ILLEGAL REARMAMENT in Germany following the First World War is a classic example of the use of governmental powers to evade a disarmament agreement.
In this paper the crucial role of government will be emphasized. The actions of government, however, were made feasible by the presence of several essential social and economic conditions. Public support for the illegal rearmament was based upon the widespread resentment against the unilateral military restrictions of the Treaty of Versailles and reinforced by the manifest impoverishment after the First World War, due to the largest inflation of all times.
The re-creation of the military machine was made possible by: (a) the existence of substantial popular backing for the evasion effort, (b) the presence of a group of men dedicated to evasion of the Versailles Treaty, a group composed of parts of the military forces and their highly nationalist political supporters, who later backed the Nazi party, and (c) the availability of adequate technical methods for the clandestine rearmament. Each of these major aspects of the German clandestine rearmament will now be considered.
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