The Treaty of Versailles was to have ended The Great War. The terms of the treaty were so harsh that they helped fuel a second war. That war ended 65 years ago. Yet, Germany has been held responsible for the war debts of World War I for all these years. It seems obvious that Hitler would refuse to pay reparations while he led Germany. What kept the German debt alive for so many years after Hitler's Germany folded?
According to the Daily Mirror of Britain in a story posted yesterday http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1315869/Germany-end-World-War-One-reparations-92-years-59m-final-payment.html, when World War II ended, West Germany took on the remaining debt. In 1953, West Germany seemed to have satisfied the debt obligation. "But there was a clause in the so-called London Debt Agreement of 1953 that interest on multi-million pound foreign loans taken out in the Weimar Republic era, to pay off the reparations bill, should themselves be repaid if Germany were ever reunited (italics added)." There is the rub. Germany DID reunite and that meant that interest on the debt resurfaced and had to be paid. Talk about a loophole!
The reunited Germany has been making these payments since 1996. There are many costs of war. Human and physical destruction lasted for generations. Healing needs to begin early and debts should not last for decades. On Sunday, at long last, the financial debt will be over. Thank goodness it did not provoke yet another war. We can only hope the current generation does not harbor ill feelings like those which followed World War One.
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