Piketty: My book recounts the history of income and wealth, including that of nations. What struck me while I was writing is that Germany is really the single best example of a country that, throughout its history, has never repaid its external debt. Neither after the First nor the Second World War. However, it has frequently made other nations pay up, such as after the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, when it demanded massive reparations from France and indeed received them. The French state suffered for decades under this debt. The history of public debt is full of irony. It rarely follows our ideas of order and justice.

    ZEIT: But surely we can’t draw the conclusion that we can do no better today?

    Piketty: When I hear the Germans say that they maintain a very moral stance about debt and strongly believe that debts must be repaid, then I think: what a huge joke! Germany is the country that has never repaid its debts. It has no standing to lecture other nations.



user-inactivated:

Am I wrong in remembering that part of the reason Germany went out of control and Hitler came to power was due largely in part to the overwhelming burden of post WWI Wartime Reparations? The international community decided to work with both Germany (West Germany?) and Japan after WWII to prevent this kind of thing from happening again. So technically, weren't they forgiven and given a free pass?


posted 3210 days ago