US Presidency
1945

Reparations this time are to be paid in physical assets from those resources of Germany which are not required for her peacetime subsistence. The first purpose of reparations is to take out of Germany everything with which she can prepare for another war. Its second purpose is to help the devastated countries to bring about their own recovery by means of the equipment and material taken from Germany. At the Crimea conference a basis for fixing reparations had been proposed for initial discussion and study by the Reparations Commission. That basis was a total amount of reparations of twenty billions of dollars. Of this sum, one half was to go to Russia, which had suffered more heavily in the loss of life and property than any other country. But at Berlin the idea of attempting to fix a dollar value on the property to be removed from Germany was dropped.