REPARATIONS
Compensation by the defeated state, through whose fault the war arose, for losses incurred by the victorious state. R. were first standardized in Treaty of Versailles 1919(cm.).
During the Second World War in 1945 Crimean Conference(q.v.) it was considered fair to oblige Germany to compensate, through natural deliveries, to the maximum extent possible, the damage it caused to the allied countries. At the same time, R. forms from Germany were established.
After the end of the war, the provisions on R. were recorded in a number of international legal documents concerning Germany and its former allies. All these documents establish two basic principles:
1. The principle of compensation by former enemy states for damage not in full, but only partially. The Soviet Union, based on its desire to establish a democratic peace, limited itself to demanding compensation for only part of the damage it suffered. Thus, the peace treaty with Italy imposes on the latter the obligation to pay the Soviet Union R. in the amount of 100 million dollars, which is no more than 1/20 or 1/25 of the direct damage caused to the Soviet Union by the fascist troops of Italy. The same principle was proclaimed by the Soviet Union in relation to Russia and Germany. The total amount of direct losses of the Soviet Union alone in the territory occupied by the Germans is 128 billion dollars, but the USSR presented a demand for Germany to pay R. in the amount of only 10 billion dollars.
Agreeing only to partially cover the losses it has suffered, the Soviet Union determines compensation in an amount feasible for the defeated countries and strives to ensure the possibility of free democratic development of these countries and their economic independence.
2. The principle of paying reparations in kind and not in money. The defeated countries pay R. in cash (equipment intended for the production of military materials and equipment, foreign assets) and the products of their industry. Payment of rubles from current production gives the defeated countries the opportunity to fulfill their reparation obligations by independently developing their industry, without resorting to extortionate loans and selling their products abroad at low prices to obtain dollars. Speaking at the Paris Peace Conference on the peace treaty with Hungary, A. Ya. Vyshinsky pointed out: “The Soviet government is consistently pursuing a line of reparations policy, which is to proceed from real plans, so as not to strangle Hungary, so as not to cut off its roots economic restoration, but, on the contrary, to make it easier for her to have her economic revival, to make it easier for her to get back on her feet, to make it easier for her to enter the common family of the United Nations and participate in the economic revival of Europe.”
The Soviet delegation achieved the inclusion in the peace treaties of 1947 of the rules on payment of rubles in kind.
The correctness and fairness of these principles, which ensure the viability of the defeated countries, has been confirmed in practice. Romania, Hungary, and Finland fulfill their reparation obligations in favor of the Soviet Union, but this in no way leads to a derogation of their sovereignty. As for reparations from the current products of German industry, V. M. Molotov at a meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers on December 12, 1947 indicated: “No current reparation supplies are made from the western zones, but industry in the Anglo-American united zone reaches only 35 percent from the 1938 level. Current reparation supplies are made from the Soviet zone in Germany, and industry here has already reached 52 percent of the 1938 level. Thus, the industrial index of the Soviet zone, although there are more difficult conditions for industrial restoration, is one and a half times higher than the industrial index of the Anglo-American zone. From this it is clear that reparation supplies not only do not interfere with the recovery of industry, but, on the contrary, contribute to this recovery."
As for remuneration from Germany, their forms were established at the Crimean Conference: a) one-time withdrawals from the national wealth of Germany, located both on the territory of Germany itself and outside it, b) annual commodity deliveries from current production, c) use German labor. On Potsdam Conference(see) in accordance with the decision of the Crimean Conference on German responsibility, the following sources were indicated for covering the reparation claims of the USSR: 1) withdrawals from the Soviet zone of Germany, 2) a certain amount of equipment that is not necessary for the German peaceful economy and should be withdrawn from Western zones of occupation of Germany, 3) German assets in Bulgaria, Finland, Hungary, Romania and Eastern Austria. The resolutions of the Potsdam Conference were not and could not be canceled by the R. established at the Crimean Conference from the current production of Germany. Meanwhile, after the end of the war, the USA, England and France, in direct violation of the Crimean decisions, began to object to the Soviet Union receiving rubles from Germany's current production.
The USA and England extracted enormous values from Germany in the form of patents, gold, etc., the value of which reaches at least 10 billion dollars. The entire industry of the Ruhr is actually placed under the control of American monopolies. At the same time, due to the policy of splitting Germany and preserving the German military potential pursued by the United States and England (in clear contradiction with the Potsdam decisions), these powers thwarted reparation withdrawals in favor of the Soviet Union and other states from the western zones of Germany.
Another example of the policy of the USA, England and France, directed against the legitimate interests of the USSR, is the obstacles they created to resolving the issue of German assets in Austria (see. Council of Foreign Ministers).
At a session of the Council of Foreign Ministers on December 12, 1947, V. M. Molotov, speaking about Russia from Germany, stated that “The Soviet Union does not ask, but demands that the issue of reparations be finally resolved.” This question is all the more important because, as V. M. Molotov pointed out at the Council of Foreign Ministers on March 31, 1947, “for the Soviet Union there can be no solution to the German problem without resolving the issue of reparations.” Also in the statement of June 24, 1948, by the foreign ministers of the USSR, Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Poland, Romania and Hungary regarding decisions London meeting 1948(see) about Germany, it was indicated that among the issues requiring urgent resolution is the question of measures for Germany to fulfill its reparation obligations towards the states that suffered from German aggression. On the issue of Russia, as well as on other important issues of post-war international relations, the struggle between two lines of foreign policy is reflected with full force - the just policy of the Soviet Union and the expansionist policy of the countries of the imperialist camp led by the United States.
