Germany pays off a 91-year debt

Tomorrow, Germany will pay €70 million as the final instalment of a reparations bill handed to it over nine decades ago. Ninety-one years after the Treaty of Versailles, and the much-hated "guilt clause" placing all blame for the First World War on German shoulders (because, you know, Austria-Hungary had nothing to do with sparking the conflict: http://www.tentimesone.com/if-world-war-one-was-a-bar-fight/), the federal government will settle its debt on the twentieth anniversary of reunification. The story is on the BBC News website.

It's incredible to think that Germany was still paying World War One reparations nearly a century later. That said, the Weimar governments of the 1920s couldn't afford to pay it, especially with the hyperinflation of the decade, while the Nazis made their refusal to pay it a key part of the plan to dismantle the Treaty of Versailles. I had thought that the bill was dropped quietly in the early 1950s, after the Allies had defeated Germany in the Second World War and settled that account more rapidly, in addition to the fact that there were then two Germanies, both claiming to be the legitimate German state, but still not responsible for picking up the tab. Upon reunification, Germany agreed to pay a much-reduced bill, and will tomorrow put to bed a relic of history.

Speaking of relics of history, I see "Back to the Future" is in cinemas this week. I've seen the DVD loads of times, and it's on TV every Christmas, but I love this movie, so I'll be happy to pay to see it on the big screen, since I didn't get to the first time round. The timing of the re-release is a bit off, given that it was released in America in July 1985, and in Ireland in December 1985. Not that it matters, really, I'm just looking forward to seeing a movie I love in the cinema.