Germany clears debt

[rareboy]

"Germany ends World War One reparations after 92 years with £59m final payment."

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...e-reparations-92-years-59m-final-payment.html

Just think. If the Allies had listened to John Maynard Keynes, it is likely that the Nazi's would never have come to power and the Second World War would never have happened.

 

[Jack Springer]

Almost everyone affected in WWI is dead. Who gets the money?

This makes no sense.

I do agree that the Treaty of Versailles was very vindictive and extremely harsh for Germany -- but on the other hand Germany caused major hard to Europe.

War is almost never the best solution - but sometimes there are no other solutions.

I was amazed on one trip to Germany that Germans cannot to this day use the word cognac to describe their cognac -- one of the small ways the French got back at the Germans in the treaty.

 

[Corny]

I do agree that the Treaty of Versailles was very vindictive and extremely harsh for Germany -- but on the other hand Germany caused major hard to Europe.

problem is that it punished everyone, and hardly those responsible. the result was a lot of support for hitler (simplified, but yes you can make this conclusion). after wwii at least they got very heavy handed on the people responsible and less on the people themselves (although in wwii the people themselves had a lot of more responsibility than those of wwi)

 

[bankside]

Modern democratic values were all there by WWI, but they were still advancing clumsily and inconsistently around the world.

However if you believe, consistent with those values, that people are the keepers of the government, rather than the other way around, then if people let their government get out of hand, shouldn't they bear the burden of responsibility for that?

Maybe one of the factors supporting good government is the fear that "We don't want to pay for this government's mistakes - it is time to get rid of them!"

 

[rareboy]

It was absurd for the Allies to shift the burden for the medieval war between the royal houses of Europe onto the backs of their 'subjects'.

Fortunately, by the end of WWII, there was the Marshall plan to prevent the same kind of nonsense.

And Springer. It is one thing when the citizens of a country vote in a government that invades and destroys other nations; it is entirely another when the citizens were under the rule of authoritarian Emperors who commanded armies.

Can we draw any parallels to the world today?

 

[bankside]

It was absurd for the Allies to shift the burden for the medieval war between the royal houses of Europe onto the backs of their 'subjects'.

Fortunately, by the end of WWII, there was the Marshall plan to prevent the same kind of nonsense.

And Springer. It is one thing when the citizens of a country vote in a government that invades and destroys other nations; it is entirely another when the citizens were under the rule of authoritarian Emperors who commanded armies.

Can we draw any parallels to the world today?

No but perhaps there are parallels to the French Revolution and the American Revolution. Even emperors are responsible to their people. Offering subservience is a form of voting for the status quo. And if French people and American people were willing to sacrifice life and limb to throw off dictators, we should expect the same of Afghanis, Iranians, etc.

 

[BigChicken]

No but perhaps there are parallels to the French Revolution and the American Revolution. Even emperors are responsible to their people. Offering subservience is a form of voting for the status quo. And if French people and American people were willing to sacrifice life and limb to throw off dictators, we should expect the same of Afghanis, Iranians, etc.

Exactly. Governments can only remain in power if the people continue to submit to their rule. Either the people in Iran are okay with how they are being ruled, or they are unwilling to make the necessary sacrifices to overthrow their government the way we did with the English government that was ruling over us.

 

[rareboy]

No but perhaps there are parallels to the French Revolution and the American Revolution. Even emperors are responsible to their people. Offering subservience is a form of voting for the status quo. And if French people and American people were willing to sacrifice life and limb to throw off dictators, we should expect the same of Afghanis, Iranians, etc.

I'm sorry, but this is an incredibly simplistic and not very accurate view of European history.

We shouldn't expect anything of anybody. Until you live under a dictatorship, or medieval monarchy, you have no right to demand that anyone overthrow their state.

Let us be clear here. The American revolution was financed by France. Not because the Bourbons loved liberty, but because it was a proxy for the ongoing war between France and England. Ironically the debt incurred was partly responsible for the downfall of the Bourbon dynasty itself. Without the support of the French the American revolution would have failed. Pure and simple.

And in post revolutionary France, it wasn't long before Bonaparte was on the throne and the second empire rose. People seem to gravitate toward despotism.

It was a much larger movement in the arts and sciences that gave us the age of reason. In many countries those ideas were suppressed or simply not available to the uneducated masses until well into the 20th century and even today, the tribal cultures founded in other beliefs than atheism are suspicious of western thought and philosophy.

Up until the end of world war two, it wasn't at all unusual for women of the western countries to be directed by their husbands on how to vote etc. etc.

 

[Kulindahr]

Almost everyone affected in WWI is dead. Who gets the money?

Supposedly banks and other institutions which made loans and grants to people to rebuild after their homes were turned into targets and their fields converted to trenches.