Diplomatic Dictionary. - M.: State Publishing House of Political Literature. A. Ya. Vyshinsky, S. A. Lozovsky. 1948 .
See what "REPAIRS" are in other dictionaries:
Reparations- - compensation by a subject of international law for damage caused to another subject of international law in the form of goods, money, works or services. A special case of reparations is compensation for damage caused by an aggressor state to states... ... Banking Encyclopedia
- (from the Latin reparatio restoration), in international law, a form of material legal responsibility of the state for an international offense. Consists of compensation by the state for damage caused by it to another state, in monetary... ... Modern encyclopedia
- (from Latin reparatio restoration) one of the forms of material liability of a subject of international law for damage caused to another subject as a result of an international offense. R. can be paid in kind, in the form of cash or... ... Legal dictionary
- (from Latin reparatio restoration) in international law, a type of material international legal responsibility; consists of compensation by the state for the damage caused to it in monetary or other form. Payment of reparations is usually provided for... ... Big Encyclopedic Dictionary
- (from Latin reparatio restoration) full or partial material or monetary compensation for damage caused by war, paid by the defeated country to the victorious state. Raizberg B.A., Lozovsky L.Sh., Starodubtseva E.B.. Modern... ... Economic dictionary
Form of material and legal responsibility of the state that launched an aggressive war. Consists of compensation by the state for damage caused by it to another state, in monetary or other material form. Payment of reparations is usually... ... Historical Dictionary
- (from Latin reparatio restoration) a type of material international legal responsibility; consists of compensation by the state for the damage caused to it in monetary or other form. Payment of reparations is usually provided for in a peace treaty. See also... Political science. Dictionary.
Reparations- (reparations), compensation payments to the defeated party for the damage caused to it during the war. R. were a condition for ending the war. actions during the 1st World War and part of the Versailles Peace Treaty of 1919. France,... ... World history
REPARATIONS- (lat. reparatio restoration) material or monetary compensation for damage caused by war, paid by the defeated country to the victorious state; one of the forms of material liability of a subject of international law for damage... ... Legal encyclopedia
This term has other meanings, see Reparation. Reparations (from the Latin reparatio restoration) is a form of material liability of a subject of international law for damage caused as a result of something committed by him... ... Wikipedia
- (from Latin reparatio restoration), in international law a type of material international legal responsibility; consists of compensation by the state for the damage caused to it in monetary or other form. Payment of reparations is usually provided for... ... Encyclopedic Dictionary
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TASS DOSSIER /Irina Krasnenkova/. Reparation (from Latin reparatio - restoration) is compensation for losses caused by war, which the aggressor state pays in favor of the victorious country.
Negotiations on reparations payments
The issue of reparations to Germany for damage caused during the Second World War was decided in 1945 at the Yalta and Potsdam conferences. They were attended by the leaders of the victorious states - the USSR, Great Britain and the USA - Joseph Stalin, Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt (in Yalta) and Harry Truman (in Potsdam).
At the Yalta Conference (February 4-11, 1945), the Soviet Union came up with a proposal to determine the total amount of reparations at $20 billion, of which 50% was to be paid in favor of the USSR, but it was not supported. It was decided to create a special allied commission to develop a plan for collecting reparations.
According to the documents of the conference in Potsdam (Germany; July 17-August 2, 1945), reparations were to be expressed in material form (plants, machinery, equipment, inventories, as well as German investments abroad) in contrast to reparations after the First World War , which were determined and collected only in cash. The total amount of German property that the victorious countries could remove from their zones of occupation was not specified. It was indicated that the USSR would additionally receive approximately 25% of the dismantled equipment from the zones occupied by the USA, Great Britain and France. The USSR had to satisfy Poland's reparation claims from its share (it was planned that Poland would receive 15%). The remaining members of the anti-Hitler coalition were supposed to receive reparations from the Western occupation zones.
Agreements on the supply regime for reparations from zones occupied by the United States, Great Britain and France were reached at a conference in Paris in November-December 1945 and enshrined in the agreement of January 14, 1946. Its participants included 19 countries, including the UK, USA, France, as well as Albania, Greece, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia. The Treaty of Paris set a percentage of reparations for individual states and provided for the creation of the Inter-Allied Reparations Agency (IARA; headquartered in Brussels), which was responsible for accounting and distributing reparations.
The specific total amount of reparations imposed on Germany following the Second World War was not fixed at the international level. In 2000, the German Ministry of Finance prepared a report emphasizing that “victor countries took reparation payments unilaterally and there is no regulatory record of this.”
How were reparations paid to the USSR?
According to the report, the USSR seized property from its occupation zone and subsequently from the GDR in excess of 66 billion GDR marks ($15.8 billion). According to the data of the Main Trophy Administration, published in the 1990s by Russian researchers, in particular, 72 thousand wagons of construction materials, about 3 thousand factories, 96 power plants, 340 thousand machine tools, 200 thousand electric motors, 1 million 335 thousand heads of livestock, 2.3 million tons of grain. Supplies from the Western occupation zones as reparations for the USSR stopped in 1949 after the creation of the Federal Republic of Germany.
According to the Polish Institute of International Relations (2005), the USSR received reparations totaling $3.081 billion (at 1938 exchange rates), of which Poland received $228 million (about 7.5%).
In 1953, an agreement was signed between the USSR and the GDR, agreed with the leadership of Poland, according to which, from January 1, 1954, all reparations received from the GDR ceased.
