Reparations: the bill, the loans, the end

The Treaty of Versailles made Germany liable for Allied war damage, and in 1921 the Reparation Commission set the bill at 132 billion gold marks; Germany defaulted in January 1923, France and Belgium occupied the Ruhr, and hyperinflation followed. American bank loans then funded German payments that the Allies used to pay their war debts to the United States; the Dawes (1924) and Young (1929) plans cut the burden, the Lausanne Conference (1932) cancelled reparations save a final payment, and Germany paid the last interest on its 1920s reparation loans on 3 October 2010.

The mechanism

THE CLOCK

How it was checked

• EvidenceT5 INDEPENDENT SECULAR; Status: ADDED 2026-09-19
• Letter eraTHE SEAT MOVES TO THE BENCH 1713 to 1945
• SourcesRECORD — U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian, 'The Dawes Plan, the Young Plan, German Reparations, and Inter-allied War Debts'; Britannica, 'reparations'; BBC News, 'Germany finishes paying WWI reparations' (2010) · checked 19 September: U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian, 'The Dawes Plan, the Young Plan, German Reparations, and Inter-allied War Debts'; BBC News, 'Why has Germany taken so long to pay off its WWI debt?' (2010) (read in a browser)