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Marks writes that Germany could have easily paid the 50 billion marks in reparations, but instead chose to repeatedly default on payments as part of a political strategy of undermining Versailles. [168] Marks says that in 1921, Germany met her requirements in full because custom posts were occupied by Allied troops. [46]
Feldman, Gerald D. Army, Industry and Labor in Germany, 1914–18 (1966) Gross, Stephen. "Confidence and Gold: German War Finance 1914-1918," Central European History (2009) 42#2 pp. 223–252 in JSTOR; Karau, Mark D. Germany's Defeat in the First World War: The Lost Battles and Reckless Gambles That Brought Down the Second Reich (ABC-CLIO, 2015).
The aftermath of Germany's loss in World War 1 saw the country experience severe hyperinflation, with the Weimar Republic finally tackling the issue by 1923. A period of known as the Golden Twenties then saw major economic stabilization and growth fuelled largely by foreign investments and loans. However, the Great Depression resulted in the ...
Between 1919 and 1932, Germany paid an estimated 36.1 billion marks in reparations. [76] After 1953 West Germany paid the entire remaining balance. [77] The German people saw reparations as a national humiliation; the German Government worked to undermine the validity of the Treaty of Versailles and the requirement to pay.
132 billion gold marks ($31.5 billion, 6.6 billion pounds) were demanded from Germany in reparations, of which only 50 billion had to be paid. In order to finance the purchases of foreign currency required to pay off the reparations, the new German republic printed tremendous amounts of money—to disastrous effect.
Of this figure, Germany was only required to pay 50 billion gold marks ($12.5 billion), a smaller amount than they had previously offered for terms of peace. [65] Reparations were unpopular and strained the German economy but they were payable and from 1919 to 1931, when reparations ended, Germany paid fewer than 21 billion gold marks. [66]
When Germany stopped making payments in 1932 after the agreement reached at the Lausanne Conference failed to be ratified, [12] Germany had paid only a part of the sum. This still left Germany with debts it had incurred in order to finance the reparations, and these were revised by the Agreement on German External Debts in 1953. After another ...
In order to meet this sum, Germany could pay in cash or kind: coal, timber, chemical dyes, pharmaceuticals, livestock, agricultural machines, construction materials, and factory machinery. Germany's assistance with the restoration of the university library of Leuven , which was destroyed by the Germans on 25 August 1914, was also credited ...