From Der Spiegel:
Germany will make its last reparations payment for World War I on Oct. 3, settling its outstanding debt from the 1919 Versailles Treaty and quietly closing the final chapter of the conflict that shaped the 20th century. Oct. 3, the 20th anniversary of German unification, will also mark the completion of the final chapter of World War I with the end of reparations payments 92 years after the country’s defeat.
I wonder if they’ll have a mortgage-burning party?
P.S. The original reparations, according to the article, were the equivalent of 96,000 tons of gold, which works out at today’s price (math NOT guaranteed) to be about $4 trillion. Ouch.
The Edge of the American West 
13 comments
September 29, 2010 at 5:24 am
JP Stormcrow
Once all the Germans were warlike and mean,
But that couldn’t happen again.
We taught them a lesson in
nineteen eighteentwo thousand ten.And they’ve hardly bothered us since then.
September 29, 2010 at 6:09 am
ajay
The UK paid off the last of its Second World War debts to the USA on 31 December 2006. Payments on First World War debts, however, have been suspended since 1931 and will probably never be repaid (both UK debts to the USA and the rather larger debts of other countries to the UK, most of which the UK has rather lost track of what with one thing and another).
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4757181.stm
September 29, 2010 at 6:11 am
ajay
Personally I think we missed a trick not insisting on royalty payments for the atomic bomb (patent held by the British Admiralty). We could have made out like bandits. Admittedly it might have been a bit tricky getting them from the USSR.
September 29, 2010 at 8:37 am
Richard J
Personally I think we missed a trick not insisting on royalty payments for the atomic bomb (patent held by the British Admiralty). We could have made out like bandits. Admittedly it might have been a bit tricky getting them from the USSR.
Though, to be fair, we’d have had to be careful in making it a manufacture, not usage, based payment. Danger of the wrong incentive, you know.
September 29, 2010 at 11:50 am
Anderson
Germany suspended annual payments in 1931 during the global financial crisis and Adolf Hitler unsurprisingly declined to resume them when he came to power in 1933.
Hitler was thus unable to obtain a Diners Club card, for which humiliation he blamed “Jewish financiers” rather than his own credit rating. The rest was history.
September 29, 2010 at 11:52 am
Anderson
Admittedly it might have been a bit tricky getting them from the USSR.
Atomic bombs are the kinda stuff you get your payment for up front. Hard to collect afterwards.
Sounds like a great IP suit however.
September 29, 2010 at 12:02 pm
Ralph Hitchens
I like the ditty quoted by JP Stormcrow. Along those lines a friend, a US Army officer who spoke fluent German, did two tours in USAREUR — in the mid-1970s and again a decade later. With his language skill was frequently assigned to a liaison role with the Bundeswehr during NATO exercises, and was a keen judge of military proficiency. After returning from his second tour in 1988, he confided to me that “the Germans aren’t the Germans anymore.”
September 29, 2010 at 4:17 pm
clew
That’s a ditty-seed right there.
“the Germans aren’t the Germans anymore;
It’s been so long since our last total war.
Even at the bank, they’ve blanked the score!
doo-dah doo-dah doo-dah ditty Ruhr.”
September 29, 2010 at 5:14 pm
Anderson
the Germans aren’t the Germans anymore
Natural selection will do that to ya.
September 29, 2010 at 9:56 pm
andrew
In the long run, Keynes got Versailles all wrong.
September 30, 2010 at 8:43 am
Anderson
In the long run, we are all wrong.
October 1, 2010 at 12:55 am
Dave
Which, frankly, should be our professional motto. Tough to argue for funding that way, alas…
October 4, 2010 at 1:41 am
ajay
Atomic bombs are the kinda stuff you get your payment for up front. Hard to collect afterwards.
Sounds like a great IP suit however.
“That’s my boots you’re wearing. That’s my spear you’re pointing at me. And take my helmet off when you speak to me, you horrible little debtor.”
— peace through superior creditworthiness, Ankh-Morpork style