>I don’t think Germany was stick with an invoice after world war 2

If only there was some way of searching for this information so you don't have to rely on shitty gut feelings

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_reparations

To quote the most relevant parts:

> According to the Yalta Conference, no reparations to Allied countries would be paid in money. Instead much of the value transferred consisted of German industrial assets as well as forced labour to the Allies.

> Later the Western Allies softened their stance in favour of the Marshall Plan, while Eastern Germany continued to deliver industrial goods and raw materials to the Soviet Union until 1953

> I don’t think Germany was stick with an invoice after world war 2

It was.

Yes it was, technically. GPs point about not repeating the post-WWI mistake still stands though. Germany also received huge help as part of the Marshall plan.

The US has extraterritorial rights to German military bases to this day.

So they may not have a crippling financial debt, but the loss wasn’t “free”.

This is nonsense. Germany was not 'asked to pay for WW1'. To cost imposed on Germany would only just cover repairing Northern France and Belgium. Even just including pentions for French war widows was not fully paid for.

And they of course never paid for the utter deforestation they forced on much of Eastern Europe.

And this debt payment was not the reason for WW2. By the time Hitler came to power Versailles was a dead document. The financial terms had been revised multiple times and in those negotiations Germany got a pretty good deal and a number of additional benefits and access to a gigantic amount of US loans and trade deals.

And after WW2 Germany still had to pay some debt but because of financial restructuring after WW2 those were not as large. Part of why this was possible however was because the US actually promised a great deal to nations who accepted debt restructuring. Including economic and military aid, and trade deals.