Germany to complete WWI reparations at last.

[gaelic cowboy]

Amazing I thought that was done long ago I wonder who is to be paid apparently no one is too sure anymore.

Germany to complete WWI reparations

RTE News Thursday, 30 September 2010 15:14

Germany will this weekend pay the last instalment of the reparations it owes from WWI, 92 years after the conflict ended.

The reparations were imposed by the victorious allies.

At midnight on Sunday, they will receive the last payment of €70m.

These 'reparations' were intended partly by the Allies, particularly France, to keep Germany weak.

However, the ultimate effect was the opposite, playing a key role in Adolf Hitler's rise to power and WWII, according to historians.

The victors forced the Germans to admit in effect in the 1919 Treaty of Versailles that the war was their fault, and to commit to pay crippling amounts for decades to come.

After much in-fighting among the Allies, who were also in debt to each other from the war, Germany, on the brink of starvation and revolution, was presented with a bill of 269bn gold marks.

It soon became clear that Germany could not pay.

First came hyperinflation, which saw at its height a billion-mark note, and France, frustrated by the lack of payment, occupied Germany's Ruhr industrial area in 1923, the same year as Hitler's abortive Beer Hall Putsch in Munich.

The 1924 Dawes plan and the 1929 Young plan dramatically reduced the burden, and the 1932 Lausanne Conference suspended all repayments in the wake of the Great Depression.

Many historians say that Germany in fact could have paid, particularly after the reparations were sharply reduced and Germany was loaned huge amounts of money.

But it was their symbolism that counted. Hitler was able to play on resentment to the reparations and the famous 'War Guilt Clause' in the Treaty of Versailles to gain support in the chaotic inter-war years.

After WWII, the new West Germany - but not the communist East Germany - agreed at the 1953 London conference to repay its interwar debts, albeit a much reduced amount, something it completed in 1980.

One loose end though was interest payments on loans taken out under the Dawes and Young plans that piled up between 1945 and the conference in the English capital.

It was agreed that this would be paid when and if East and West Germany ever reunified.

This was seen as so unlikely at the time that it was akin to forgiving the debt, and the original loan certificates became historical curiosities for sale at flea markets.

But in 1990, the unthinkable happened, and Germany - whilst celebrating unity after decades of painful division - said it would repay, costing it around €200m.

The debts have been resold so many times that nobody really knows whom exactly Germany now owes.

[Skullheadhq]

Amazing I thought that was done long ago I wonder who is to be paid apparently no one is too sure anymore.

Germany to complete WWI reparations

Interesting story.

[Louis VI the Fat]

That's great for Germany!



France, it is estimated, by the most optimistic scenarios will have finished paying her WWI reparations in a 700 years.

[gaelic cowboy]

I suppose it's time to start again so now it's all paid off apparently

[A Nerd]

I saw this on the news last night. Fascinating that it took so long and was actually paid off so long after the war ended! Chivalry still exists I guess!

[KrooK]

Hmm - better late than never.

Louis VI - what reparations?

[gaelic cowboy]

probably from the Napoleonic times

[Louis VI the Fat]

Louis VI - what reparations?

Reparations to repair damages of WWI.


For that is what is meant by WWI reparations. WWI was faught on French soil. So all damages were French, not German. Therefore, the fourteen points, the pre-armistice agreements, the armistice - all stated explicitly that Germany was to pay reparations to France for all of the damages incurred.
This was lowered by a magnanimous French delegation in the actual peace treaty (articles 231 and 232): Germany would only be required to pay insofar as Germany could afford to pay. France would pay all of the remainder. France agreed to bear the lion's share of the costs of WWI in this manner to make the peace with Germany, and to ensure anglo, especially US, assistance in the case of renewed German agression.


What little was asked of Germany as reparations was subsequently repeatedly lowered. In the end, Germany has paid total reparations only marginally higher than the value of what the defeated, retreating German troops plundered and destroyed in the last few weeks of the war, as negotiations were nearing completion already.
This tiny amount which Germany actually paid was substantially lower than what Germany was loaned to enable Germany to pay. To top it off, in 1932, Germany publicly stated that it would never repay these loans.


The staggering conclusion is: Germany made a financial profit from WWI reparations.