Reparations to other countries
Supplies from the western sectors of occupied Germany effectively ended in 1950. IARA ceased operations in 1959, determining the value of the exported property at $530 million (at 1938 exchange rates). According to Soviet press estimates, the USA, Great Britain and France dismantled and removed from their occupation zones equipment worth about $1.2 billion, gold - 277 tons (equivalent to almost $300 million), sea and river vessels - worth $200 million. Germany's foreign assets worth about $4 billion came under the control of these countries. German patents and technical documentation seized by the United States and Great Britain are estimated at approximately $5 billion.
In September 1952, the so-called Luxembourg Agreement was signed between Germany and Israel (came into force in March 1953). In accordance with this document, over the course of 14 years, the German government paid reparations to the Israeli government in the amount of 3 billion marks (at today's exchange rate, approximately 7 billion euros) as compensation to Jews who suffered during the Holocaust (1933-1945). Many historians note that this is the only case in which reparations were received by a state that did not exist during the war following which they were paid.
In 1960, Germany and Greece signed an agreement according to which Greece received 115 million marks (59 million euros) as compensation for damage caused during the years of Nazi occupation. In recent years, Greece has repeatedly raised the issue of new reparations from Germany for crimes during the Second World War. According to the Greek side, Germany should also compensate for the forced occupation loan issued by Greece in 1938 in the amount of $3.5 billion (at current exchange rates about 54 billion euros). The official position of Germany on this issue was last voiced by Chancellor Angela Merkel in March 2015: “The issue of reparations is closed from a legal point of view.”
In 1961, a German-Italian agreement was concluded on compensation for Italian victims of Nazism, under which the Italian government was paid 40 million marks (approximately 20 million euros). In 2008, Italy's Court of Cassation ruled that victims of Nazi crimes could bring claims against Germany in Italian courts. In response, Germany appealed to the International Court of Justice, accusing the Italian judiciary of "ignoring the jurisdictional immunity of Germany as a sovereign state." In February 2012, the court declared that Germany had legal immunity from prosecution in national courts for Nazi atrocities. The verdict is final and cannot be appealed to any other authority.
Compensation for victims of Nazism
In addition to reparations, Germany also pays compensation to various categories of victims of Nazism.
In 2000-2007, the Memory, Responsibility and Future Fund operated in Germany, from which compensation was provided to former forced laborers deported to Germany during the Second World War. In total, the fund had 5.2 billion euros (funds were transferred by the German government and German enterprises). In total, 1.66 million people living in Russia, Poland, the Czech Republic and other countries received compensation in the amount of 4.4 billion euros. The largest recipient was the Jewish organization Conference on Jewish Material Claims against Germany, which received 1.149 billion euros. The Fund allocated 427 million euros to Russia.
Germany has repeatedly decided to make one-time payments to various categories of victims of the Holocaust (in addition to payments under the Luxembourg Agreement). In December 2011, Germany agreed to pay additional pensions to 16 thousand victims of the Holocaust. The total amount over the next 10 years will be 650 million euros. In November 2012, a program began to pay compensation to 80 thousand people living in the countries of the former USSR and survivors of the Holocaust. The total amount of payments is about 245 million euros. In May 2013, at a conference on the satisfaction of Jewish material claims against Germany, which took place in Jerusalem, Germany pledged to transfer 772 million euros in 2014-2017 to various institutions providing support to victims of the Holocaust. The money will be spent on social services for 56 thousand people, a third of whom live in Israel.
Reparations- a form of compensation for material damage caused during the war by the defeated state, through whose fault the hostilities began, to the winning side in the war. Compensation for damage can be in monetary or any other chosen form. The amount of reparations is set by the victorious state, but not unlimited, but in strict accordance with the scale of the damage caused.
History of 20th century reparations
The history of such a phenomenon as reparations began after the end of the First World War. Prior to this, compensation for material damage by the losing party to the winning state took the form of , which most often could be unjustifiably inflated and did not correspond to the scale of damage.
After the end of the First World War, the international community somewhat limited the possible amount of damages. Reparations were imposed on Germany, as it was recognized as the culprit in the outbreak of hostilities.
But Germany was weakened by a protracted war and a prolonged economic crisis and could not soon settle accounts with the victorious countries under the terms set out in the Versailles Peace Treaty, so the international community had to make some concessions, reduce the amount of reparations and develop a plan to overcome the economic crisis .
After World War II, Germany was again recognized as the culprit of the conflict. But reparations this time took a slightly different form. The victorious states collected a reparation amount from the divided German territory. Thus, the main source of compensation for losses of the USSR was the zone of East Germany and partly the western regions.
Reparations (from the Latin reparatio restoration), in international law - compensation by the defeated state, through whose fault the war arose, for the damage it caused to the victorious state during the war. Established by a peace treaty or other international act.
The topic of reparations is important for an objective analysis of the economic situation of the USSR and an adequate assessment of Soviet foreign policy towards European countries, as well as the industrial potential of the Soviet zone of occupation of Germany.
The Extraordinary State Commission to establish and investigate the atrocities of the Nazi invaders and their allies reviewed about 4 billion reports of damage caused to the Soviet people during the occupation. It was found that direct damage alone (loss from direct destruction of property) amounts to 679 billion rubles (in 1941 prices) or 128 billion US dollars. All material damage caused to the Soviet Union during the war years amounted to 2,569 billion rubles. This means that the country has lost a third of its national wealth, and Belarus - more than half. The situation was aggravated by a lack of financial and human reserves. About 28 million people died on the war fronts, in fascist captivity, or died of hunger and disease. During the war, 1,710 cities, more than 70 thousand villages and hamlets, about 32 thousand industrial enterprises were destroyed, 98 thousand collective farms, 1,876 state farms and 2,890 machine and tractor stations were destroyed. For comparison: the losses of the USSR amounted to 128 billion dollars, France - 30 billion, Holland -10 billion, Greece - 3 billion, etc.
