The Aftermath of World War One

Estefanía Campos  | 08 de noviembre de 2018  | Vistas: 93

Anna Ebeling, researcher, lecturer and professor shares her point of view on the consequences of World War One, as part of the seminar Common “Road to Serfdom”: Fiscal Crisis, Inflation and War. Anna specifically talks about the end of liberal Europe, the great german inflation, and Hitler’s rise to power.

She starts describing the things this war ended and the actions taken during the Congress of Vienna, where the goal was to resolve issues regarding the defeated country of France and the Napoleonic Wars. Later she reads an excerpt of an essay by Keynes, that in her opinion explains what was lost after this war and explains the key points of it.

It is interesting to look at 1914’s Europe; the technological progress can only be compared to what we have now, technology was developing very quickly.”

Strong social, democratic and labor movements were developing, as well as the marxist ideas on Eastern and Western European countries. She says how the first World War came to an end and the costs that it implied. The end (actually death) of liberal Europe is another subject that Ebeling talks. Liberal system of individual freedom, of free enterprise, of limited government of low taxes and of solid money is gone.

During the war, what individual freedom can you expect?, what solid money can you expect if you have to spend billions, trillions on the war effort?”.

Ebeling later talks about civil liberties, the impossibility to move from a country to another, censorship of people and the media, wage and price controls, raised taxes, migration barriers, and others.
Also, describes the process of reunification in Germany, where Hitler gained power and eventually led to World War II. Anna describes how France wanted to humiliate Germany and that it was accused of causing the First World War, the territories that they lost (which is the main reason for WW2), the reparations they had to pay and other consequences.

So the Treaty of Versailles, which was designed to put an end to the German threat, was too severe, and caused a German threat to be reborn very quickly.”

Finally the professor expresses her thoughts on central planning actions in Germany, the things the government controlled, vulnerability of human rights in that time, promises they made and how the first concentration camps emerged.

Understand the after effects of one of the most important and trascendental events of history, and don’t miss the final part of the seminar.