Many people are not aware that Germany placed huge reparation demands upon France at the end of the Franco-Prussian War in 1871, so I can understand the French desire for "pay back" particularly after losing 1.4 million soldiers in WW I, but those demands obviously helped cause WWII.
" I learned the German population starved also and there was massive suffering."
I recently read that the German civilians were trying to survive on fewer than a 1,000 calories per day for a very long time in WW I.
Your point well taken by me and indeed I had not done my homework. I guess the epic musical drama Les Miserables, partly about the Communards and their insurgence in Paris, had me not thinking. The revolutionary forces had a free reign, since a hundred thousand French troops were prisoners of war at Sedan. The Germans hurriedly released them with their small arms. The Germans were wary of any worker uprising as preached by their own Karl Marx. This you will know.
I smile sadly at the ironies of history. Blucher and the Germans saving Wellington at Waterloo 1815. Later the British and French locked in a death struggle in France against Germany. 1914.