, French Prime Minister Clemenceau and US President Wilson. Just after the end of World War I, the imperialist powers began to draw up a peace treaty with Germany and redivide the world. On January 18, 1919, a Peace Conference was held at the Palace of Versailles in Paris. 1000 representatives from 27 victorious countries participated, including 70 plenipotentiaries. Soviet Russia was not invited, and Germany, as a defeated country, was turned away. The meeting is controlled by the Supreme Council (the "Top Ten" meeting) composed of two representatives from each of the five countries: the United States, Britain, France, Italy and Japan. On March 25, the 10-member decision-making meeting was reduced to a "big four" meeting: U.S. President Wilson, British Prime Minister Lloyd George, French Prime Minister Crimenceau, and Italian Prime Minister Orlando. In fact, major issues are decided by representatives of the United States, Britain and France. At the plenary meeting on April 28, the Covenant of the League of Nations was unanimously adopted. The Peace Conference lasted for half a year. The victorious countries such as the United States, Britain, France, Japan and Italy wanted to get more of the stolen goods and weaken their opponents who competed for hegemony after the war. Therefore, there were many contradictions and fierce infighting between them, and often got into a row. In order to dominate the European continent, France tried to completely weaken Germany. However, the United States and Britain wanted Germany to continue to maintain a certain degree of strength to contain France's hegemony, so they tried their best to oppose it and forced France to make concessions to the United States and Britain on the German issue. Japan's main goal is the Far East. It wants to monopolize Germany's colonial interests in Shandong, China. Although this request was opposed by the United States, Japan threatened to refuse to join the League of Nations and sign a peace treaty, forcing the United States to change its attitude. Behind the back of China, the United States, France and Japan concocted a solution to the Shandong issue that seriously damaged China's sovereignty. In addition, the imperialist powers are also fighting openly and secretly on many issues such as the League of Nations. After fierce competition and mutual compromise, on June 28, the victorious powers finally signed the "Peace Treaty with Germany", or the "Peace Treaty of Versailles", in the famous Mirror Hall of the Palace of Versailles on the outskirts of Paris. Because the conference transferred Germany's pre-war privileges in Shandong to Japan, seriously damaging China's interests, the China representatives refused to sign the Treaty of Versailles. The Treaty of Versailles consists of 15 parts and 440 articles. The first part is the Covenant of the League of Nations, and the rest are articles dealing with Germany. The terms for dealing with Germany are very strict, mainly covering four aspects: borders, compensation, colonies and arms limitation. According to the peace treaty, Germany would lose 1/8 of its original territory and 1/10 of its population by redrawing the borders. Germany had to hand over all its colonies and hand them over to the victorious power in accordance with the principle of mandate. The peace treaty also stipulated that the German General Staff should be dissolved, the universal compulsory military service system should be abolished, the total number of the German Army should not exceed 100,000, and the possession of submarines and other restricted armaments was not allowed. Regarding Germany's compensation, the Peace Council failed to make a decision on the total amount of compensation and the proportion of the income received by various countries. It only stipulated that a special compensation commission should be established to establish the total amount of compensation before May 1, 1921 (it was later determined that Germany should pay a total of 132 billion gold marks). Before that, 20 billion gold marks should be paid first. These provisions of the Treaty of Versailles are a true record of imperialism's re-division of the world. In fact, there is only a temporary compromise between the imperialists, and the inherent contradictions between them cannot and cannot be eliminated. Extended reading by China Representative Gu Weijun: Success and Failure of the Paris Peace Conference Extended reading: Success and Failure of the Paris Peace Conference During the Ruhr Incident, the French bicycle brigade entered the Ruhr industrial area of Germany. Hitler accompanied by Himmler reviewed the SS Hitler and his generals On January 18, 1919, at the Palace of Versailles in Paris, France, the first world-scale treaty conference in human history was held. Germany, the defeated country, was waiting outside the meeting, while Russia was not invited. U.S. President