The pocket change that Germany paid today I estimate is about equal to just the annual cost France and Belgium incur each year in just removing and storing WWI ammunition. This is only getting worse every year, as the ammunition becomes more instable. The job to clean the soil of WWI ammunition is estimated to last for at least another 700 years. That is the optimistic estimate. And that's just the ammunition problem. So I'm happy for Germany that it is finished paying for WWI. France and Belgium, meanwhile, will pay reparations for all eternity.


All of which wouldn't be so bad, if only the persistent myths about Versailles wouldn't reverse all of the above in the public imagination. German propaganda since 1918 has proved so succesful that to this day public opinion and amateur historians repeat a German ultra-nationalist narrative concerning the subject.

[PanzerJaeger]

As ridiculous today as they were in 1919.

[Strike For The South]

As ridiculous today as they were in 1919.

You're right Germany was minding it's own buisness.

And don't give me that tired old powder keg line. I've been exchanging eye ***** with this girl in my bio class but if I was to jump on top of her I would still be arrested.

That analogy makes sense

If you love Germany so much why don't you marry it.

Throw out that saurkruat get with that liberity cabbage.

Etc.

[Brenus]

"As ridiculous today as they were in 1919" Yeap. Not enought, ridiculously low...

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

Reparations to repair damages of WWI.

~snip

Kind of the risk you take when forming entangling alliances on the Continent.

[PanzerJaeger]

A bit of history.

Wilhelm was a friend of Franz Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria-Este, and he was deeply shocked by his assassination on 28 June 1914. Wilhelm offered to support Austria-Hungary in crushing the Black Hand, the secret organization that had plotted the killing, and even sanctioned the use of force by Austria against the perceived source of the movement—Serbia (this is often called "the blank cheque"). He wanted to remain in Berlin until the crisis was resolved, but his courtiers persuaded him instead to go on his annual cruise of the North Sea on 6 July 1914. It was perhaps realized that Wilhelm's presence would be more of a hindrance to those elements in the government who wished to use the crisis to increase German prestige, even at the risk of general war—something of which Wilhelm, for all his bluster, was extremely apprehensive.

Wilhelm made erratic attempts to stay on top of the crisis via telegram, and when the Austro-Hungarian ultimatum was delivered to Serbia, he hurried back to Berlin. He reached Berlin on 28 July, read a copy of the Serbian reply, and wrote on it:

A brilliant solution—and in barely 48 hours! This is more than could have been expected. A great moral victory for Vienna; but with it every pretext for war falls to the ground, and [the Ambassador] Giesl had better have stayed quietly at Belgrade. On this document, I should never have given orders for mobilization.

Unknown to the Emperor, Austro-Hungarian ministers and generals had already convinced the 84-year-old Francis Joseph I of Austria to sign a declaration of war against Serbia. As a direct consequence, Russia began a general mobilization to attack Austria in defense of Serbia.

On the night of 30 July, when handed a document stating that Russia would not cancel its mobilization, Wilhelm wrote a lengthy commentary containing the startling observations:

"For I no longer have any doubt that England, Russia and France have agreed among themselves—knowing that our treaty obligations compel us to support Austria—to use the Austro-Serb conflict as a pretext for waging a war of annihilation against us ... Our dilemma over keeping faith with the old and honorable Emperor has been exploited to create a situation which gives England the excuse she has been seeking to annihilate us with a spurious appearance of justice on the pretext that she is helping France and maintaining the well-known Balance of Power in Europe, i.e. playing off all European States for her own benefit against us."

When it became clear that the United Kingdom would enter the war if Germany attacked France through neutral Belgium, the panic-stricken Wilhelm attempted to redirect the main attack against Russia. When Helmuth von Moltke (the younger) told him that this was impossible, Wilhelm said: "Your uncle would have given me a different answer!" Wilhelm is also reported to have said: "To think that George and Nicky should have played me false! If my grandmother had been alive, she would never have allowed it."

