Mark's Reparations Reconsidered

By reading Mark's article, “Reparations Reconsidered: A Reminder” the main points become evident once she speaks of the “reparations” imposed by the allies on the Germans after Germany’s defeat in WW1. Mark’s begins her article with the discussion of a session in December of 1968 between the American Historical Association “AHA” . Professor Gerhard Weinberg, of the AHA says that “the entire history of German reparations needs to be restudied” (356). Throughout the post-war world, everyone was quite mesmerized by the 132 billion marks fee that was “brutally” imposed on the Germans, when in fact they weren’t asked to pay anything resembling that sum. Relevant documents and memoirs show that the Germans weren’t forced to pay the 132 billion marks that the public was tricked into believing. Due to many political challenges and tensions after the war, the sanctions on the German government were lifted. Political difficulties and the hope of a moderate settlement led to the failure of imposing an actual monetary amount on the Germans. At the Paris peace conference the figure
The war torn country lost many of its citizens, many factories, homes etc. In a study conducted by Georges Barnich of Institut Solvay, it was concluded that “the service of A and B bonds would, upon any realistic estimate of German esports, require more than thirty-six years.” (361). For several months, many politicians discussed the possibility of all together erasing the C bonds. This was not public information at the time and Marks comes to the conclusion that the reparations, which actually was to be payed to the allies dropped from its original 500-800 billion marks, to a mere 50 billion