Wilson, British Prime Minister Lloyd George, and French Prime Minister Crimenceau are the three giants controlling the peace conference. On June 28, representatives of all participating countries collectively signed the Treaty of Versailles. The peace treaty mainly punished and weakened Germany, redrew Germany's borders, and established a demilitarized zone 50 kilometers east of the Rhine River. With the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, the world calmed down after World War I. Most countries pin their hopes on the international league's arms limitation agreement and the restructuring of the European landscape, hoping to curb future wars. The victorious countries also believed that they had won the final battle to end all wars. However, despite the establishment of mechanisms to maintain future peace, Germany, a defeated country, is quietly emerging, which will once again affect the peace of all mankind. France and Belgium occupied Germany's Ruhr industrial zone just ended. In the defeated country of Germany, conflicts between the extreme left and the extreme right continued, and both sides hired soldiers returning from the battlefield of World War I as paramilitary forces. In November 1918, on the ruins of war, under the strong pressure of U.S. President Wilson's insistence on abolishing the absolute monarchy, Germany established the Weimar Republic ruled by the Social Democratic Party. The small army of the Weimar Republic, together with the army of the far-right party, strangled the efforts of Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg to establish a Soviet republic in a pool of blood. In March 1920, a senior German military general and his henchmen attempted to overthrow the government of the Republic. The government was forced to flee from Weimar to Dresden. On the other hand, after the Paris Peace Conference, the issue of German war compensation remained unresolved. The Allied Compensation Commission made a new decision in 1921, requiring Germany to compensate the victorious countries a huge sum of US$33 billion within 30 years. In the same year, after Germany paid its first reparations, it submitted a request to the Allies to defer payment of reparations for the following year. On January 11, 1923, France and Belgium jointly sent troops to occupy the German Ruhr region on the pretext of Germany's deliberate failure to fulfill its coal supply obligations. During the occupation of the Ruhr area by French and Belgian troops, the entire Ruhr industrial area of Germany was turned into factory graves. Hundreds of thousands of Ruhr workers were unemployed or even expelled. During this period, serious inflation occurred throughout Germany. In fact, France and Belgium did not gain any practical benefits from the occupation of the Ruhr area; on the other hand, due to strong international pressure, they eventually withdrew their troops from there. Hitler launched a beer hall coup Through the Ruhr incident, Germany's far left and far right felt the weakness and incompetence of the government, so riots continued. Conflicts are particularly serious in Bavaria, and civil war has also contributed to the rapid development of right-wing organizations. It was against this background that Adolf Hitler began his career of political adventure. In 1889, Hitler was born in the small town of Braunau on the Austrian-German border. As a boy, Hitler once dreamed of becoming a painter and once wandered on the streets of Vienna. During World War I, Hitler was a corporal in the 16th Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment in Germany. In 1919, he joined the newly established German Workers 'Party in Munich with less than 100 members. Hitler added the word "National Socialism" to the "German Workers 'Party" and became the National Socialist German Workers' Party, or the Nazi Party for short. With inflammatory speeches and tough political skills, Hitler quickly became the leader of the Nazi Party. The criticism of the Treaty of Versailles won him a lot of support, and even won the appreciation of Ludendorff, who was once the German chief of staff. Hitler believed that the time was ripe for armed seizure of power and the re-establishment of the Greater German Empire, so on November 8, 1923, he and Ludendorff jointly planned a coup d'etat. That evening, at the Bergblau Beer Hall in Munich, which can accommodate 3000 people at a time, the Bavarian governor, military commander and police chief were convening a meeting. Hitler led a group of stormtroopers, suddenly broke into the beer hall, kidnapped these dignitaries, and announced the overthrow of the state government. This is the famous "beer hall coup" in German history. Hitler and Ludendorff had hoped to seize the Weimar regime through a coup and tear up the Treaty of Versailles. However, it backfired and the coup failed. The international situation is conducive to