Germany’s first surrender, in 1918, was far less complete and the conclusions drawn both by Germans and their former opponents were correspondingly more ambiguous. One of the many extraordinary features of German politics in the aftermath of World War I is that throughout the existence of the Weimar Republic the German electorate faced a choice between a politics centred on the peaceful pursuit of national prosperity and a militant nationalism that more or less openly demanded a resumption of hostilities with France, Britain and the United States.
