China is a threat to the Human race ( Archived) (76)

As a result, the U.S. created the Dawes Plan, by which the U.S. guaranteed it would loan Germany money and help reorganize its finances. In 1929, the U.S. approved the Young Plan, which reduced German debts and set up an international bank for collection. However, by the 1930s, the Great Depression was worldwide, and all debts were eventually defaulted or cancelled.

Source: Boundless. “War Debts and Reparations.” Boundless U.S. History. Boundless, 21 Jul. 2015. Retrieved 20 Aug. 2015 from


It was believed that initially the Allies suggested that Germany owed up to $320 billion in filed reparation claims -- a total, which they shortly realized couldn't be fulfilled by Germany at the time, especially with the added World War I debt.
At the conference on German External Debts, in London, 1952, Germany's post-war debts were written down to just under 7 billion deutschemarks (worth about $3 billion at today's currency rates) from 16.2 billion deutschemarks, whilst its pre-war debts were reduced to 7.3 billion deutschemarks,



The London Debt Agreement covered a number of different types of German debt from before and after the Second World War. Some of them arose directly out of the efforts to finance the reparations system, while others reflect extensive lending, mostly by U.S. investors to German firms and governments.

The parties that were involved besides West Germany included Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Great Britain, Greece, Iran, Ireland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Norway, Pakistan, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, South Africa, the United States, Yugoslavia and others. The states of the Eastern Bloc were not involved. The negotiations lasted from February 27 to August 8, 1953.

The total under negotiation was 16 billion marks of debt resulting from the Treaty of Versailles after World War I which had not been paid in the 1930s, but which Germany decided to repay to restore its reputation. This money was owed to government and private banks in the U.S., France and Britain. Another 16 billion marks represented postwar loans by the U.S.





The Marshall Plan (officially the European Recovery Program, ERP) was an American initiative to aid Europe, in which the United States gave $13 billion (approximately $130 billion in current dollar value as of August 2015) in economic support to help rebuild European economies after the end of World War II. The plan was in operation for four years beginning in April 1948. The goals of the United States were to rebuild war-devastated regions, remove trade barriers, modernize industry, make Europe prosperous again, and prevent the spread of communism