Germany's development and the international situation seems to be conducive to Germany. In May 1924, Dawes, the first director of the U.S. Department of the Budget, proposed a revised plan for post-war German compensation. The Dawes plan does not approve foreign loans of US$200 million to Germany to pay its debts, but only requires Germany to do its best to pay the reparations stipulated in the treaty. France and the United Kingdom also expressed support for the Dawes plan. With the connivance of this revised plan, Germany's economy began to recover and its international status steadily rose. In September 1926, Germany officially joined the League of Nations. Soon after, he became a permanent member of the Executive Council of the League of Nations. That year, restrictions prohibiting Hitler from speaking in public were also lifted. Hitler decided to abandon the strategy of seizing power through armed insurrection and achieve his political intention through parliamentary struggle: to make the Nazi Party the ruling party and then rule Germany. The suffering of the Germans became a bargaining chip for Hitler to realize his ambitions. In October 1929, the stock price of the Wall Street stock market in New York, USA, plummeted, followed by companies and banks. This stock market disaster also triggered the Great Economic Depression throughout the Western world, with major industrial countries affected to varying degrees. By 1933, when Hitler became chancellor, the German economy had almost come to a standstill, and almost half of the country's 66 million people were struggling on the hunger and poverty line. However, the suffering of the Germans became a bargaining chip for Hitler to realize his ambitions. He turned all this into political power to support himself. On January 30, 1933, Hitler accepted the post of chancellor, but the Nazi Party accounted for only two cabinet members. A month later, a mysterious fire broke out at the Parliament Building. The arsonist was said to be a half-mad Dutchman. Hitler took the opportunity to accuse the leftist parties of being behind the fire and persuaded Hindenburg to impose political restrictions on them. Hitler arrested representatives of the leftist party on the grounds of the Reichstag fire. Subsequently, other political parties were also banned one by one. Von Hindenburg passed away in 1934, which meant that the last shackles on the Nazi Party were completely lifted. Hitler succeeded the German president, combining the positions of president, chancellor and supreme commander of the army. Everyone respectfully called him "Fuhrer" and declared himself "the supreme judge of the German people." At this point, Hitler completed absolute control of the German state power. Hitler rebuilds the German armed forces Hitler proposed the Nazi Party's 25-point program with typical politician tactics. The center of Hitler's thought was blood and soil, in other words, fanatical racism and territorial expansion policies. In 1933, Germany established the "State Secret Police", commonly known as the "Gestapo". By 1939, the secret police had grown to more than 30,000 members. They penetrated and controlled all areas of German society and the German-occupied areas, and owned a large number of prisons and concentration camps. The Treaty of Versailles stipulated that Germany must abolish universal compulsory military service and that the army must not exceed 100,000 people. However, after Hitler came to power, he completely ignored this rule. The first thing to do was to expand the army and re-implement compulsory military service. In 1934, Hitler quickly arrested and executed top leaders of the Stormtroopers. Since then, the SS became the embodiment of the ideology responsible for defending national socialism, an independent body that transformed Nazi racism into a code of conduct. Hitler expands his army and prepares for war Hitler ignored the Treaty of Versailles and committed himself to expanding his army and preparing for war, preparing to create a huge disaster for all mankind. In 1933, after Hitler came to power, he strongly supported the establishment of gliding clubs. In June 1935, Britain and Germany signed a naval agreement, agreeing that Germany would limit the number of surface ships to 35% of the size of the Royal Navy fleet, while the submarine force would be comparable to that of the United Kingdom. In the mid-1930s, Hitler's apparent call for peace successfully disrupted his opponents, leading Britain and France to appease him, mistakenly believing that Nazi ambitions were still under control. On October 19, 1933, Hitler announced Germany's withdrawal from the League of Nations, which increasingly marked that for Hitler, the Treaty of Versailles had expired, and the League of Nations, as the institution for maintaining international peace and security after the First World War, had disappeared in name only.