In one of those amazing curiosities of history, October 3, 2010, the 20th anniversary of German unification, will also mark the completion of the final chapter of World War I with the end of reparations payments 92 years after the country's defeat. Germany paid 60 million GBP (equivalent to $93m USD) to US Bond holders some 92 years after the war came to an end.
The German government paid the last installment of interest on foreign bonds it issued in 1924 and 1930 to raise cash to fulfill the enormous reparations demands the victorious Allies made after World War I. The reparations bankrupted Germany in the 1920s and the fledgling Nazi party seized on the resulting public resentment against the terms of the Versailles Treaty.
It's a historical curiosity that the Versailles Treaty should continue to have a financial impact to this day," said Professor Gerd Krumeich, a German historian, noting that Hitler's rise to power had its roots in Germany's deep sense of injustice at the 1919 treaty that gave Germany sole responsibility for the war and forced it to make crippling payments.
France and Britain needed the reparations to repay their own debts. Both countries had borrowed vast sums from the US during the war. Germany only settled about an eighth of its treaty obligations by the time it suspended payments.
http://www.thelocal.de/society/20100929-30145.html[This message has been edited by Boondawg (edited 10-05-2010).]
