In 2014, countries are still paying off debt from World War One
http://qz.com/290183/in-2014-countries-are-still-paying-off-debt-from-world-war-one/
Germany
On Oct. 3, 2010, Germany finally paid off all its debt from World War One. The total? About 269 billion marks, or around 96,000 tons of gold.
The reparations were part of many humiliating clauses imposed by the Treaty of Versailles following Germany’s defeat in 1918, mainly by France, which suffered so much during the war and was also fearful that without the weight of such repayments, Germany would rise again quickly as a military power and attack it.
The UK sent a certain economist, John Maynard Keynes, as the principal representative of the British Treasury to the Paris Peace Conference. He resigned in June 1919 in protest at the size of reparations. “Germany will not be able to formulate correct policy if it cannot finance itself,” Keynes said. All very prescient, as Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party seized on popular hatred of the Versailles treaty to take power. Following the Great Depression in 1929, Germany’s debt was cut to 112 billion marks, payable over a period of 59 years. Not that it mattered—Hitler suspended reparation repayments in 1933.
In 1953, following the end of the Second World War, West Germany agreed at a conference in London to pay off its debts from before World War II, and in return was allowed to wait until reunification before paying €125 million in outstanding interest owed from 1945-1952. In 1990, the Berlin wall fell and Germany started paying off that interest—the very last of which was paid in October 2010 on the 20th anniversary of reunification.
One of the lessons of World War Two was the consequences of lumbering a losing nation with huge debts. “After WWII, they decided to hang the leaders but not to punish the nation,” Mark Harrison, an economics professor at University of Warwick, told the BBC. “But in WWI, it was the other way around.”
Does Germany Really Owe Greece A €trillion In War Reparations? Probably Not, No
http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2012/09/12/does-germany-really-owe-greece-a-etrillion-in-war-reparations-probably-not-no/
(excerpt)
This is a lovely story that has been doing the rounds for a while now. The idea that Germany owes Greece some vast amount in reparations for WWII. An amount sufficiently large that Greece would have entirely a get out of jail free card from its debt. It’s all quite fascinating and while there’s a certain truth to it it’s most unlikely that the larger claims are true.
But as you can see, even that is problematic. There’s rather a Catch-22 situation there. If they can show that the money was stolen then it doesn’t have to be paid back. If it’s a normal credit then, well, inflation of a zero interest loan has been such that Germany could pay it all back tomorrow without breaking a sweat and without improving the Greek situation more than only the tiniest amount. That’s a tough needle to thread in a legal sense: proving that it was a simple commercial transaction but then arguing that it was under duress which is why no interest was charged.
It should be noted that such forced loans were not unusual under the Nazis. The best description of their financial policies that I’ve seen is “Hitler’s Beneficiaries” by Goetz Aly. As I recall it he uses the Greek events as an example of how the system worked more generally across many countries. There’s a good review of the book here
I think we might be able to make a moral case that Germany owes some amount to Greece for the depredations of those years. Not all that strong a one though, given that the Germans alive today just happen to be the people inhabiting that land, not the people who did the damage. I am tempted too by the idea that that forced loan might be due. Do note that these are entirely personal opinions though. However, I cannot see that there is any legal case to be brought. The war reparations seem to have been covered by various treaties over the decades. The forced loan, well, as above, if it was stolen then it isn’t repayable in law and if it was a commercial loan then given the no interest clause then it’s near irrelevant.