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Germany to complete WWI reparations

Comments

  • #2
    losthorizon
    Registered Users Posts: 4,565 ✭✭✭losthorizon


    Whats ironic was really they werent even the main instigators of WW1. I know they weren't unhappy with war starting (and the same could be said of Britain) they probably suffered the most. Many Hungarians too found themselves scattered around various newly independent nations after WW1. Its a war the Hungarians didnt wish for either.

    Surely the Austrians must have been paying reparations as well? They started it! ( Well, Mr Princip)


  • #3
    brianthebard
    Closed Accounts Posts: 16,165 ✭✭✭✭brianthebard


    He was serbian no?


  • #4
    ejmaztec
    Registered Users Posts: 23,973 ✭✭✭✭ejmaztec


    brianthebard wrote: »
    He was serbian no?

    A Bosnian Serb, specifically.

    I knew that he got locked up afterwards, but didn't know where, until I visited Terezin, north of Prague, and noticed a plaque outside the cell in which he was incarcerated.


  • #5
    purplepanda
    Registered Users Posts: 1,048 ✭✭✭purplepanda


    So does Ireland get any of this cash? What about the US, Canada, Australia, NZ & South Africa? And maybe Japan & Brazil?;)

    There's quite a long list of potential claimants!!!!:eek:


  • #6
    mikhail
    Registered Users Posts: 3,863 ✭✭✭mikhail


    purplepanda wrote: »
    So does Ireland get any of this cash? What about the US, Canada, Australia, NZ & South Africa? And maybe Japan & Brazil?;)

    There's quite a long list of potential claimants!!!!:eek:
    The debt is mostly in private ownership - the certificates are prized as historical artefacts.


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  • #7
    PatsytheNazi
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,260 ✭✭✭PatsytheNazi


    losthorizon wrote: »
    Whats ironic was really they werent even the main instigators of WW1. I know they weren't unhappy with war starting (and the same could be said of Britain) they probably suffered the most. Many Hungarians too found themselves scattered around various newly independent nations after WW1. Its a war the Hungarians didnt wish for either.

    Surely the Austrians must have been paying reparations as well? They started it! ( Well, Mr Princip)
    I've often wonder if the Austrians paid reparations also ?? Anyone know ?

    I believe the hasher terms of the Treaty of Versaillies were campaigned for by France and Britain as a means of crippling German industrial development and hence competition for decades to come.


  • #8
    PatsytheNazi
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,260 ✭✭✭PatsytheNazi


    purplepanda wrote: »
    So does Ireland get any of this cash? What about the US, Canada, Australia, NZ & South Africa? And maybe Japan & Brazil?;)

    There's quite a long list of potential claimants!!!!:eek:
    Appearently one of the terms of the 1922 Treaty setting up the Free State was that Ireland had to pay off part of Britain's war debt :mad: Not exactly a treaty of freedom was it. And then people wonder why the country was banjaxed for decades.


  • #9
    donaghs
    Registered Users Posts: 2,690 ✭✭✭donaghs


    PatsytheNazi wrote: »
    Appearently one of the terms of the 1922 Treaty setting up the Free State was that Ireland had to pay off part of Britain's war debt :mad: Not exactly a treaty of freedom was it. And then people wonder why the country was banjaxed for decades.

    I think the Irish Civil War was the main reason Ireland's economy got off to such a bad start. And if the internet can be trusted (i dont have an history books on me right now), Ireland never paid any of the debts before 1925. This was due to the existing dire economic situation. And the debt was effectively waived after 1925.

    Interesting how Finland was treated after WW2. The Soviets took 10% of their land, which had a population of 400,000 (most of whom fled). They were forced to reject Marshall Aid, and to pay $300,000,000 in the form of various commodities over six years to the former Soviet Union as war reparations. "Finlandization" came to mean a country that clearly scared of doing anything to annoy its more powerful neighbour. This meant never having policies which could piss off the Soviet Union, and self-censorship in the media of any anti-Soviet sentiments. Only coming to an end in the Gorbachev era.

    Some commentators credit the war reparations as helping to stimulate the post-war Finnish recovery. And I've read similar ideas about the efforts made to pay off France's Franco-Prussian war reparations also stimulating their economy. But given a choice, I suspect neither would have paid reparations.


  • #10
    Snickers Man
    Registered Users Posts: 5,301 ✭✭✭Snickers Man


    donaghs wrote: »

    Interesting how Finland was treated after WW2. The Soviets took 10% of their land, which had a population of 400,000 (most of whom fled). They were forced to reject Marshall Aid, and to pay $300,000,000 in the form of various commodities over six years to the former Soviet Union as war reparations.

    Just goes to show that reparations are not evidence of guilt; they are clear evidence of Victor's Justice. "You lost; you pay"

    Unless of course you consider Finland guilty of starting the war with the Soviet Union because she had the audacity to decline to hand over a large part of her territory (Karelia) just north of Leningrad to help secure the Soviet border.

    "Give us Karelia"
    "No"
    "All right then. We're coming to take it off you"
    "Any time you're feeling lucky, Ivan"

    Clearly the Finns were guilty there. :rolleyes::rolleyes:
    Some commentators credit the war reparations as helping to stimulate the post-war Finnish recovery. And I've read similar ideas about the efforts made to pay off France's Franco-Prussian war reparations also stimulating their economy.

