@condret @mangeurdenuage @sun @Hyolobrika high taxes that were just shipped overseas or to the rich (war bond owners)--basically reverse robin hood on a major scale--left it relatively bankrupt. this is pretty normal history book stuff.

the reparations demands were so bad the USA refused to join the league of nations and GB reluctantly did but waived any claims to them. Whatever the rest of europe didn't seize was being milked dry to pay off bond holders (which amounted to a superminority of Germans), which was something the original national socialists had proclaimed they were going to abolish.

This is the same kind of scheme europe ran in the colonial days too. Its just that now it was being done to other europeans.