The issue of reparations was one of the key ones at the Crimean and Potsdam conferences. According to their decisions, reparations were established in relation to Germany, Italy, Finland and other countries. Considering that some countries of the fascist bloc left it, the Soviet Union put forward democratic principles of compensation for damage: the principle of responsibility for unleashing and waging an aggressive war; the principle of partial compensation for damage caused by war so that the payment of reparations does not undermine the peaceful economy of the defeated country; the principle of paying reparations in kind through the supply of current industrial products from the defeated countries, their foreign assets, as well as the removal of dismantled military industrial enterprises from them; the principle of combining compensation for damage with the destruction of the military potential of the defeated country. These provisions were enshrined in the peace treaties of 1947 with Italy, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, and Finland.
Germany could well have paid reparations to the Soviet Union in the amount provided for by the Yalta Agreement, since the western zones were more than twice as “rich” as the eastern, and the USSR should receive much more than the “Potsdam” 10% from the western zones. These data, supported by the report of the “Galbraith Commission”, which examined industrial capacity in the western zones after the capitulation, suggest that Germany’s industrial potential remained largely intact. On the contrary, the housing stock was destroyed, which the Anglo-American command allegedly tried to break the morale of the German soldiers. Thus, the statements of some modern authors who speak of the extreme effectiveness of the Anglo-American bombing of German enterprises, which supposedly “depleted the industry of Germany,” are unfounded.
17 countries that suffered from the aggression filed claims against Germany for damages of $200 billion, which significantly amounted to the entire national wealth of the German lands. Therefore, the participants in the anti-Hitler coalition at the Yalta Conference agreed to withdraw reparations in the amount of 20 billion dollars, of which 10 billion were provided for the USSR, from whose share 1 billion dollars were allocated for the restoration of Poland. The BSSR received $1.5 billion in reparation compensation. Due to the discrepancy between the amounts of losses and reparations, various methods were used to increase the volume of reparations. It was assumed that reparations should be collected in three forms: one-time seizures, annual supplies of goods and the use of German labor. During the 5 post-war years, the USSR was to receive an additional 15% of industrial capital equipment from the western zones of Germany in exchange for products, products and other materials and 10% of industrial capital equipment without payment or any compensation. At the same time, the Soviet government renounced reparation claims to German enterprises and gold in the American-British occupation zone, and vice versa.
However, subsequently, in the context of the beginning of the Cold War, the Soviet Union faced serious opposition from its Western allies to its reparation demands. Thus, at the Potsdam Conference, he was allocated only 10% of the total possible reparation fund, which negated reparation supplies from the least affected industrial areas of Germany. As modern authors note, this “was an important link in the chain of emerging tasks to launch the Cold War against the USSR.
The position of the Soviet government on the issue of reparations has undergone significant changes. I.V. Stalin joined the demands of the Western powers to dismantle German industry to compensate for at least a small portion of the damage caused by the war. At first, the USSR demanded reparations from all former German satellites, regardless of what political regime was established there. However, due to the outbreak of the Cold War, reparation demands were concentrated in the lands controlled by SVAG in Germany.
The volume of reparations also changed. In the spring of 1947, M. Rakosi at a meeting with V.M. Molotov said that reparations accounted for half of Hungary’s budget, and “it will be difficult to sustain it further.” In 1948, the Soviet Union reduced the remaining unpaid reparation payments to Finland, Romania and Hungary (by 50% for each of these countries). Thus, Finland paid 226.5 million dollars. Later, the USSR transferred former German assets located on their territory to Romania and Hungary. The Soviet government, in agreement with the government of the Polish People's Republic (with respect to its share of reparations), completely stopped collecting reparations from the German Democratic Republic on January 1, 1954.
On May 15, 1950, a decision was made by the Council of Ministers of the USSR. According to it, the GDR, which regularly fulfilled reparation demands and had already paid 3.658 billion US dollars, had the remaining payments halved (to 3.171 billion US dollars), which were paid in installments until 1965 inclusive. Despite this, reparations constituted a very significant line item in the East German budget: 9% and served as one of the prerequisites for the Berlin crisis of 1953.
The Soviet authorities used a variety of opportunities to repair damage from the war and restore Soviet industry. Conventionally, the methods of collecting reparations can be divided into the export from the countries of the fascist bloc (primarily Germany) of assets, raw materials, industrial equipment, material assets of various types, fleet, technical documentation and evacuation of technical specialists, as well as receiving profits and products from non-evacuated industries (SAO and research bureaus). Some authors also include the labor of German prisoners of war on the territory of the USSR as Germany's reparation obligations.
At the “illegal stage” (before the Potsdam Agreements), the seizure of reparations was carried out by “trophy teams” of the Red Army, whose activities were not regulated in any way. The captured service of the Red Army collected and delivered about 10 billion tons of metal from front-line areas for recycling. 400 thousand wagons with cargo, 447.7 thousand tons of ferrous and non-ferrous metals, 174.1 tons of precious metals, and 2 million heads of livestock were sent from Germany to the USSR. Some former SVAG employees believe that the total value of reparations seizures from Germany for the period from September 1945 to January 1, 1948 was $3 billion. Although there is no general opinion among researchers on this issue.
An important role for the domestic industry was played by the dismantling of foreign industrial equipment, which was led by the company created in 1943 under the chairmanship of G.M. Malenkova State Commission for the Restoration of Destroyed Areas. She was represented in SVAG by M.Z. Saburov, who was an economic adviser to the Soviet delegation at the Potsdam Conference. Advanced technological lines and entire production facilities were exported from Germany to the USSR, the development of which the USSR lagged behind the world level. Thus, for the needs of the People's Commissariat of the Electrical Industry, factories of well-known German companies Telefunken, Lorenz, Osram, Koch and Sterzel, Radio-Mende and others were dismantled and supplied, and technical documentation was also exported along with the equipment. Thanks to this, the Soviet Union managed to establish the production of many types of products.
