Did Keynes Predict the Rise of Nazi Germany?
During the 1919 Versailles Peace Conference, Keynes was an outspoken critic of the crippling economic measures certain senior statesmen wanted to impose on Germany. When his warnings that these harsh sanctions would likely result in economic and political catastrophe for Europe went unheeded, he left the conference early in protest. As soon as he returned to the U.K., he resigned from the British Treasury and summarized his arguments about the dangers of a peace treaty designed to permanently crush Germany in The Economic Consequences of the Peace. Within a year of its publication in 1920, Keynes’ book had become a bestseller that strongly influenced public opinion that the Treaty of Versailles was unfair. As the political and economic turmoil of the 1930s fueled the rise of fascism that exploded into World War II, Keynes’ early warnings began to sound prophetic as well.