The German delegation was not allowed to take part in the negotiations on the Treaty of Versailles. It could only submit written objections after the terms were presented. On 12 May 1919, the head of the government, Philipp Scheidemann, asked the National Assembly: Welche Hand müsste nicht verdorren, die sich und uns in solche Fesseln legte? What hand would not wither that put itself and us in such chains?
On 28 June 1919, two German ministers signed under protest, after an ultimatum. Most Germans saw the treaty as an illegitimate and humiliating Diktat. Das Versailler Diktat became a political slogan. Revising the treaty was a declared goal of German foreign policy throughout the Weimar Republic. In 1932, Theodor Heuss wrote that the starting point of the National Socialist movement was not Munich, but Versailles.