It is difficult to argue that Wilhelm actively sought to unleash the First World War. Though he had ambitions for the German Empire to be a world power, it was never Wilhelm's intention to conjure a large-scale conflict to achieve such ends. As soon as his better judgment dictated that a world war was imminent, he made strenuous efforts to preserve the peace—such as The Willy-Nicky Correspondence mentioned earlier, and his optimistic interpretation of the Austro-Hungarian ultimatum that Austro-Hungarian troops should go no further than Belgrade, thus limiting the conflict. But by then it was far too late, for the eager military officials of Germany and the German Foreign Office were successful in persuading him to sign the mobilisation order and initiate the Schlieffen Plan that envisioned the occupation of Paris within 40 days. The contemporary British reference to the First World War as "the Kaiser's War" in the same way that the Second was "Hitler's War" is not wholly accurate in its suggestion that Wilhelm was deliberately responsible for unleashing the conflict. "He may not have been 'the father of war' but he was certainly its godfather' (A. Woodcock-Clarke). According to the book, All Quiet on the Western Front, Remarque talks about the Kaiser's visit to the western front and how unimpressed he was by his height and speech.

His own love of the culture and trappings of militarism and push to endorse the German military establishment and industry (most notably the Krupp corporation), which were the key support which enabled his dynasty to rule helped push his empire into an armaments race with competing European powers. Similarly, though on signing the mobilisation order, Wilhelm is reported as having said, "You will regret this, gentlemen." He had encouraged Austria to pursue a hard line with Serbia, was an enthusiastic supporter of the subsequent German actions during the war, and reveled in the title of "Supreme War Lord" and "Allerhöchste" (All-highest).

Austria was at fault for turning a terrorist assasination into a pretext for war with Serbia and Russia was at fault for bringing the major powers into the war. Germany and the others were just adhering to their poorly thought out alliance obligations.

[Louis VI the Fat]

AtpG, PJ - the issue is not about war guilt. Or who started it. Or to what extent each party is to blame.


The issue is this:
AtpG and Louis fight with PJ. The entire fight takes place in the house of Louis. In fact, his hallway and part of his living room get completely trashed. Louis and AtpG however manage to subdue PJ and forcefully throw him out. As PJ is thrown out, PJ begs for peace while simultaneously stealing whatever he can put in his pockets and trashing everything else.
At 11:11 PM peace is made as PJ promises to pay Louis for all of the damages to Louis' house.

What would be a fair peace? Louis on his own to pay for all of the reparations to Louis' house? PJ to keep everything he stole? Surely that is preposterous. For one, the peace would then reverse the verdict of the war.


What else then?
Standard procedure is that the winner gets fully compensated by the loser. In this case, PJ's defeat was accepted on the condition that PJ returns everything he nicked and pays full reparation costs for everything that gor destroyed.
Angels, for their part, might make a peace whereby PJ promises to return what he stole, and then agree a financial agreement between all parties to share the reparation costs.

Louis however, being more magnanimous than angels still, offers to pay for the vast majority of the reparations and agrees that PJ can even substract from his share of the reparations any loot PJ cares to return. To seal the deal, noble AtpG even lends PJ more money than PJ will ever need to compensate Louis. This all must surely rank as the most idealistic, noble and magnanimous concilliation effort in living memory.

(Alas, however. As it turns out PJ was never interested in concilliation. For immediately upon his loss, PJ started meticulous, planned preparations for another attack on Louis and AtpG, never losing sight of this one goal.)

[Brandy Blue]

Austria was at fault for turning a terrorist assasination into a pretext for war with Serbia and Russia was at fault for bringing the major powers into the war. Germany and the others were just adhering to their poorly thought out alliance obligations.

For the record, Russia was not responsible for involving the major powers. Russia was allied to Serbia, so the Austrians started involving major powers by attacking Serbia, with German encouragement. Germany completed the process by declaring war on Russia and France, and provoking war with Brittan. Germany cannot be excused on the grounds of the Triple Alliance because it only required Germany to help Austria if Austria was attacked by two major powers. That had not happened. Russia can be excused on the same grounds that you would excuse Germany because all Russia did was mobilize its forces to support its ally.

OK, there are some things to be said in Austria and Germany’s defense. However, it is simply not accurate to blame the Russians for what Austria and Germany did between them.

[Megas Methuselah]

[Brenus]

“Austria was at fault for turning a terrorist assassination into a pretext for war with Serbia and Russia was at fault for bringing the major powers into the war.”
So, Russia should have let Austria to invade Serbia, no further than Belgrade, the Serbian Capital, so the Serbs humiliation was just a little price to pay for the comfort of the poor Austro-Hungarian Empire that was just occupying Bosnia?

