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  1. #1
    Kang Trill Clinton's Avatar
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    How Germany Should Respond to $1.2 Trillion Reparations Claims
    By Leonid Bershidsky
    7-8 minutes


    A glass dome sits on top of the Reichstag building.

    Photographer: Krisztian Bocsi/Bloomberg

    Photographer: Krisztian Bocsi/Bloomberg

    Greece and Poland are stepping up their demands for Germany to pay reparations for World War II. This may appear to be little more than an attempt to pander to domestic voters. But, in fact, it’s an effort to ground in history their calls for Europe’s largest economy to show more altruism toward its poorer allies. Berlin should heed this pressure, if not the actual demand for money.

    On Tuesday, Greece formally asked Germany to negotiate reparations for the Axis powers’ invasion of 1941 to 1944. In 2016, parliamentarians put the minimum amount due at 292 billion euros ($330 billion).

    Meanwhile, Polish legislators are working on a report on German-inflicted war damage that could, according to newspaper Dziennik Gazeta Prawna, include a demand for about $850 billion. The paper may be released on Sept. 1 to coincide with both the 80th anniversary of the start of the conflict and a visit by German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier to commemorate the date.

    The demands are, at least in part, meant for the ears of Greek and Polish voters. Greece’s governing party, Syriza, came to power promising to cut the country’s debt burden and get justice from Germany, which had opposed a write-off. Having failed to deliver on either, the leftist party now faces a losing battle in an early election scheduled for July 7. It can’t hurt to remind voters that the government hasn’t given up.

    In Poland, the ruling Law and Justice party, its confidence boosted by a convincing victory in the European Parliamentary election, is keen to push back in the most headline-generating way against what it sees as undue German dominance in the European Union.

    Berlin rejects these demands, saying the matter has long been settled. Legally, that may well be the case, though some experts in Germany itself aren’t so sure.

    The question was formally decided by the 1945 Potsdam conference. There, the Soviet Union undertook to meet the reparations claims of its new satellites, including Poland, from its own share of reparations, which was largely paid in industrial equipment.

    Similarly, the Western allies promised to reimburse other countries to which reparations were due with German industrial and naval assets. But these were hardly enough to cover the enormous damage caused throughout Europe by the Nazis.

    That’s essentially why Greece received only a small fraction of the $7.1 billion (in 1938 prices) it was allocated by the Inter-Allied Reparations Agency; as for the Soviet Union, it wasn’t too concerned about reimbursing conquered nations, considering it sufficient that it had “liberated” them.

    In the 1950s, Germany signed compensation agreements with 12 nations, including Greece, which received 115 million Deutsche marks in 1960 in final settlement of its claims. In all, Germany has paid 76 billion euros in compensation for Nazi crimes since 1951, a figure that would be much bigger in today’s prices.

    The 1953 London Agreement on German External Debts put off the final settlement of reparation claims until a formal peace agreement was agreed. But the so-called two-plus-four treaty of 1990, in which the U.S., Soviet Union, U.K. and France blessed reunification, established that no such peace agreement would be necessary. That’s how Berlin justifies its legal position. For some Germans, such as left-wing historian Karl Heinz Roth, the matter still isn’t settled because it is primarily an ethical question rather than a legal or economic one.

    Modern German leaders continue to acknowledge Germany’s historic guilt. They’re not claiming it has been fully expiated, just that they have no further financial obligations. That, of course, is something of a flawed moral stand. And since Germans understand the language of moral guilt, it is the one which Greek and Polish politicians choose when they air grievances that have little to do with World War II.

    The Polish nationalists make the not unjustified case that western European countries, Germany first and foremost, have colonized eastern Europe, capturing markets and extracting profits without boosting living standards commensurately. The Greeks are still angry about bailouts which helped Germany’s banks and government but failed to relieve their country’s long-term debt burden.

    These grievances, too, can be challenged on both economic and moral grounds. Poland and the rest of eastern Europe benefited both from opening their markets to western companies and from massive amounts of EU aid, much of which was contributed by Germany. Athens mismanaged its public finances so badly that it can hardly demand reimbursement.

    To me, however, there is one overriding argument that requires Germany to make a serious effort to understand what the Poles and Greeks actually want and need. They are all part of a peace project whose purpose is to prevent the kind of damage Nazi ambition once wreaked on the world. As the primary reason the project became necessary in the first place, as well as its main economic engine, Germany bears a disproportionate responsibility for the EU’s success. This, in large part, depends on a more equitable distribution of wealth throughout the bloc.

    Germany should show much more flexibility on issues such as common debt instruments and a fiscal union for Europe. The electorate is averse to sharing more wealth and risk, but responsible leaders should remind it about the country’s ethical burden. In the end, more solidarity – balanced with checks against moral hazard – can only make the EU and the euro zone stronger and more internationally compe ive.

    In other words, even if the German government doesn’t need to pay more than $1 trillion to Poland and Greece – money it doesn’t have – it should be more accommodating on matters of common economic interest. Then, perhaps, the noisy demands for reparations will die down.

