The Status of Britain's Ancient Woodlands

Economic conditions aided Hitler

In the Opinion page article "Russia Viewed as Weimar," June 10, the author uses invented facts in order to attack the constructive policy of helping Russia.

In fact, Hitler's rise to power was very much a product of the vindictive terms of the Treaty of Versailles, ending World War I. Postwar democratic Germany, the Weimar Republic, was made to pay for the sins of the departed Kaiser by paying "war reparations" and by agreeing to an intrusive degree of allied supervision of Germany. Both served to prepare the way for Hitler.

The reparations payments created hyperinflation. My father vividly recalled how, when he was a young vice consul in Cologne in 1925, people brought wheelbarrows full of devalued currency to make simple purchases. This desperation, along with resentment at the disarmament and dismemberment of Germany by the allies, gave Hitler the opportunity to rise to power by fanning and exploiting fear and hatred. Peter Salmon, Henryville, Pa.

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