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The conference
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A final effort was made at the Lausanne Conference in 1932 to assist Germany. Here, representatives from Great Britain, France, Italy, Belgium, Germany and Japan gathered to come to an agreement. By that time it was clear that the deepening depression had made it impossible for Germany to resume its reparations payments.
They agreed: not to press Germany for immediate payments. To reduce indebtedness by nearly 90%, reducing the German obligation from the original $32.3 billion to $713 million. It was also informally agreed among the delegates that these provisions would be ineffective unless the US government agreed to cancellation of war debts owed by the Allied government. Hoover made the obligatory public statement about the lack of any connection between reparations and war debts. When the moratorium expired, the situation returned to the terms of the Young Plan, but the system had collapsed. Germany did not resume payments and once the National Socialist government consolidated power, the debt was repudiated. After Germany’s defeat in World War II, an international conference decided (1953) that Germany would pay the remaining debt only after the country was reunified. Nonetheless, West Germany paid off the principal by 1980; then in 1995, after reunification, the new German government announced it would resume payments of the interest. This agreement had been preceded by bitter diplomatic struggles, and its acceptance aroused nationalist passions and resentme...
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