This has been talked about to death but I searched and searched and couldn't quite find a satisfactory answer to this question. I apologize if there is one and I missed it.
It seems relatively widely agreed upon by historians that Versailles was not actually particularly harsh. The "War Guilt Clause" is a myth, the reparations were justifiable and had Germany not run their economy so far through the ground they would have been able to pay them, and reducing their army and navy was a decent way to try to avoid another aggressive war. The treaty involved the liberation and self-determination of many new countries, etc etc. If anything people at the time saw it as far too lenient. Compared to, say, Brest-Litovsk, Versailles was practically benevolent.
So why is it still taught as being a horrible, harsh, cruel injustice forced upon innocent little Germany, so absurdly unfair that they couldn't help but try to conquer Europe again? Am I wrong in believing it not to be harsh? Has Nazi propoganda been so effective that it sticks around even today (as it certainly does for some things, see tanks re: quality)?
Though I understand this doesn't completely answer your question but you may be interested in this: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3b24mk/treaty_of_versaillesmyths_of_reparations/
Hi, I don't feel the need of rewriting an already amazingly written open source academic article. So I will link it to you as I can not write it any better.
Holger Herwig's Clio Deceived: Patriotic Self-Censorship in Germany after the Great War; Link
The short of it: The German Foreign Office did a damn good job censoring documents. However I would like to add a little extra analysis from Dan Todman's The Great War: Myth and Memory. This is something I spoke on actually in my /r/AskHistorians podcast and it synthesizes well with Herwig's work -- the reason the German propaganda was so effective on the Anglosphere was because the Anglosphere, particularly the British, wanted to believe it. The idea of war futility exploded in the 1930's. As we exit WWII this is amplified more: The British people, whose experience with the war was as perceived (and actual) victims, began to amplify this idea of war futility. It would only be until the 1960's that we finally got the uncensored, original documents from Germany (via our occupying them) but by then the narrative of absolute war futility was rock solid planted in Anglo culture and with that backdrop the mythology purported by the Weimar and Nazi governments intentional censoring of documents to remove all self blame was ate up -- it wasn't the 'Huns', that's just propaganda! It was our government just as much! It became easier to absorb with that context Todman describes. It's no secret that popular perception does not necessarily follow academia and this is a major example of it.
Kind of doing the thesis little justice as I'm coming off a 7 hour coding session so I'm a literal blubbering mess at the moment but I hope that gave you a good place to start!