According to some domestic researchers, the goal of I.V. Stalin's goal was to increase Soviet military potential through reparations. Almost all surviving (at least partially) enterprises of the Nazi military-industrial complex were removed from East Germany. These include large tank, artillery and shipbuilding factories, as well as factories for the production of ammunition and military engineering equipment. The dismantling of equipment by Soviet specialists was carried out only in the first post-war years, for the most part only in the territory of Germany controlled by the USSR (i.e., the most affected by the war), while its “heart of industry” (Ruhr and Saarland) were practically untouched. In the context of the beginning of the Cold War, Soviet specialists managed to remove only 8% of the production capacity of 1936 from Western lands. In total, more than 4 thousand industrial enterprises were dismantled in Germany, Poland, Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Manchuria. In total, instead of the 25% of industrial equipment not necessary for peaceful life from enterprises in these zones that the USSR was entitled to under the Potsdam Agreement, the Soviet Union received reparations in the amount of $12.5 billion.
“Special supplies” were used by all departments and republics of the USSR without exception. There was infrequent reference in Soviet literature to the role of reparations in economic recovery. One of the few was made by Estonian economists, who noted that the industrial park of enterprises in their republic was restored and replenished, mainly with equipment received through reparations. The main centers of concentration of German radio and electrical equipment in the USSR were Moscow, Leningrad, Kharkov, Novosibirsk, Tomsk, Voronezh, and the cities of the Moscow region. Reparations came to the Byelorussian SSR in the form of industrial equipment, vehicles, raw materials and semi-finished products for the production of finished products, consumer goods, food, livestock, etc. They were received by almost all restored or newly built enterprises, state and collective farms, government organizations and institutions, shopping centers and shops. For example, in 1946, 15 power plants (in Gomel, Grodno, Vitebsk, Bobruisk, Mozyr, Baranovichi, Lida, etc.), 13 dairies (in Minsk, Gomel, Slutsk, Polotsk, Bykhov, Pinsk, Skidel) received equipment from Germany etc.), 4 meat processing plants (in Gomel, Grodno, Baranovichi, Glubokoe). 63.2% of reparations went to the rear areas of the RSFSR and Central Asia.
At the same time, it cannot be argued that these events led to the “deindustrialization of East Germany.” The removal of industrial equipment and documentation was carried out, as a rule, within the framework of the principle of demilitarization of the German economy accepted by all victorious countries. Therefore, it mainly concerned military and related industries. Unilateral “industrial disarmament” of the Soviet zone could only cause an increase in unemployment and the need to finance the occupied lands at the expense of the devastated USSR.
Therefore, among reparation levies, the main emphasis was placed on technical documentation. This problem was not discussed at any of the allied conferences, but after the conclusion of peace it became one of the main ones. Germany's opponents understood before her the importance of research work not only for warfare, but for a peaceful economy and culture. In the context of the beginning of the confrontation between the two superpowers, technical documentation acquired enormous value. The United States believed that “German secrets in the production of rockets and missiles” and developments in the field of fission of the atomic nucleus are of the greatest importance for the future. It was important not only to obtain the appropriate materials ourselves, but also not to give them to the enemy. The American-British allies tried to ensure that there was nothing left in the Soviet occupation zone that Moscow could use. At the urging of General Groves, the American Air Force bombed the Auer thorium and uranium plant in Oranienburg, north of Berlin (Soviet zone), on March 15, 1945. In April, on his orders, 1,200 tons of uranium oxides (almost the entire German stock) were removed from the salt mines in Stassfurt, which fell into the Soviet zone.
As the Cold War flared up, it became increasingly difficult for Soviet specialists to withdraw reparations from the zones of Germany occupied by the Western Allies. This is explained mainly by the obstacles that the occupation authorities of “Bizonia” and “Trisonia”, Austria, caused to Soviet specialists. The most valuable equipment was sold or taken away at the direction of the allies; many factories had no equipment at all; the occupation authorities prevented Soviet employees from accessing the factories. The American and British delegations, behind the back of the Joint Control Council, violated the quadripartite agreement and unilaterally halved the list of factories in the western zones obligated to pay reparations to the USSR.
Another important negative factor in the issue of reparations was the ill-conceived and ineffective collection policy, which led not only to economic, but also political mistakes. Problems also arose when installing new equipment, and questions arose about the effectiveness of its use. Modern Russian researchers believe that the effectiveness of the use of reparation supplies in the USSR was low. In a number of cases, due to the struggle of departmental interests, and sometimes due to the incompetence of officials, unique technological lines were generally used for other purposes. It seems that more was exported than Soviet industry could use. There were not enough hands or experience to quickly master the captured equipment. Therefore, the emphasis was shifted to the search for German engineering and technical personnel.
The NKVD apparatus was used to locate and deliver highly qualified engineers. On his instructions, German scientists and specialists for the period 1945-1946. prepared about 160 reports on the work of scientific institutions and enterprises in Germany, as well as on their personal activities as a scientific specialist. Based on this information, a picture of Germany's industrial and scientific potential was created and specific measures were formulated to borrow its resources. One of the participants in these events wrote: “Like hungry wolves looking for prey, we looked everywhere for designers of FAA, jet aircraft, heavy tanks, in order to improve, first of all, military equipment, and not the production of goods for the [Soviet] people.”
