[reitzensteinm]

One interesting thing I picked up from (I believe) the Third Reich Trilogy by Richard Evans was that while the repayments were harsh, enough international loans were made to Germany and unpaid once war broke out that the balance of cash flow was actually in Germany's favor.

Reading that, it really struck me that perhaps we were still internalizing Nazi propaganda. Or at least that we seek simple narratives to explain everything even if they do a fairly poor job of covering the details.

[refurb]

Yup. My understanding was the US was financially supporting Germany so the reparations wouldn’t crush the entire economy.

From what I’ve gathered, Germany’s “we’re not paying any more reparations” was more a political move that got Germans on the side of the govt than anything else.

[ithkuil]

I'm confused. You have to pay me 100 bucks, but no worries, I'll loan you 80 bucks over 20 years to help your finances. You'll have to give me 240 bucks.

[refurb]

I'm not that familiar with the details, but it would be more like:

- You owe me $1B in reparations, with $10M payable each year for 100 years

- You can only come up with $8M this year, so I loan you $2M

- You then borrow from someone else to pay me back

Kind of like a rolling credit that is more about cashflow than debt level. Countries like the US were worried that Germany would just run out of cash at some point.