    This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

    To contact the author of this story:
    Leonid Bershidsky at [email protected]

    To contact the editor responsible for this story:
    Edward Evans at [email protected]

    @frostking

  2. #2
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    FrostKing the begging: supression edition

  3. #3
    dangerous floater Winehole23's Avatar
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    I'm rooting for Greece, tbh.

  4. #4
    4-25-20 Will Hunting's Avatar
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    FrostKing the begging: supression edition
    Pollacks demanding reparations the same way black people who Frostking hates do

  5. #5
    coffee's for closers FrostKing's Avatar
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    FrostKing the begging: supression edition
    They literally stripped down our industries and sent them West on trains

    But that is not what it is about. This is a chess match. Germany (and other warmongering nations) want Poland to fund global humanitarian efforts. In many cases these were former colonies of theirs. Western nations used these war spoils to wage war with Poland. So we would in essence be getting ed twice

    Not to mention Germany today is the biggest jew ass kisser and getting involved in Israeli war reparation claims with Poland.

    Long story short: Germans being called out

  6. #6
    Believe. Pavlov's Avatar
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    They literally stripped down our industries and sent them West on trains

    But that is not what it is about. This is a chess match. Germany (and other warmongering nations) want Poland to fund global humanitarian efforts. In many cases these were former colonies of theirs. Western nations used these war spoils to wage war with Poland. So we would in essence be getting ed twice

    Not to mention Germany today is the biggest jew ass kisser and getting involved in Israeli war reparation claims with Poland.

    Long story short: Germans being called out
    By begging?

    Poland

  7. #7
    4-25-20 Will Hunting's Avatar
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    They literally stripped down our industries and sent them West on trains

    But that is not what it is about. This is a chess match. Germany (and other warmongering nations) want Poland to fund global humanitarian efforts. In many cases these were former colonies of theirs. Western nations used these war spoils to wage war with Poland. So we would in essence be getting ed twice

    Not to mention Germany today is the biggest jew ass kisser and getting involved in Israeli war reparation claims with Poland.

    Long story short: Germans being called out
    they stripped down our industries

    funny how quickly people lose interest in bootstrap capitalism when it’s being imposed on them

  8. #8
    #FreeDerp Monostradamus's Avatar
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    They literally stripped down our industries and sent them West on trains

    But that is not what it is about. This is a chess match. Germany (and other warmongering nations) want Poland to fund global humanitarian efforts. In many cases these were former colonies of theirs. Western nations used these war spoils to wage war with Poland. So we would in essence be getting ed twice

    Not to mention Germany today is the biggest jew ass kisser and getting involved in Israeli war reparation claims with Poland.

    Long story short: Germans being called out
    Mooching Polacks demanding reparations It was a long time ago, get over it.

  9. #9
    coffee's for closers FrostKing's Avatar
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    Hahah. We didn't start the fire. We went on with our lives rebuilding without for example Marshall Plan.

    Germans can try fixing their global image on their own dime

  10. #10
    #FreeDerp Monostradamus's Avatar
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    Hahah. We didn't start the fire. We went on with our lives rebuilding without for example Marshall Plan.

    Germans can try fixing their global image on their own dime
    Germany aren’t the freeloaders looking mooch off the pain & suffering of their ancestors Just get over it already!

  11. #11
    Believe. Pavlov's Avatar
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    Hahah. We didn't start the fire. We went on with our lives rebuilding without for example Marshall Plan.
    Because Russia ran your asses for another half century.

  12. #12
    and isn’t it ironic? Alanis Morissette's Avatar
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    And isn’t it ironic, don’t ya think?

  13. #13
    Savvy Veteran spurraider21's Avatar
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    They literally stripped down our industries and sent them West on trains
    and why is this more sympathetic than traders stripping down african families and having them sent West on ships?

  14. #14
    coffee's for closers FrostKing's Avatar
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    and why is this more sympathetic than traders stripping down african families and having them sent West on ships?
    Is Poland going after American businessmen that supported the Nazis? That is what Africans are doing

  15. #15
    Alleged Michigander ChumpDumper's Avatar
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    wut

  16. #16
    coffee's for closers FrostKing's Avatar
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    Africans stole from themselves. Just like in this case Europeans did.

  17. #17
    Alleged Michigander ChumpDumper's Avatar
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    Africans stole from themselves. Just like in this case Europeans did.
    wut

  18. #18
    coffee's for closers FrostKing's Avatar
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  19. #19
    dangerous floater Winehole23's Avatar
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    Couldn't have done it on that scale without an export market and ready buyers.

    Where did they come from, and did they tilt the political balance on the African scene? Putting responsibility for the market all on the aellers is historically and intellectually dishonest.

  20. #20
    Believe. Pavlov's Avatar
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    So you're trying to say the whites dindu nuffin?

  21. #21
    Believe.
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    Africans stole from themselves. Just like in this case Europeans did.
    You got it, that is exactly how it went down. Without the help of the powerful African tribes there is no slave trade. So blacks need to know the real story.

    Just how far inland could a few ships of sailors get vs tribes of hostile warriors thousands of them? So a deal was worked out.

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