In July 1946, a total of more than 14 thousand Soviet scientists and engineers (including S.P. Korolev) arrived in Germany. They were tasked with studying and monitoring the work of German scientific and technical institutes, attracting their employees to work in the USSR and resolving issues related to the development of invention. German universities and experimental design bureaus were attached to the research departments of the Special Administrative Okrug and Soviet ministries. One of the first to be created was the Soviet Nordhausen Institute to study V-2 missiles in February 1946. It included three plants for assembling V-2 rockets, the Rabe Institute, the Montania plant, which manufactured engines for the V-2, and a bench base in Leesten, where their fire tests were carried out, as well as a plant in Sonderhausen, which assembled control system equipment. One of the fathers of Soviet cosmonautics, Lieutenant General L.M., was appointed director of the enterprise. Gaidukov, S.P. became the chief engineer. Korolev, and V.P. Glushko headed the department for studying V-2 engines. The institute operated until 1947. Later, many of his employees went to work at NII-88.
The occupation authorities of all allies sought to remove the personnel of the most promising military laboratories to the victorious countries. In addition to employees of specialized enterprises, employees of those related enterprises that (due to a lack of personnel) could not continue successful research work were exported to the Soviet Union. This was the case, for example, with the Zeiss optics plant in Jena. The father of the American space program in Hunstville was one of the creators of the V-rocket, Wernher von Braun.
The most qualified specialists, along with their families, were exported under contract or under moral pressure. Already by 1948, there were 200 thousand German engineers and families in the Soviet Union. The first large group, mainly nuclear scientists, was taken to the Soviet Union between May and September 1945, while the last group (chemical engineers from the former IG-Farbenindustry concern) left in September 1947. Most German researchers in the USSR were engaged in military and related developments; they made a significant contribution to the production of nuclear weapons, rocketry, and jet aircraft. Only in the future OKB im. Kamov, about five hundred German specialists arrived from the cities of Dessau and Halle, and taking into account their families - more than one and a half thousand people. In the USSR, relatively good living conditions awaited them; trips to their homeland were prohibited. The first group of German specialists (in the field of photography, from the city of Shostka) returned to Germany at the end of 1949. The military specialists who remained in the USSR the longest were those who refused to return only to the GDR. They were repatriated only in 1958.
Among other things, livestock and agricultural equipment were exported from Germany. 400,000 wagons of material assets, 447.7 thousand tons of ferrous and non-ferrous metals, 174.1 tons of precious metals, and 2 million heads of livestock were confiscated from Germany and other countries in the USSR.
It should not be assumed that SVAG operated in East Germany according to the “vacuum cleaner principle.” Design bureaus that were not related to military developments remained in the country. Soviet specialists created 200 design bureaus in the Soviet occupation zone, which employed about 8 thousand German specialists and 11 thousand workers, as well as about 50 experimental workshops and laboratories. As a result of their work, over 3 thousand completed scientific and technical works, prototypes, engines, instruments, metal-cutting machines, electrical machines, etc. were sent to the USSR.
Modern domestic and foreign researchers consider the most economically and politically acceptable way to solve the problem of reparations to be the withdrawal of products from existing German industry. One of the instruments for this was the Soviet Joint Stock Companies (SAO).
In a speech on foreign policy V.M. On July 10, 1946, Molotov announced that the export of industrial equipment had been stopped and that in the future the USSR would support the industrialization of Germany. In 1946 and 1947, in order to prevent the remilitarization of Germany, a new form of economic control was created: 213 of the largest German factories turned into Soviet joint-stock companies (SAO), all of whose products went to the needs of the USSR. The Soviet experience of production and planning was introduced there, and socialist competition and the Stakhanovist movement were organized, but without much success. At many enterprises of the SZ (Soviet occupation zone), reparation orders were placed for the production of machinery and equipment, non-ferrous metals, chemicals, synthetic rubber, consumer goods, building materials, alcohol, starch and sugar. For the extraction of uranium in the territory of the SZ, the joint stock company "Bismuth" was created, which was under the jurisdiction of the NKVD of the USSR. The cost of the uranium concentrate produced there was $175.4 million. At the same time, production capacity and raw material reserves were not taken into account, which led to disruptions in supplies. The size of official reparation seizures ranged from 6 to 12% of GNP, payment was imposed on the German population.
Since 1946, the withdrawal of goods from current production has become the most important direction of Soviet reparations policy. The remaining German facilities processed raw materials from the USSR. In total, $2.358 billion worth of products were transferred from the Soviet occupation zone as reparations. According to German data, the seizure of goods in favor of the Soviet Union in 1947 amounted to ¼, and in 1949 - 1/5 of the total volume of material production of enterprises in the Soviet zone of occupation.
The Soviet government owned controlling stakes in the Northern Administrative Okrug: industrial and commercial enterprises in Germany and other countries. The implementation of this new program was from the very beginning entrusted to the new Main Directorate of Soviet Property Abroad (GUSIMZ), which was nominally part of the Ministry of Foreign Trade. The head of this department since May 1946 was V. Merkulov. In 1945-1949 The nationalization of industry was carried out: all Northern Administrative Okrug were transferred to the USSR, and 11,057 enterprises became state property of the GDR. According to the calculations of Western experts, supplies to the Soviet Union of industrial goods produced in East Germany, as well as the amount of dismantling and profits of the CAO, exceeded supplies from the Western occupation zone.
Another source of financing reparations was the issue of money, which provided at least 1.9 billion dollars. German assets abroad worth $73.2 million were also transferred to the USSR. According to official data from the commission V.N. Starovsky, summing up the collection of reparations, by 1953 the total volume of reparations amounted to 3.3 billion dollars. Based on data from Russian archives (converting rubles and marks into dollars at the official exchange rate), supplies of raw materials and finished products alone, as well as the labor of prisoners of war, cost about $11 billion. This calculation did not include cultural property exported from Germany.
