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After World War II ended, the main four Allied powers – Great Britain, The United States, France, and the Soviet Union – jointly occupied Germany, with the Allied occupation officially ending in the 1950s. During this time, Germany was held accountable for the Allied occupation's expenses, amounting to over several billion dollars. [21]
By the start of the world economic crisis in 1929, Germany had received 29 billion Reichsmarks in loans. In spite of the stronger economy, Germany was unable to achieve the trade surpluses necessary to finance reparations. It met almost all of its payments under the Dawes plan [17] but could do so only on the basis of its large foreign debt. [18]
[4]: 353 Ultimately, losses of U.S. investors into German debt amounted to 13 to 16 percent of U.S. 1931 GDP, and the German debt problem would only be settled in 1953 with the London Agreement on German External Debts. At its low point in 1932, German economic output had declined 39 percent from its level in 1929.
The London Agreement on German External Debts, also known as the London Debt Agreement (German: Londoner Schuldenabkommen), was a debt relief treaty between the Federal Republic of Germany and creditor nations. The Agreement was signed in London on 27 February 1953, and came into force on 16 September 1953.
The debt problem was exacerbated by printing money without any economic resources to back it. [1] John Maynard Keynes characterised the inflationary policies of various wartime governments in his 1919 book The Economic Consequences of the Peace as follows: The inflationism of the currency systems of Europe has proceeded to extraordinary lengths.
The Gaue existed parallel to the German states, the Länder, and Prussian provinces throughout the Nazi period. Pro forma , the Administrative divisions of Weimar Germany were left in place. The plan to abolish the Länder was ultimately given up because Hitler shrank away from structural reforms, a so-called Reichsreform , fearing it would ...
The Nazi government tried to limit the number of its trade partners, and, when possible, only trade with countries within the German sphere of influence. A number of bilateral trade agreements were signed between Germany and other European Countries (mostly countries located in Southern and South-Eastern Europe) during the 1930s.
The states continued to formally exist as de jure bodies but from 1934 were superseded by de facto Nazi Party administrative units called Gaue. Many of the states were formally dissolved at the end of World War II by the Allies, and ultimately re-organised into the modern states of Germany.