Paris reparations agreement

The Paris Reparations Agreement was concluded at the conference on January 14, 1946 for the distribution of reparation claims against the German Reich as a result of the Second World War .

General

The first joint considerations arose at the Allied Conference in Yalta (February 1945) and the Potsdam Conference in July 1945. This was followed in November / December 1945 by a reparations conference of 18 nations in Paris. At the Paris Conference of February 1946, the participating states then divided the country claims into percentages and two categories:

• Category A - all forms of reparation that do not fall under category B.
• Category B - industrial and financial equipment, which can be taken from Germany, including merchant and inland waterways as well as all German values ​​in neutral countries.

Country	Category A in%	Category B in%
Egypt	0.05	0.20
Albania	0.05	0.35
Australia	0.70	0.95
Belgium	2.70	4.50
Denmark	0.25	0.35
France	16.00	22.80
Greece	2.70	4.35
Great Britain	28.00	27.80
India	2.00	2.90
Yugoslavia	6.60	9.60
Canada	3.50	1.50
Luxembourg	0.15	0.40
New Zealand	0.40	0.60
Netherlands	3.90	5.60
Norway	1.30	1.90
South Africa	0.70	0.10
Czechoslovakia	3.00	4.30
United States	28.00	11.80
total	100.00	100.00

The categories had to be offset against one another and fulfilled within five years via an "Inter-Allied Reparations Agency" (IARA) to be established. The participating states decided that the claims covered all government or private claims, including occupation costs, possibly necessary credits for the occupation and claims against the Reichskreditkassen. The reparations were not transferable.

Claims from contracts or agreements before the start of the war or before the German occupation of individual countries, social security claims and banknotes from the Reichsbank or the Rentenbank without special permission from the Allied Control Council were not included . The Czechoslovak National Bank was given a special right of access to its current account at the Reichsbank.

Equipment and materials used by German armed armies in the participating countries were to be taken into account.

In the absence of German participation, this agreement was not binding on Germany.

Article 8

Part 1, Article 8 set out the rights of individuals. These had to be covered with Nazi gold in neutral countries up to the amount of 25 million US dollars and topped up by a further 25 million dollars of German deposits in these countries for victims without heirs. The “International Refugee Committee” (1938) was authorized to allocate the funds to private and public organizations.

The intended recipients were refugees from Germany and Austria who needed help and were unable to return to their home countries at the time; Germans and Austrians in need who assisted this group of people and people from formerly occupied countries whose repatriation was not possible at the moment. This meant especially people from concentration camps .

People “whose loyalty to the United Nations was in doubt” and prisoners of war were excluded .

The funds were expressly intended for rehabilitation and resettlement and only affected possible claims for reparation against a later German government insofar as they were to be taken into account.

Part 2 and 3

Further agreements related to the functioning of the Inter-Allied Reparations Agency (IARA) and the collection and use of gold ( Restitution of Monetary Gold ). The agreement entered into force with the last signature by Australia on February 25, 1946.

In October followed, including the Soviet Union , the Paris Peace Conference 1946 . In view of the Cold War and the integration of the Federal Republic of Germany into the West, the Paris resolutions were varied with the London Debt Agreement (1953).

See also

• Agreement on German Assets in Switzerland (1946)
• Luxembourg Agreement (1952)
• German reparation policy

Web links

• Files of the US Delegation to the Inter-Allied Reparations Agency US National Archives (English)

Footnotes

1. ↑ bundestag.de: full text
2. ^ Hermann-Josef Brodesser, Bernd Josef Fehn, Tilo Franosch, Wilfried Wirth: Reparation and liquidation of the consequences of war. History - regulations - payments. Beck, Munich 2000, ISBN 3-406-31455-4 , p. 27.