First World War officially ends

[Ruy Horta]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...ally-ends.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...l-payment.html

http://abcnews.go.com/International/...ry?id=11755920

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I_reparations

After Germany’s defeat in World War II, payment of the reparations was not resumed. There was, however, outstanding German debt that the Weimar Republic had used to pay the reparations. An international conference decided (Agreement on German External Debts, 1953) that Germany would pay some parts of the remaining debt only after the country was reunified. West Germany paid off the remainder by 1980. In 1995, after reunification, the new German government announced it would resume payments of the interest.[citation needed] Germany will finish paying off the Americans in 2010[47] and the rest in 2020.[48] According to newspaper reports, the last payment of € 69,950.000 will be made on 3 October 2010, the 20th anniversary of German reunification.[49]

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage...-WW1-debt.html

Most of the money goes to private individuals, pension funds and corporations holding debenture bonds as agreed under the Treaty of Versailles signed on June 28, 1919.

[Jan Gazda]

To get closer and more complex picture how the reparation issue poisoned the international relations and world finance in the interwar period I recommend Lords of Finance by L. Ahamad which is fascinating and quite readable for non-economists at the same time. For people with some economic erudition there is of course Barry Eichengreen’s classic book Golden Fetters.

Jan