Thanks for that question.
In 1918 Germans themselves did not think they were defeated.
Corporal Hitler's commander (while Hitler was in the hospital recovering from a gas attack), General Ludendorf recommended his government sue for peace, but then almost immediately changed his mind, too late, wheels were in motion.
Germans were told they had not been defeated -- no foreign army had crossed a German border, no German armies had been destroyed, it was all just political, a "stab in the back" by devious civilians, especially, well, who do you think they were? THE JEWS!!!
And that was basically Hitler's stump speech beginning as early as September, 1919.
So Germans didn't feeeeeeel defeated, didn't believe they deserved any punishment, and were told to resent every imposition from the Versailles treaty.
But I personally think there was something even more basic at work.
Hitler was the ideal German imperial leader, fuhrer -- a soldier's soldier from Austria, a mesmerizing public speaker, a photographic memory, a dreamer of unlimited scope, and utterly without scruples or morals.
Hitler's WWI commander was (Lieutennant General) Eric Ludendorf, who marched beside Hitler at the 1923 Munich Beer Hall Putsch.
Ludendorf's prewar commander was none other than (Lieutennant General) Alfred von Schlieffen, creator of the "Schlieffen Plan" to invade France before Russia.
By 1914 it was actually Ludendorf's revised plan.
So there is a direct line of command from von Schlieffen to (von) Ludendorf to Hitler.
That makes WWII simply the Great War version 2.0.
