War reparations
War reparations are compensation payments made after a war by the vanquished to the victors.
They are intended to cover damage or injury inflicted during a war. Generally, the term war reparations refers to money or goods changing hands, but not to the annexation of land.
History
Making the defeated party pay a war indemnity is a common practice with a long history.In Ancient history, the imposition of reparations on a defeated enemy was often the beginning of forcing that enemy to pay a regular tribute.
Rome imposed large indemnities on Carthage after the First and Second Punic Wars.
Some war reparations induced changes in monetary policy. For example, the French payment following the Franco-Prussian war played a major role in Germany's decision to adopt the gold standard; the 230 million silver taels in reparations imposed on defeated China after the First Sino-Japanese War led Japan to a similar decision.
There have been attempts to codify reparations both in the Statutes of the International Criminal Court and the UN Basic Principles on the Right to a Remedy and Reparation for Victims, and some scholars have argued that individuals should have a right to seek compensation for wrongs they sustained during warfare through tort law.
Europe
Napoleonic War
Following the Treaty of Paris, defeated France was ordered to pay 700 million francs in indemnities. France was also to pay additional money to cover the cost of providing additional defensive fortifications to be built by neighbouring Coalition countries. In proportion to its GDP, it's the most expensive war reparation ever paid by a country.Franco-Prussian War
After the Franco-Prussian War, according to conditions of Treaty of Frankfurt, France was obliged to pay a war indemnity of 5 billion gold francs in 5 years. The indemnity was proportioned, according to population, to be the exact equivalent to the indemnity imposed by Napoleon on Prussia in 1807. German troops remained in parts of France until the last installment of the indemnity was paid in September 1873, ahead of schedule.Greco-Turkish War of 1897
Following the Greco-Turkish War, defeated Greece was forced to pay a large war indemnity to Turkey. Greece, which was already in default, was compelled to permit oversight of its public finances by an international financial commission.World War I
Russians agreed to pay reparations to the Central Powers when Russia exited the war in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. Bulgaria paid reparations of 2.25 billion gold francs to the Entente, according to the Treaty of Neuilly.Germany agreed to pay reparations of 132 billion gold marks to the Triple Entente in the Treaty of Versailles, which were then cancelled in 1932 with Germany only having paid a part of the sum. This still left Germany with debts it had incurred in order to finance the reparations, and these were revised by the Agreement on German External Debts in 1953. After another pause pending the reunification of Germany, the last installment of these debt repayments was paid on 3 October 2010.
World War II Germany
During World War II, Nazi Germany extracted payments from occupied countries and compelled loans. In addition, countries were obliged to provide resources, and forced labour.After World War II, according to the Potsdam conference held between July 17 and August 2, 1945, Germany was to pay the Allies US$23 billion mainly in machinery and manufacturing plants. Reparations to the Soviet Union stopped in 1953. Large numbers of factories were dismantled or destroyed. Dismantling in the west stopped in 1950.
Beginning before the German surrender and continuing for the next two years, the United States pursued a vigorous program of harvesting all technological and scientific know-how as well as all patents and many leading scientists in Germany. Historian John Gimbel, in his book Science Technology and Reparations: Exploitation and Plunder in Postwar Germany, states that the "intellectual reparations" taken by the U.S. and the UK amounted to close to $10 billion.
German reparations were partly to be in the form of forced labor. By 1947, approximately 4,000,000 German POWs and civilians were used as forced labor in the Soviet Union, France, the UK, Belgium and in Germany in U.S run "Military Labor Service Units".
World War II Italy
According to the Treaty of Peace with Italy, 1947, Italy agreed to pay reparations of about US$125 million to Yugoslavia, US$105 million to Greece, US$100 million to the Soviet Union, US$25 million to Ethiopia, and US$5 million to Albania.Other World War II reparations
could only negotiate an interim peace deal with Soviet Union by agreeing to extensive reparations, and was eventually the only country to pay settled war reparations in full. The total amount of reparations rose to 500 million US dollars, at the value of the dollar in 1953.Hungary agreed to pay reparations of US$200 million to the Soviet Union, and US$100 million apiece to Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia. Romania agreed to pay reparations of US$300 million to the Soviet Union, but the real sum that Romania had to pay was $1.2 billion. Romania paid $5.6 million in 1945 and was coerced to pay through SovRom $2 billion. Bulgaria agreed to pay reparations of $50 million to Greece and $25 million to Yugoslavia.
According to the articles of these treaties, the value of US$ was prescribed as 35 US dollars to one troy ounce of pure gold.
Japan
Sino-Japanese War of 1895
The Treaty of Shimonoseki, signed on April 17, 1895, obliged China to pay an indemnity of 200 million silver taels to Japan; and to open the ports of Shashi, Chongqing, Suzhou and Hangzhou to Japanese trade.World War II Japan
According to Article 14 of the Treaty of Peace with Japan : "Japan should pay reparations to the Allied Powers for the damage and suffering caused by it during the war. Japan will promptly enter into negotiations with Allied Powers". War reparations made pursuant to the San Francisco Peace Treaty with Japan include: reparations amounting to US$550 million were made to the Philippines, and US$39 million to South Vietnam; payment to the International Committee of the Red Cross to compensate prisoners of war of 4.5 million pounds sterling was made; and Japan relinquished all overseas assets, approximately US$23.681 billion.The United States signed the peace treaty with 49 nations in 1952 and concluded 54 bilateral agreements that included those with Burma, South Korea, Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, Micronesia, Laos, Cambodia, Mongolia, Spain, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark. Payments of reparations started in 1955, lasted for 23 years and ended in 1977. For countries that renounced any reparations from Japan, it agreed to pay an indemnity and/or grants in accordance with bilateral agreements. In the Joint Communiqué of the Government of Japan and the Government of the People's Republic of China, the People's Republic of China renounced its demand for war reparations from Japan. In the Soviet–Japanese Joint Declaration of 1956, the Soviet Union waived its rights to reparations from Japan, and both Japan and the Soviet Union waived all reparations claims arising from war. Additionally, Ceylon, under President J. R. Jayewardene, declined war reparations from Japan.