[gaelic cowboy]

[KrooK]

All in all I think that if Germany paid GB, they can start paying Poland.
They did not pay majority of WW2 reparations.
Damages only in Warsaw are being estimated on 100.000.000.000 USD.

Anyway I knew about problems with remaining amunition but I was sure Germany is paying for it.

[Fragony]

As ridiculous today as they were in 1919.

Agreed.

There is nobody who can point out why it really started in the first place, I'd blame Russia and the Serbs first if there really is to blame anyone, the 'incident' was no accident but a deliberate attempt to lure the axis into an unwinnable war. The highest levels of Serbian and Russian government worked towards it, there can really be no doubt about that when you read the correspondence, the need for an incident is even literally on paper.

Edit, no no German encouragemt Brandy Blue, it was Germany who pressed for the two-week ultimatum. Corresponce of that exists as well. It was a Prussian habit to deliver a strategy every year, the existance of these strategies is really all the guilt-question is based upon.

[Louis VI the Fat]

Anyway I knew about problems with remaining amunition but I was sure Germany is paying for it.

Germany has not paid reparations since 1931. (And barely anything before that)

The little pocket change that is the subject of this thread, is not a reparations payment. It is a repayment of a loan Germany received to pay reparations. However, Germany used it to pay neither the reparations, nor did it repay the loans. Germany did, however, happily use the money to prepare, even re-arm, itself to plunge the world into war again.

The allies of WWI had come to accept that they themselves have paid for all of the damages of WWI. However, after 1990, it was requested that Germany at least refund some of the substantial profit Germany made from reparations. This Germany has now done.



All of which would be fine. Were it not, that this repayment is presented all over the web as 'Germany finally done paying reparations!'. 'How chivalrous of them that they paid it all!'. 'How evil of the allies to suck Germany dry for ninety years!'.
All three of which are, as is customary for the reparations issue, factually incorrect, and/or, as is even more common, based on fundamentally erroneous notions.



My favourite author:
'Reparations reconsiderd: a reminder'. http://www.jstor.org/pss/4545548

[Sasaki Kojiro]

Very interesting, thanks louis. It seems like we have a big need for an explanation of why wwii happened and grasp at anything conveniently simple.

[gaelic cowboy]

Agreed.

There is nobody who can point out why it really started in the first place, I'd blame Russia and the Serbs first if there really is to blame anyone, the 'incident' was no accident but a deliberate attempt to lure the axis into an unwinnable war. The highest levels of Serbian and Russian government worked towards it, there can really be no doubt about that when you read the correspondence, the need for an incident is even literally on paper.

Edit, no no German encouragemt Brandy Blue, it was Germany who pressed for the two-week ultimatum. Corresponce of that exists as well. It was a Prussian habit to deliver a strategy every year, the existance of these strategies is really all the guilt-question is based upon.

I blame the imperialist societies they all came from 19century morals and thinking but using the massed industrial arms of the 20century a big recipe for disaster.

People educated to read in order work but not to really think about the posters exhorting people to come to the aid of "Poor Little Belgium" etc etc hey wait a minute Ireland is a small country why do I have to fight your war.

The sad thing is it could all happen again cos were still suffering the same structural problems the world faced then.

[Louis VI the Fat]

It seems like we have a big need for an explanation of why wwii happened and grasp at anything conveniently simple.

Two problems conspire against a simple explanation. Firstly, the events of the 1920's and 30's are excruciatingly complicated. Secondly, by their nature, these events do not lend themselves well to simplification.

Some historical events one can simplify and still leave their essence intact. This is not readily possible with the Treaty of Versailles, or reparations. A simplification here often leads to stating the exact opposite. Reality, propaganda, and perception need to be carefully distuingished, to an extent that precludes any simplification.



Compare:

German nationalist propaganda said that international Jewry abused temporary German weakness in a bid to enslave Germany forever. Germans were lured to think they had to resist Jewish domination to survive as a nation. This caused the Holocaust.

One can not simplify this into:

International Jewry wanted to enslave Germany forever. Germany resisted this enslavement. This caused the Holocaust.

The simplified version omisses the crucial aspects of the events. It ends up stating what amounts to almost the exact opposite of the longer version of events. It is likewise with the reparations issue.

