After the defeat in the First World War, only 21 years later, the Second World War was launched, and the German nation in the early part of the last century was by no means good.
After all, from a common sense point of view, after losing a major war, it is necessary to go through a long process of recuperation and recovery, and to start another great war against the world requires even longer preparations, not only military, but also socio-economic, industrial production capacity, national mobilization and psychological preparation, and so on. Therefore, 21 years is far from enough.
However, Hitler and his Nazi Germany did.
On September 1, 1939, Germany carried out a blitzkrieg in Poland, and in less than a month, it took all of them, officially opening the prelude to World War II. In 1940, Germany was invincible on the European battlefield, with Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and even France all becoming de facto control areas.
At this time, in Europe, with the exception of the Soviet Union, the resistance was already very limited.
In June 1941, Hitler took aim at the Soviet Union, the owner of Europe's largest territory, and they wanted to blitzkrieg as they did to defeat Poland. In fact, this tactic was successful in the early days, and the Soviet resistance was defeated one after another. But Hitler overlooked the fact that the land and population of the Soviet Union, which Poland was completely incomparable. So slowly, the Axis forces were caught in a dilemma in the Soviet Union and were soon squeezed into Moscow and Stalingrad. In the summer of 1943, the Allies broke into the territory of Hitler's partner, Italy, forcing Hitler to transfer troops from the Eastern Front. By the summer of 1944, with the successful landing of Allied forces in Normandy and the all-out counterattack of the Soviet Red Army, the defeat of Nazi Germany was a foregone conclusion. On April 30, 1945, Hitler committed suicide, ending the European theater of World War II, and a few months later, with the surrender of Japan, the Allies ended World War II with a resounding victory.
Then it's time for reckoning. The main thing, of course, was the liquidation of Nazi Germany, which was not only the initiator of World War II, but also the leading power of the Axis powers.
After the end of World War I, the German troops withdrew normally, a move that led many Germans to believe that they had not really failed, but more like a retreat and recuperation. Therefore, in the hearts of most Germans at that time, they still had the idea of "going on a second expedition and ruling the world", which was one of the main reasons why Hitler was able to agitate for an invasion of other countries in a short period of time and gain popular support.
In view of this, the Allies did not want to make the same mistake twice, and they wanted to completely extinguish the Nazi ideology of the Germans. As a result, the United States, Great Britain, France, and the Soviet Union began a series of operations against Germany immediately after World War II.
First of all, the Allies directly occupied Germany, which can be understood as providing the most basic guarantee for a series of subsequent actions, not only to press you there, but also to control all your resources, so that you have no space and no capital to resist.
Then, in the summer of 1945, Allied leaders, led by the Big Three, met in Potsdam to discuss what to do with a defeated Germany. On certain issues, there were disagreements, such as the Soviet Union's desire for socialism, while the Western allies wanted to establish a GDR, and after a long struggle, a program was formed: a capitalist West Germany and a socialist East Germany.
Of course, there is also a lot of agreement.
For example, Germany was completely demilitarized, because the Allies were very tough on this issue because of the lessons learned from the First World War. It is worth mentioning that this demilitarization has changed in recent years, with Germany's military budget tripling in 2022 due to the fact that Germany has received support from the United States on the grounds of the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
For example, the Nazi trials were held, the most notable of which was the Nuremberg trials, in which hundreds of Nazis were sentenced to a certain sentence.
Another example is the demand for reparations from Germany for the war. According to the calculations of Allied experts, the cost of the war paid by the Allies for World War II was about 320 billion US dollars. However, since this amount could not be repaid at the time (the GDP of the United States was only $355 billion at that time, but it was already 56% of the world's total), other forms of repayment were required.
On this issue, there are also divisions within the Western allies. France wanted to completely strip Germany of its wealth to ensure that there would be no future war, while the United States and Britain hoped that Germany would have enough strength to help Europe with its post-war economic recovery.
In the end, the French succumbed to the absolute power of the United States. Then came the famous Marshall Plan. Through this program, the United States provided billions of dollars in aid to Europe, including Germany.
Of course, aid is aid, and compensation should still be compensated. After several discussions, the allies issued a $23 billion reparations bill to Germany, and Germany had no bargaining rights and could only obediently implement it. By 1965, Germany had repaid $4 billion. By 2000, Germany had repaid almost $40 billion (because of interest).
In terms of the distribution of reparations, the Jews, the main victims of World War II, naturally became the biggest beneficiaries. After all, 6 million Jews died during World War II, which is two-thirds of the total number of Jews in Europe. Thus, when the State of Israel was established in 1948, negotiations with West Germany began on special reparations for Jewish victims.
With the support of the United States, in September 1952, West Germany agreed to pay Israel 3 billion Deutsche marks (7.).$1.4 billion). However, because the Jews play finance, they are particularly good at calculating inflation and interest, and they have more and more say in the world. As a result, in total, from 1945 to 2018, Germany has paid more than $86 billion in compensation to these survivors. I don't know how to calculate it, the original 7The Germans have not yet paid back the $1.4 billion in reparations, and they still have to pay reparations to the Jews every year through an organized political unit. In other words, the big ** survivors continue to receive compensation to this day.
In addition to Israel, politicians, including Poland and Greece, have also jumped out and said that Germany has not paid off their reparations, or wants to increase them.
In other words, even now, Germany will continue to pay World War II reparations, and it seems that there is no end time or a cap.
This article is shared with you here, welcome to click to follow!
Joke about finance" original works, without permission, shall not be **!
**10,000 Fans Incentive Plan