The Role of the USA
During the 1920’s, the USA gained new markets and the necessities of war had encouraged it to increase manufacturing production and efficiency.
It could also benefit from the repayment of war debts from its former European allies.
The USA’s financial resources helped solve the problem of German reparations.
The USA lent loans to Germany, also known as the Dawes plan, which lead to an improvement in relations between France and Germany.
Dawes Plan
In order to address the problem of German reparations, a conference was held in London in 1924, organized by the German chancellor Gustav Stresemann.
It was clear that French policy had changed as they were much more willing to compromise with Germany, which paved the way for future tension-reducing negotiations.
In this conference, it was agreed that Germany only was allowed to pay the reparations that it could reasonably afford.
The German national bank, the Reichsbank was supervised by countries attending the conference (Britain, France, Italy and Belgium).
Germany received a large foreign loan from the USA so that Germany would be in a better position to meet its reparation requirements.