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Reparations Reconsidered: A Reminder1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 December 2008

Sally Marks
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Extract

At a session of the December 1968 annual meeting of the American Historical Association, Professor Gerhard Weinberg Suggested during the discussion that the entire history of German reparations needs to be restudied. He further remarked that the key question is not how much but, rather, who paid. Professor Weinberg is of course right on both counts but perhaps a brief second look should also be given to the question of how much. Both the world in general and the historians in particular have tended to be mesmerized by the figure of 132 billion marks. The assumption has been that this sum, by definition outrageous, was brutally imposed at gunpoint upon a prostrate Germany by greedy and vengeful victors. The fact that the 1921 Schedule of Payments soon collapsed and was revised downward by the Dawes Plan is often presented as proof of the unreasonableness of die Allied powers and of their Schedule of Payments. It is not surprising diat world opinion has never penetrated the arcane mysteries of Reparations Commission prose, particularly since die public was meant to be fooled, but there is no excuse for the historians. The relevant documents, memoirs, and monographic studies have been available for thirty and forty years. A close examination of them clearly indicates that Germany was never in fact asked to pay anydiing remotely resembling 132 billion marks and that, in actuality, the London Schedule of Payments of May 1921 constituted a tremendous German victory.

Type
Suggestions and Debates
Information
Central European History , Volume 2 , Issue 4 , December 1969 , pp. 356 - 365
Copyright
Copyright © Conference Group for Central European History of the American Historical Association 1969

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References

2. For two classic expositions of this viewpoint, see Schuman, F. L., Germany since 1918 (New York, 1937), pp. 27–34,Google Scholar and Halperin, S. W., Germany Tried Democracy (New York, 1946), pp. 202–203.Google Scholar Recent works in which the same approach is implicit include Passant, E. J., A Short History of Germany, 1815–1945 (Cambridge, 1959), p. 159;Google ScholarGrunberger, Richard, Germany, 1918–1945 London, 1964), p. 60;Google Scholar and, to a degree, Nicholls, A. J., Weimar and the Rise of Hitler (London, 1968), pp. 74–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3. See, for instance, Nicholls, , Weimar, p. 78.Google Scholar

4. This view is well expressed in Bailey, T. A., Woodrow Wilson and the Lost Peace (New York, 1944), pp. 242–48;Google ScholarBurnett, P. A., Reparations at the Paris Peace Conference (New York, 1940), I, 60;Google ScholarLamont, T. W., “Reparations,” in House, E. M. and Seymour, C., eds., What Really Happened at Paris (New York, 1921), pp. 264–65.Google Scholar

5. Nicholson, Harold, Peacemaking 1919 (London, 1933), pp. 90–91;Google ScholarGeorge, David Lloyd, The Truth about the Peace Treaties (London, 1938), 1, 511–12;Google ScholarGeorge, David Lloyd, The Truth about Reparations and War Debts (London, 1932), pp. 22–23, 28–30.Google Scholar While Lloyd George's memoirs must of course be treated with some caution, the recently opened files of the British Delegation tend to confirm his honesty on this point.

6. Furst, G. A., De Versailles aux Experts (Nancy, 1927), p. 346.Google Scholar

7. Weill-Raynal, Etienne, Les Réparations Allemands et la France (Paris, 1938), I, 665–66.Google ScholarKeynes, J. M. supports him: A Revision of the Treaty (New York, 1922), p. 39.Google Scholar

8. Furst, , De Versailles, pp. 124–26.Google Scholar

9. The text of the London Schedule of Payments may be found in Reparation Commission, Official Documents Relative to the Amount of Payments to be Effected by Germany under Reparations Account (London, 1922), I, 4–9.Google Scholar

10. Weill-Raynal, , Les Réparations, I, 648–49.Google Scholar German payments to this date had not fully covered the prior charge of occupation costs.

11. Furst, , De Versailles, pp. 129–30;Google ScholarDuroselle, J.-B., Histoire Diplomatique de 1919 à nos Jours (Paris, 1953), p. 24 n.;Google ScholarWeill-Raynal, , Les Réparations, I, 651.Google Scholar

12. Keynes, , Revision, p. 67;Google ScholarFurst, , De Versailles, pp. 130–32;Google ScholarBritain, Great, Documents on British Foreign Policy, 1919–1939, First Series, xv (London, 1967), 556 (hereafter cited as DBFP).Google Scholar

13. Italics mine.

14. Furst, , De Versailles, p. 133.Google Scholar

15. Ibid., p. 131. Keynes essentially agreed, Revision, pp. 70–71.

16. Weill-Raynal, , Les Réparations, I, 654–55.Google Scholar

17. Keynes, , Revision, pp. 68, 42–43;Google ScholarManchester Guardian, May 8, 1921.

18. Bergmann, Carl, The History of Reparations (Boston, 1927), p. 77.Google Scholar

19. France, Ministère des Affaires Étrangères, Documents Diplomatiques: Demand de Moratorium du gouvernement allemand à la commission des réparations (14 november 1922); conférence de Londres (9–11 décembre 1922); conférence de Paris (2–4 janvier 1923) (Paris, 1923), p. 132.

20. Barnich, Georges, Comment faire payer l'Allemagne (Paris, 1923), pp. 43–44;Google Scholar A. Aron, La Commission des Réparations (unpublished), cited by Weill-Raynal, , Les Réparations, I, 671.Google Scholar

21. Furst, , De Versailles, pp. 133–34.Google Scholar Translation mine.

22. George, Lloyd, Reparations. p. 62;Google ScholarJordan, W. M., Britain, France, and the German Problem, 1918–1939 (London, 1943), p. 108.Google Scholar

23. Furst, , De Versailles, p. 133;Google ScholarKeynes, , Revision, pp. 65–66;Google ScholarDBFP, First Series, xv, 556, 578.

24. For the text of the first German offer, see DBFP, First Series, XV, 223–25. For the text of the second offer, see United States, Department of State, Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, 1921, II, 46–48. The Germans later “retranslated” their offer to read “50 billions gold marks (capital)” (ibid., II, 53) but the Allies, acting on the original text, had already rejected it. Curiously, Bergmann preserves the original wording although, as a German government reparations expert, he undoubtedly had access to both texts. Bergmann, , The History of Reparations, p. 71.Google Scholar

25. U.S., Foreign Relations of the U.S., 1921, II, 53.

26. Bergmann, , The History of Reparations, p. 77.Google Scholar

27. Sayers, Dorothy L., Busman's Honeymoon (London, 1957 ed.), pp. 107–108.Google Scholar

28. In The Carthaginian Peace, or the Economic Consequences of Mr.Keynes (London, 1946).Google Scholar

29. Professor Weinberg's remark was made in response to several people in the audience who had rebutted him vehemently with statements beginning, “But Keynes said…”

30. Wiskemann, Elizabeth, The Europe I Saw (London, 1968), p. 53.Google Scholar