World War II
[edit] Europe
Further information:
German reparations for World War II
After
World War II, according to the
Potsdam conference held between July 17 and August 2, 1945, Germany was to pay the
Allies US$23 billion mainly in machinery and
manufacturing plants. Reparations to the
Soviet Union stopped in 1953. In addition, in accordance with the agreed-upon policy of
de-industrialisation and pastoralization of Germany, large numbers of civilian factories were dismantled for transport to France and the
UK, or simply destroyed.[
citation needed] Dismantling in the west stopped in 1950.
In the end, war victims in many countries were compensated by the property of Germans that were
expelled after World War II. Beginning even before the German surrender and continuing for the next two years, the
United States pursued a vigorous program to harvest all technological and scientific know-how as well as all patents and many leading scientists in Germany (known as
Operation Paperclip). Historian
John Gimbel, in his book
Science Technology and Reparations: Exploitation and Plunder in Postwar Germany, states that the "intellectual reparations" taken by the U.S. and the UK amounted to close to $10 billion.
[5] German reparations were partly to be in the form of
forced labor. By 1947, approximately 4,000,000 German
POWs and civilians were used as forced labor (under various headings, such as "reparations labor" or "enforced labor") in the Soviet Union, France, the UK, Belgium and in Germany in U.S run "Military Labor Service Units".
See also:
Forced labor of Germans in the Soviet Union,
POW labor in the Soviet Union, and
World War II reparations towards Yugoslavia
Germany paid
Israel 450 million DM in
Holocaust reparations, and paid 3 billion DM to the
World Jewish Congress to compensate survivors in other countries. No reparations were paid to the
Romanies who were killed during the Holocaust.
[6]
According to the
Paris Peace Treaties, 1947,
Italy agreed to pay reparations of about US$125 million to
Yugoslavia, US$105 million to
Greece, US$100 million to the Soviet Union, US$25 million to
Ethiopia, and US$5 million to
Albania.
Finland agreed to pay reparations of US$300 million to the Soviet Union;
Finland also was the only country which fully paid its war reparations.
Hungary agreed to pay reparations of US$200 million to the Soviet Union, US$100 million to
Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia.
Romania agreed to pay reparations of US$300 million to the Soviet Union.
Bulgaria agreed to pay reparations of $50 million to Greece and $25 million to Yugoslavia. According to the articles of these treaties, the value of US$ was prescribed as 35 US dollars to one
troy ounce of pure
gold.
[edit] Japan
According to the
Treaty of Peace with Japan and the bilateral agreements, Japan agreed to pay around 1 trillion and 30 billion yen. For countries that renounced any reparations from Japan, it agreed to pay indemnity and/or grants in accordance with bilateral agreements.
The
government of the United States officially apologized for the
Japanese American internment during
World War II in the 1980s and paid reparations.