Did WW2 really start (indirectly or directly) because of the harsh treatment/punishment of Germany after WW1?

Well, one thing to keep in mind that you will not read in the History books, is that Germany was raised as a Bulwark against Communist Russia. The Bolshevik Revolution was kicked off by tzar Nicholas and his family being murdered by the disenfranchised working class of Russia. Poor policy choices lead to the overthrowing of their government, it's happened in history before. When the western aristocracy saw this, it made them a wee bit nervous that the working class in their own countries might do the same. Well back to Germany, who was asked to pay 135,000,000,000 in reichsmarks (which translates into $250,000,000,000,000USD) for war reparations by the Treaty of Versailles, which was written by John Foster and Allen Dulles. John Maynard Keynes, one of Britan's leading economist at the time, deduced that it would take until 1988, hard labor all the way to pay it back. Well as we all know, it didn't take them that long, so how? Moreover, why? What this did was economically sabotaged Germany, people started using their life savings to eat for a night. I'm sure it goes without saying that poverty skyrocketed over this period, making the people of Germany desperate for reprieve. The people were then told that there was a Superman who was single handedly rebuilding Germany, and establishing a new Reich, in the form of Adolf Hitler. Industrialist and Bankers (Largely American Industrialist) came in and bought up pieces of Germany's Industries for pennies on the Dollar, while backing Hitler, because no one can tell you he had the money to conquer Europe without help, and with Germany just having been depleted of Economic wealth, I'm sure it can also go without saying that no one in Germany had it either.

TL;DR: The Aristocracy of the west didn't want to deal with their own Bulshy Revolution, so they collectively swelled Germany to be a Bulwark against the red tide, and did so by

/r/AskHistorians Thread