Wednesday, September 29, 2010

The Great War's Last Payment

Germany will make its last reparation payment on Sunday. The reparations were a provision of the Versailles Treaty of 1919. The payments, required by the obstinate of the French, have been widely credited with destabilizing the economy of the Weimar Republic, which gave the Nazis their route to power.

The irony is that the French, in creating an opportunity for German fascism, sowed the seeds for Germany's conquest of France 21 years later.[1]

100 years ago, color photography was in its infancy. There was color photography during the war; some German photos are at the UK Telegraph's web site. Of course, a little bit of Googling and I found a site of French color war photos

[1] The French government received substantial loans from the U.S. Treasury in World War 1 and lend-lease aid in World War 2. Fat chance that they ever paid those debts.

3 comments:

  1. Um... The Versailles Treaty is still in effect? That means Germany can't build the Fokker D-VII, still?

    ReplyDelete
  2. The debt repayment is not the real wartime debt, but obligations to those who lended money in order to enable Germany to repay debt.

    The UK is still paying back debt of the seven years war if you count these kinds of obligations to private investors as war debt/reparations!

    ReplyDelete

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