Socialist Progressives

The participants in the Paris conference in 1919 started out with the idea that they would prepare an opening negotiating position to present to the German government and its allies. It's sound negotiating tactics to start out asking for more than you expect to get, so what they came up with was very harsh.

The problem was that the process went on so long that it needed to be concluded, and there was no German government in a position to do any negotiating. As a result, what had been drafted as a somewhat extreme negotiating position became the final agreement, unchanged. The unintended consequence was, as you say, to create resentment -- justifiable resentment -- that fueled Hitler's rise to power.