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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]
Most of Germany's reparations payments were funded by loans from American banks, and the recipients used them to pay off loans they had from the U.S. Treasury. Between 1919 and 1932, Germany paid out 19 billion goldmarks in reparations, and received 27 billion goldmarks in loans from New York bankers and others.
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]
The government of Adolf Hitler declared all further payments cancelled in 1933, and no further reparations payments were made until after the defeat of Nazi Germany in the Second World War. Germany finally paid off its debts under the Versailles treaty, which had been reduced by 50% at the 1953 London Debt Conference, in 2010. [157]
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.
Thus, when Germany could no longer afford war reparations to Britain, France and other former members of the Entente, the Americans came up with the Dawes Plan and Wall Street invested heavily in Germany, which repaid its reparations to nations that, in turn, used the dollars to pay off their war debts to Washington.
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 ...
Spain remained neutral throughout World War I between 28 July 1914 and 11 November 1918, and despite domestic economic difficulties, [1] it was considered "one of the most important neutral countries in Europe by 1915". [2] Spain had maintained a non-aligned stance during the political difficulties of pre-war Europe, and continued its ...