Along with all the material supplies listed above, the destruction from the war had to be compensated by the forced labor of prisoners of war, the use of which was called upon by experts from all victorious countries. The Germans, Japanese, Hungarians, Austrians, Italians, Czechs, Slovaks, and Romanians who were in the camps of the Directorate for Prisoners of War Affairs (UPVI) of the NKVD of the USSR contributed to the restoration of the country's economic potential.
Data on prisoners of war who were in the Soviet Union after the Great Patriotic War were classified until recently, and in the 1990s they became the subject of political speculation. There is no unity among researchers on the issue of the number of prisoners of war from different countries in the USSR. According to V.P. Galitsky, during the war of 1941 - 1945, 2,389,560 German military personnel, over 640 thousand Japanese soldiers and officers, and more than 510 thousand Hungarians were captured by the Soviets. According to the authors of the multi-volume book “Prisoners of War in the USSR. 1939 - 1956” from June 22, 1941 to May 8, 1945, according to available documents of the Soviet General Staff, units of the Soviet Army captured 4377.3 thousand enemy military personnel. After the defeat of the Kwantung Army, this number increased by 639,635 people. However, not all of them ended up in the USSR. At the final stage of the war, the military command itself carried out verification and repatriation of prisoners of war from the front line. Thus, 680 thousand former German and 64,888 Japanese military personnel were sent home. More than 183 thousand people were sent home without any paperwork. The repatriation of prisoners of war from the Soviet Union began immediately after the end of the war in Europe and lasted until the spring of 1950. Convicted prisoners of war and internees (14 thousand Germans and 4.5 thousand Japanese) stayed in the USSR until the end of 1956.
Of course, the prisoners of war were in very strict and modest conditions in a country that, through their “efforts,” had lost a significant part of its national wealth. They were kept separately in special camps (according to their military rank). Their situation, according to the instructions of the Soviet government, gradually worsened: the ban on the confiscation of personal belongings was lifted, the clause on prisoners of war purchasing food in camp stalls with their own money disappeared, and the possibility of complaints was limited. Without downplaying the tragedy of German captivity in the USSR, superficial comparisons with the situation in the western zones of Germany should be avoided. The Western allies did not solve the problem of prisoners of war in the most effective and humane way. The words of the deputy American military governor in Germany, General L. Clay, are known: “I believe that the Germans should suffer properly from hunger and cold, since, I think, such suffering is necessary to make them feel the consequences of the war they have unleashed.” The mortality rate in some American prisoner of war camps reached 65%.
To attract prisoners of war to work, the NKVD entered into agreements with various Soviet departments, which stipulated the scale and timing of the work, as well as the number and conditions of stay of prisoners of war. Privates and non-commissioned officers were involved in the work, and officers, with personal consent. As noted by V.P. Galitsky, the involvement of prisoners of war and internees in physical and intellectual labor was planned and strictly centralized. The camp management was personally responsible for attracting the maximum number of able-bodied prisoners of war.
Prisoners of war were subject to regulations on working hours, labor protection, etc., which applied to Soviet citizens performing the same work. The greatest violations of interdepartmental agreements (in the People's Commissariat of Ferrous Metallurgy) were revealed and eliminated at the end of 1948. Along with measures to encourage those who work well, penalties were approved for prisoners who did not comply with the norm. By the beginning of 1945, the number of workers increased significantly due to the influx of new prisoners of war. As of December 5, 1944, out of a total number of 680,921 prisoners of war, 435,388 people were allocated to work in the enterprises of various people's commissariats, and the remaining 245,533 were listed in the section of the sick, severely weakened and disabled.
The labor of prisoners of war in the USSR was used in a variety of industries. As a rule, this involved construction and coal mining. Some industries (related to the country's defense) were subject to a ban on the use of prisoners. In some regions, prisoners of war made up the majority of the labor force. Thus, in November 1945, 3,161 demobilized soldiers arrived in Buryatia, and more than 17 thousand Japanese prisoners of war.
Profits from the labor of prisoners of war gradually grew. In 1947, the amount of earnings of prisoners of war (that is, the total value of the material assets they created) amounted to 4.5 billion rubles. The highest figures were in 1949. Then, for the first time in all the years of prisoners of war’s stay in the USSR, their earnings exceeded the costs of maintaining all special camps and special hospitals.
The contribution of prisoners of war to the post-war restoration and development of the Soviet economy was very significant. According to the Central Federal District of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for the period from January 1, 1943 to January 1, 1950, prisoners of war worked 1,077,564,200 man-days, earned 16,723,628 thousand rubles, performing work in construction and industry with a total value of 50 billion rubles. However, the latter figure is only 7.3% of the total damage (679 billion rubles).
Another important goal, besides restoring the economy, was the re-education of prisoners of war. As modern researchers note, “archival documents indisputably indicate that the entire system of organizing them<военнопленных>life and work was subordinated to the tasks of ending the war as quickly as possible, overcoming its material and moral consequences, and transforming recent enemy servicemen into conscious supporters of peace.”
According to researchers, more than 580 thousand people died in Soviet captivity. The main reasons for such a high rate were combat wounds, their consequences and complications, dystrophy due to systematic malnutrition (especially for soldiers who surrendered at Stalingrad), neuropsychiatric diseases caused by mental turmoil during the war, death due to natural causes and , not so rarely, when trying to escape.
