(A) £2.6 billion
(B) £4.6 billion
(C) ** £6.6 billion
(D) £8.6 billion
EXPLANATIONS BELOW
Concept note-1: -The Treaty of Versailles (signed in 1919) and the 1921 London Schedule of Payments required Germany to pay 132 billion gold marks (US$33 billion [all values are contemporary, unless otherwise stated]) in reparations to cover civilian damage caused during the war.
Concept note-2: -According to the Yalta Conference, no reparations to Allied countries would be paid in money (though that rule was not followed in later agreements). Instead, much of the value transferred consisted of German industrial assets as well as forced labour to the Allies.
Concept note-3: -The war guilt clause of the treaty deemed Germany the aggressor in the war and consequently made Germany responsible for making reparations to the Allied nations in payment for the losses and damage they had sustained in the war.
Concept note-4: -Allied victors took a punitive approach to Germany at the end of World War I. Intense negotiation resulted in the Treaty of Versailles’ “war guilt clause, ” which identified Germany as the sole responsible party for the war and forced it to pay reparations.
Concept note-5: -Over the next four years, U.S. banks continued to lend Germany enough money to enable it to meet its reparation payments to countries such as France and the United Kingdom. These countries, in turn, used their reparation payments from Germany to service their war debts to the United States.