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The Young Plan was a program for settling Germany's World War I reparations written in August 1929 and formally adopted in 1930
The Young Plan was a program for settling Germany's World War I reparations written in August 1929 and formally adopted in 1930. It was presented by the committee headed (1929–30) by American industrialist Owen D. Young, creator and ex-first chairman of the Radio Corporation of America (RCA), who, at the time, concurrently served on the board of trustees of the Rockefeller Foundation, and also had been one of the representatives involved in a previous war-reparations restructuring arrangement—the Dawes Plan of 1924. The Inter-Allied Reparations Commission established the German reparation sum at a theoretical total of 132 billion, but a practical total of 50 billion gold marks. After the Dawes Plan was put into operation in 1924, it became apparent that Germany would not willingly[citation needed] meet the annual payments over an indefinite period of time.[citation needed] The Young Plan reduced further payments by about 20 percent. Although the theoretical total was 112 billion Gold Marks, equivalent to US ca. $27 billion in 1929 (US$ 119 billion in 2020) over a period of 58 years,[1] which would end in 1988, few expected the plan to last for much more than a decade.[2] In addition, the Young Plan divided the annual payment, set at two billion Gold Marks, US $473 million, into two components: one unconditional part, equal to one third of the sum, and a postponable part, equal to the remaining two-thirds, which would incur interest and be financed by a consortium of American investment banks coordinated by J.P. Morgan & Co.
The Plan Edit
Owen Young, 1924
The Committee, which had been appointed by the Allied Reparations Committee, met in the first half of 1929, and submitted its first report on June 7 of that year. In addition to Young, the United States was represented by J. P. Morgan, Jr., the prominent banker, and his partner, Thomas W. Lamont. The report met with great objections from the United Kingdom but, after a first Conference in The Hague, a plan was finalised on August 31. The plan was formally adopted at a second Hague Conference, in January 1930.
Amongst other provisions, the plan called for an international bank of settlements to handle the reparations transfers. The resulting Bank for International Settlements was duly established at the Hague Conference in January.
Subsequent events Edit
Between agreement and adoption of the plan came the Wall Street Crash of October 1929, of which the main consequences were twofold. The American banking system had to recall money from Europe, and cancel the credits that made the Young Plan possible. Moreover, the downfall of imports and exports affected the rest of the world. By 1933, almost two-thirds of world trade had vanished. A new trade policy was set with the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act. The latter was influenced by nationalism and the adopted economic policy. Unemployment soared to 33.7% in 1931 in Germany, and 40% in 1932. Under such circumstances, U.S. President Herbert Hoover issued a public statement that proposed a one-year moratorium on the payments. He managed to assemble support for the moratorium from 15 nations by July 1931. But the adoption of the moratorium did little to slow economic decline in Europe. Germany was gripped by a major banking crisis. A final effort was made at the Lausanne Conference of 1932. 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% and require Germany to prepare for the issuance of bonds. This provision was close to cancellation, 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 the cancellation of war debts owed by the Allied governments.
Hoover made the obligatory public statement about the lack of any connection between reparations and war debts, however in December 1932, the U.S. Congress rejected the Allied war debt reduction plan, which technically meant that the war reparations and debt reverted to the debt reduction previously granted Germany by the 1929 Young Plan. However, the system had collapsed, and Germany did not resume payments. Once the National Socialist government consolidated power, the debt was repudiated and Germany made no further payments. By 1933, Germany had made World War I reparations of only one eighth of the sum required under the Treaty of Versailles, and owing to the repudiated American loans the United States in effect paid "reparations" to Germany. The plan ultimately failed, not because of the U.S. Congress' refusal to go along, but because it became irrelevant upon Hitler's rise to power.