My dear Eddy, the Hessians and Jaegers were on the *other* side - helping the Redcoats. We do, of course, appreciate the assistance of Baron von Steuben, but far more the Marquis de Lafayette - when the US entered the Great War on the side of the French, we repaid our debt of honor to the French, saying, "Lafayette, we are here!" We were also more grateful to General Kosciuszko of Poland. That Hessian thing just didn't sit well.
I think whatever debt the US had to Germany was cancelled at the Western Front. But in fact, we did not ask for reparations from the Germans, we opposed them. The United States Senate never ratified the Treaty of Versailles.
I find it surprising that you don't know that banks and private citizens in the United States loaned Germany almost 24 billion gold marks - at an exchange rate of, I believe, 4 gold marks to the dollar - the first loan was 10 million dollars to the Krupp Works in Eissen on December 29, 1924, and the second, a few days later, to the Thyssen cartel in the amount of 12 million dollars. In fact, we helped Germany re-arm, but apparently were ignorant of that fact.
We didn't loan Germany money until AFTER the Reichsbank put an end to the hyperinflation - which they were perfectly able to do at any time it suited them. |
