How did the Treaty of Versailles punish Germany?

The Germans were forced to accept guilt for starting the war. This was highly debatable in light of events in the summer of 1914, but it served as justification for the harsh punishments assessed in the rest of the Treaty of Versailles. These included:

• Germany was stripped of territories, including Alsace-Lorraine, which the Germans had conquered from France during the Franco-Prussian War, their moment of national unification in the 1870s. This was deeply insulting, as the region contained a significant number of German people. 


• British and French "administration" of the coal-rich Saar Valley for fifteen years. 


• The size of the German military, long a source of German national honor, was limited to 200,000. This was a small fraction of its wartime force and much smaller than that of its neighbor and enemy France.


• Germany was forced to renounce all "rights, titles, and privileges" in its former colonies, mostly in Africa. 


• Germany was forced to pay massive reparations to France and Great Britain. These totaled tens of billions of dollars, and, while they were eventually renegotiated, were ruinous to the German postwar economy.

All of these measures created an especially toxic political atmosphere in postwar Germany, one which contributed to the rise of radical political movements, including the National Socialist Party led by Adolf Hitler.