    Absolutely. I think this is no more than accepted wisdom nowadays. If you force people into reparations they more often than not have to pay in kind. Therefore you stimulate their industries by presenting them with a captive market which once they have penetrated, they manage to keep.

    This was precisely the tack Hitler's economics minister Schacht followed in the 1930s, offering goods in lieu of payments to the likes of Britain and France. Look at the effect it had on German industry: a country which had been restricted to a tiny army and no airforce at all as late as 1934 developed in six years into a military machine that ruled Europe.

    Impressive, as a logistical feat, whatever about the diseased attitudes at the top.

    The success of companies such as Nokia today can be traced in part to the building up of the Finnish economy to meet its reparations to the Soviet Union. How many of you own a Russian made mobile phone?

    By the end of WWII the Allies had learned their lesson. Who paid the "reparations" to rebuild Europe after the war? The good old USA in terms of the Marshall Plan. A self interested investment in the future of its international industrial might.

    OK, so it wasn't "reparations" in mitigation of perceived guilt. But it had the effect of smoothing the entry into European markets of American companies and goods. How much Coca Cola, how many American-owned car companies (Ford, Opel, Vauxhall) how many American built computers came to market prominence in Europe since the war?

    Reparations are a really bad idea, if crushing your former enemy is the intention.


  • #11
    ejmaztec
    Registered Users Posts: 23,973 ✭✭✭✭ejmaztec


    Snickers Man wrote: »
    By the end of WWII the Allies had learned their lesson. Who paid the "reparations" to rebuild Europe after the war? The good old USA in terms of the Marshall Plan. A self interested investment in the future of its international industrial might.

    OK, so it wasn't "reparations" in mitigation of perceived guilt. But it had the effect of smoothing the entry into European markets of American companies and goods. How much Coca Cola, how many American-owned car companies (Ford, Opel, Vauxhall) how many American built computers came to market prominence in Europe since the war?

    The Americans were the ultimate winners, both financially and scientifically. I saw an item on the web a couple of years ago, where the Americans stripped the Germans of patents and scientific documents to the tune of about 3,500 tonnes, and shipped everything back to the US. I suppose the Marshall plan was peanuts compared with the all the US' scientific community's Christmases coming at once.

    Post WW2, when the rest of the world was broke, the US had a distinct advantage.


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  • #12
    JuliusCaesar
    Registered Users Posts: 4,882 ✭✭✭JuliusCaesar


    The problem is that it is the ordinary people, who were never asked about it in the first place, who have to pay the debt. Maybe we should make parliamentarians personally responsible for their decisions? Or at least put something of their own on the line, if they haven't put things to a referendum? Or maybe I'm crazy to think that The People would a) vote sensibly (as in, not always in their short-term interest) and b) ditto for the parliamentarians.



    (Not feeling that todays' experiences have any echoes in the past - mar i ea)


  • #13
    Dionysus
    Registered Users Posts: 3,420 ✭✭✭Dionysus


    Dummy wrote: »
    Found this interesting piece on the RTE website.

    http://www.rte.ie/news/2010/0930/germany_ww.html


    D.

    This story is as interesting as it is surprising. Thanks for posting.
    mikhail wrote: »
    The debt is mostly in private ownership - the certificates are prized as historical artefacts.

    It seems very bizarre that the Germans are still paying reparations from WW I. What "allies" exactly get the money and how is it divided between them, and do we know what the money is spent on?


  • #14
    ValJester
    Registered Users Posts: 329 ✭✭ValJester


    Dummy wrote: »
    Found this interesting piece on the RTE website.

    http://www.rte.ie/news/2010/0930/germany_ww.html


    D.

    Probably take Ireland as long to pay off NAMA.


  • #15
    donaghs
    Registered Users Posts: 2,690 ✭✭✭donaghs


    Dionysus wrote: »
    This story is as interesting as it is surprising. Thanks for posting.

    It seems very bizarre that the Germans are still paying reparations from WW I. What "allies" exactly get the money and how is it divided between them, and do we know what the money is spent on?

    Once debts are agreed upon they are generally paid back? Of course they can also be renegotiated, or defaulted on. I understand (according to the news) that its good for a country's financial reputation to pay back its debts. Allowing better access to credit in future, etc. I think it was West Germany which agreed to take on some pre-WW2 debts. Also, Britain only recently finished paying back its WW2 debts to the USA.

    I wonder what the repayment structure looked like? e.g how much were the last payments?

    Interestingly, in the 1990s both Russia and Argentina defaulted on some of their sovereign debts during economic crises, did this have a huge negative impact on them, over 10 years later? Not noticeably anyway.


  • #16
    ValJester
    Registered Users Posts: 329 ✭✭ValJester


    donaghs wrote: »

    I wonder what the repayment structure looked like? e.g how much were the last payments?

    Interestingly, in the 1990s both Russia and Argentina defaulted on some of their sovereign debts during economic crises, did this have a huge negative impact on them, over 10 years later? Not noticeably anyway.

    Argentina's economy went into oblivion in the early 2000's, and Russia's remains somewhat weak outside Moscow.


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