The issue of internees has also received coverage in historical literature. In war conditions, it was impossible to get by with the capture of only military personnel. In order to prevent terrorist attacks and sabotage in the rear of the advancing Soviet Army, from February 1945, by order of I.V. Stalin interned 208,239 people “fit for physical labor and capable of carrying weapons,” as well as 61,573 arrested functionaries of lower Nazi party and administrative bodies. 200 thousand former Soviet citizens who served on the German side were captured, as well as 14,100 identified war criminals.
Based on the nomenclature of reparation supplies, we can conclude that their consequence was the strengthening of industrial specialization within the socialist countries: a “tilt” in the military-industrial complex and heavy engineering in the RSFSR and Ukrainian SSR, in the food and light industry in the BSSR, etc. According to Stalin's plan, the influx of advanced German technological equipment should have a revolutionary qualitative impact on the subsequent industrialization of the country and the development of the entire national economy. Therefore, the overwhelming majority of industrial “special supplies” were directed not to the restoration of facilities destroyed to varying degrees, but to the renovation and expansion of existing ones, as well as the construction of new Soviet enterprises. In addition, having seized property that previously belonged to Germany in other states, the Soviet government transferred it, respectively, to Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria as the Soviet share in the industrial and commercial concerns that were created there.
Reparations played, according to a number of Russian scientists, a significant role in the structure of external sources of post-war reconstruction. According to the calculations of G.I. Khanin in the fourth five-year plan (1946 - 1950), reparation supplies provided approximately half of the supply of equipment for capital construction projects in industry. For a number of industries (optics, radio engineering, production of diesel engines, communication devices, electrical products, forging equipment, artificial fibers, plastics, synthetic rubber, petrochemicals, etc.) the practical significance of reparation supplies was greater, and mainly due to these supplies in the fourth five-year plan, it was possible to increase production several times compared to the pre-war level.
This situation was typical for military and related industries; the situation in peaceful industries was different. Among the reasons for the low productivity of “captured equipment” supplied to the USSR: losses from mismanagement of storage, lack of proper security, as well as ineffective use of unique technological lines and production complexes. At the same time, negligence often occurred in civil enterprises. Therefore, military production as a result of reparation supplies significantly increased its potential. It was in the military-industrial complex that the return on reparations was the highest compared to enterprises of civilian departments. On the contrary, reparations did not significantly alleviate the situation in civilian industries and, ultimately, the Soviet population affected by the war.
Reparations, the volume of which amounted to no more than 8% of the direct damage to the USSR (a more precise figure is difficult to determine), along with Lend-Lease, played a significant but not decisive role in the restoration of the USSR economy. In some industries, they contributed not only to the restoration of the destroyed economy, but also served as an impetus for technical progress. However, this, as even foreign researchers say, would have been impossible without the selfless work of millions of Soviet people, whose labor feat is comparable to the Victory.
Historical sources:
Foreign policy of the Soviet Union: documents and materials. 1947 Part 1. M., 1952;
Foreign policy of the Soviet Union: documents and materials. 1950 M., 1953;
Prisoners of war in the USSR. 1939 - 1956. Documents and materials. / Ed. Zagorulko M.M. -M., 2000. P. 12;
State Archive of the Russian Federation. F. 7317. Op. 2. D. 5. L. 96-98; Op. 50. D. 17. L. 2-3; D. 3. L. 220; D. 6. L. 405-408;
Tehran - Yalta - Potsdam. Sat. Doc. / Comp. Sanakoev Sh.P., Tsybulevsky B.L. - M.: “International Relations”, 1970.
Further reading:
Karlsch R. Kriegszerstorungen und Reparationslasten // Volkmann H.-E. (Hg.) Ende des Dritten Reiches - Ende des Zweiten Weltkriegs. Munchen, 1995;
World wars of the twentieth century. M.: Nauka, 2002. Book. 3;
Bushchik G. Economic relations of Belarus during the years of post-war restoration of the national economy. // “Director”, 2005, No. 5;
Bedyurfting F. People without a state. // Rodina, 1995, No. 5;
Murashko G.P., Volokitina G.V., Noskova A.F. Creation of a socialist camp. // Soviet society: emergence, development, historical finale. - M., 1997. T. 2: The apogee and collapse of Stalinism;
Encyclopedic Dictionary. / Head. ed. Vvedensky B.A. - M.: “Big Soviet Encyclopedia”, 1955;
Brandt V. Memoirs // “Questions of History”, 1991, No. 1;
History of Russia. XX century. / Bokhanov A.N., Gorinov M.M., Dmitrenko V.P. and others - M., 1996;
Social and economic development of the Estonian SSR during the years of Soviet power. Tallinn, 1987;
History of the Second World War. M., 1957;
Boldyrev R.Yu. Soviet occupation policy in East Germany (1945-1949): economic aspect. Author's abstract. diss... cand. ist. Sci. Arkhangelsk, 2004;
Galitsky V.P. German prisoners of war in the restoration of the USSR economy. // The Second World War and overcoming totalitarianism. Russian-German conference in Volgograd (May 1995). - M., 1997;
Galitsky V.P. Japanese prisoners of war in the USSR: truth and speculation // Military History Journal, 1991, No. 4;
Galitsky V.P. Temporary prisoners of war in the USSR (1941 - 1945). / Military History Magazine, 1992, No. 3;
Wiggers R.D. The United States and the Refusal to Feed German Civilians after World War II. // Ethnic Cleansing in Twentieth-Century Europe.- NY, 2003 P. 281;
Bazarov O.D. Japanese prisoners of war in Buryatia (1945 - 1948). Author's abstract. diss... cand. ist. Sci. Irkutsk, 1997.
