Before you feel short-changed, consider the following:
1. The leaders and supporters of Communism in the 20th century were disproportionately Jewish.
2. Communism stole exponentially more from its victims worldwide than did the Nazis (and murdered a whole lot more people).
3. Reparations to victims of Communism have been practically nothing. And practically none of the perpetrators have ever been brought to justice (though many were consumed by their own revolution).
[1. The leaders and supporters of Communism in the 20th century were disproportionately Jewish.
2. Communism stole exponentially more from its victims worldwide than did the Nazis (and murdered a whole lot more people).
3. Reparations to victims of Communism have been practically nothing. And practically none of the perpetrators have ever been brought to justice (though many were consumed by their own revolution).]
Ultimately, Germany got less than it deserved at war’s end. It killed over 30m, lost 8m in a war of extermination it began. Reciprocity would have seen it erased from the earth, processed as Jews were at Treblinka, Sobibor, et al.
[1. The leaders and supporters of Communism in the 20th century were disproportionately Jewish.
2. Communism stole exponentially more from its victims worldwide than did the Nazis (and murdered a whole lot more people).
3. Reparations to victims of Communism have been practically nothing. And practically none of the perpetrators have ever been brought to justice (though many were consumed by their own revolution).]
Reparations have always been a part of peace settlements. The powerful German American lobby, strong enough to throttle war preparations as Germany grew stronger and increasingly belligerent, helped Germany win the peace by vetoing any attempt at a punitive peace. As a result, Germany paid a tiny fraction of what it should have, for the atrocities it brought forth. As compensation to the countries razed by Germany, the US created the Marshall Plan and threw its markets wide open, paving the way for the eventual collapse of many iconic American brands.
It’s not some cosmic rule that Germany paid next to nothing, but American insistence. The hordes of German immigrants who crossed the Atlantic a century prior paid off for Berlin.