Germany is king when it comes to debt and calculated based on the amount of losses compared to economic performance, Germany was the biggest debt transgressor of the 20th century, according to German economic historian, Albrecht Ritschl, Finfacts reported.
Ritschl told Der Spiegel magazine that Germany was the worst debtor nation of the past century. He warns the country should take a more chaste approach in the euro crisis or it could face renewed demands for World War II reparations.
He said Germany was responsible for what were the biggest national bankruptcies in recent history. It is only thanks to the United States, which sacrificed vast amounts of money after both World War I and World War II, that Germany is financially stable today and holds the status of Europe's headmaster. "That fact, unfortunately, often seems to be forgotten," the historian argues.
From 1924 to 1929, the Weimar Republic lived on credit and even borrowed the money it needed for its World War I reparations payments from America.
With only a few exceptions, all reparation demands after World War II were put on the backburner until Germany's future reunification. For Germany, that was a life-saving gesture, and it was the actual financial basis of the Wirtschaftswunder, or economic miracle (that began in the 1950s). But it also meant that the victims of the German occupation in Europe also had to forgo reparations, including the Greeks. Read more.
