# Germany makes final reparation payment from World War I. **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [September 28, 2010, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/germany-makes-final-reparation-payment-from-world-war-i/555400 "2010-09-28T22:33:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![joebuck20](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/74df32/32.png) [@joebuck20](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/joebuck20)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2010, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/germany-makes-final-reparation-payment-from-world-war-i/555400/1 "2010-09-28T22:33:03Z")
I found this story kind of interesting: > **[First World War officially ends](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/8029948/First-World-War-officially-ends.html)** > > The First World War will officially end on Sunday, 92 years after the guns fell silent, when Germany pays off the last chunk of reparations imposed on it by the Allies. Seeing as how the German government essentially collapsed at the end of World War II, you’d figure the Allies would have just forgiven the debt. But apparently that’s not the case. So, after 92 years, the Germany government is finally in the clear. ---
**Author:** ![MOIDALIZE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e274bd/32.png) [@MOIDALIZE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MOIDALIZE)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2010, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/germany-makes-final-reparation-payment-from-world-war-i/555400/2 "2010-09-28T22:35:46Z")
So I guess the French can finally leave the Ruhr. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2010, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/germany-makes-final-reparation-payment-from-world-war-i/555400/3 "2010-09-28T23:33:41Z")
So it’s finally over over there. ---
**Author:** ![Two\_Many\_Cats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8dc957/32.png) [@Two\_Many\_Cats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Two_Many_Cats)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2010, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/germany-makes-final-reparation-payment-from-world-war-i/555400/4 "2010-09-29T02:15:06Z")
Holy freakin’ cow! Now there’s something I never would’ve guessed was still going on! ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2010, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/germany-makes-final-reparation-payment-from-world-war-i/555400/5 "2010-09-29T03:50:07Z")
Well it’s about fucking time. :: shakes fist :: ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2010, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/germany-makes-final-reparation-payment-from-world-war-i/555400/6 "2010-09-29T04:04:47Z")
Damned Kaiser!!! AVENGE THE _LUSITANIA_!!! ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2010, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/germany-makes-final-reparation-payment-from-world-war-i/555400/7 "2010-09-29T04:10:07Z")
Now they can start on reparations for WWII ---
**Author:** ![Palooka](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/palooka/32/2902_2.png) [@Palooka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Palooka)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2010, 5:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/germany-makes-final-reparation-payment-from-world-war-i/555400/8 "2010-09-29T05:19:49Z")
And preparations for WWIII. ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2010, 5:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/germany-makes-final-reparation-payment-from-world-war-i/555400/9 "2010-09-29T05:58:19Z")
We won! _Passes out victory cigars and molests a random nurse on the streets_ ---
**Author:** ![Claverhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/13edae/32.png) [@Claverhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Claverhouse)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2010, 6:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/germany-makes-final-reparation-payment-from-world-war-i/555400/10 "2010-09-29T06:07:20Z")
> [@The\_Second\_Stone](#): > > Now they can start on reparations for WWII Be difficult to demand any _more_ out of them, but shame knows no boundaries… From **[Wiki](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_reparations)**: > [@](#): > > After World War II, according to the Potsdam conference held between July 17 and August 2, 1945, Germany was to pay the Allies US$20 billion mainly in machinery, manufacturing plants. Reparations to the Soviet Union stopped in 1953. In addition, in accordance with the agreed-upon policy of de-industrialisation and pastoralization of Germany, large numbers of civilian factories were dismantled for transport to France and the UK, or simply destroyed. Dismantling in the west stopped in 1950. > > In the end, war victims in many countries were compensated by the property of Germans that were expelled after World War II. Beginning even before the German surrender and continuing for the next two years, the United States pursued a vigorous program to harvest all technological and scientific know-how as well as all patents and many leading scientists in Germany (known as operation paperclip). Historian John Gimbel, in his book Science Technology and Reparations: Exploitation and Plunder in Postwar Germany, states that the “intellectual reparations” taken by the U.S. and the UK amounted to close to $10 billion dollars. German reparations were partly to be in the form of forced labor. By 1947, approximately 4,000,000 German POW’s and civilians were used as forced labor (under various headings, such as “reparations labor” or “enforced labor”) in the Soviet Union, France, the UK, Belgium and in Germany in U.S run “Military Labor Service Units”. > > See also: Forced labor of Germans in the Soviet Union, POW labor in the Soviet Union, and World War II reparations towards Yugoslavia > > Germany paid Israel 450 million DM in Holocaust reparations, and paid 3 billion DM to the World Jewish Congress to compensate survivors in other countries. No reparations were paid to the Romanies who were killed during the Holocaust. Rather difficult to pay the actual murdered Roma, but one gets what the writer meant. Still, **[Greece has accused Germany](http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,5284838,00.html)** of owing her billions ( although Germany paid $6 billion ), which in no way is grandstanding over the fact the Greek economy went west with German banks left holding lotsa debt; and \*\*[that nice Mr. Ahmadinejad](http://www.haaretz.com/news/ahmadinejad-demands-wwii-reparations-from-allied-powers-1.265628)\*\*has demanded the Allies pay Iran for their invasion of 1941 — which to be honest wasn’t _intended_ to do the Persians much good, they being essentially bystanders in others’ quarrels on their own territory