WWI reparations, I would dare say, are the exact opposite of what public opinion generally makes of them. 'Versailles mythology' is not a reliable narrative of events with some nuances left out for brevity, no, Versailles mythology is wrong to its core, and is the exact opposite of reality.
As a brief case in point, I'll again state the startling conclusion of many modern economic historians that, far from bringing it to destitution, Germany made a financial profit from WWI reparations. Until 1932, Germany received more money to pay for reparations than it ever paid in reparations. (WWI was no exception to the rule that losing a war to America is a most profitable business.)

German reparations, an excruciatingly tangled thicket into which only a few intrepid explorers have ventured. Understandably, most students of twentieth-century history have preferred to sidestep the perils of travel on territory of extreme financial complexity and, as a consequence, a number of misconceptions about the history of German reparations remain in circulation. This brief summary is not addressed to those few brave trailblazers, whose work it indeed salutes, but rather to those many who have assiduously avoided the subject and to the myths about reparations which still adorn studies of the Weimar Republic and interwar history.

http://journals.cambridge.org/action...ne&aid=2869676

[Fragony]

I blame the imperialist societies they all came from 19century morals and thinking but using the massed industrial arms of the 20century a big recipe for disaster.

More the transportation I think, the powers were building railroads like crazy, with Russia only slightly behind, making the threat of war much more accute, full deployment being a matter of weeks was mostly new.

[gaelic cowboy]

More the transportation I think, the powers were building railroads like crazy, with Russia only slightly behind, making the threat of war much more accute, full deployment being a matter of weeks was mostly new.

Actually WW1 is a brilliant example of how Globalisation DOES not stop war your point being a good example.

[Brandy Blue]

Agreed.

Edit, no no German encouragemt Brandy Blue, it was Germany who pressed for the two-week ultimatum. Corresponce of that exists as well. It was a Prussian habit to deliver a strategy every year, the existance of these strategies is really all the guilt-question is based upon.

Thanks for the information. Its always good to learn. I still think it makes no sense to say that Germany did nothing but honor its treaty obligations. That does not mean I am saying they were "guilty," just that they cannot be justified by that particular argument.

Does the correspondance you refer to mean that there was no "blank check?" I would have thought that it would count as encouraging the Austrians to go to war by promising support.

[PanzerJaeger]

Does the correspondance you refer to mean that there was no "blank check?" I would have thought that it would count as encouraging the Austrians to go to war by promising support.

Wilhelm's 'blank check' was given for limited penal action against Serbia and specifically the 'Black Hand' terrorist group that killed his friend, Franz Ferdinand. Hawks in the Austrian court manipulated it's intent to gain the support of the old emporor, Franz Joseph I, for the full destruction of Serbia.

@Louis - I hardly think the fact that Germany was able to keep the majority of fighting away from it's frontiers is justification for reparations. France was very eager for war itself, esprit de revanche and all.

[Brandy Blue]

Thank you for explaining that, Panzer. The "check" wasn't really blank, then.

[Brenus]

“Germany was able to keep the majority of fighting away from it's frontiers is justification for reparations”
No? But that is why Germany imposed Reparation on France for 1870 for having STARTING the war.
So to invade and pillage and destroy others territories then when battle is lost, signed a quick Peace Treaty in order to avoid invasion, then good enough?
But I know share the view of Pershing. The Allies should have kick the German Army until Berlin, and then the victors should have parade in Berlin. This would have convinced the Germans they lost of war in battle, not with a stab in the back.

“France was very eager for war itself, esprit de revanche and all.”
Yeap. France was waiting for it, and Wilhelm in giving Austria a support not intended in their Alliance (that was only defensive) offered the revanche on a silver (bloody) plate paying high price for it.
However France didn’t attack Germany.
And I always find funny that the French are pointed out for their inadmissible Esprit de Revanche when the poor German Post WW1 and Pre WW2, having been humiliated by a defeat were entitled to seek revenge.
Bad French…

"Thank you for explaining that, Panzer. The "check" wasn't really blank, then" It was. Why the Serbian's Allies would have accepted this smoke screen. Why the Serbs would have accepted the line? Austria wanted the war, and Germany support gave them the check they used it full.