A Demilitarized Zone That Helped Keep the Peace in Europe
The 1919 Treaty of Versailles forbade the defeated Germans from stationing armed forces in the Rhineland – a region in western Germany that bordered France, Belgium, and the Netherlands. The treaty expressly specified that a violation “in any manner whatsoever… shall be regarded as committing a hostile act“. The demilitarized Rhineland was the single greatest guarantor of peace in Europe. It made it impossible for Germany to attack her western neighbors. Simultaneously, because it left Germany defenseless on her western borders, it made it impossible to attack her eastern neighbors.
So long as the Rhineland was defenseless, if the Germans attacked their eastern neighbors, they would be open to attack from those eastern neighbors’ ally, France, on Germany’s unprotected west. While a demilitarized Rhineland was a positive for European peace, it was a humiliating negative for German pride. One of Hitler’s most popular campaign promises as the Nazis rose to power was to remilitarize the Rhineland. In 1936, he decided to send German soldiers into the Rhineland – a huge risk. In what turned out to be a disaster for the whole world, he was allowed to get away with it.