It's never too late to let folks know that you're taking responsibility for your actions.
First, with a final payment of £59.5 million (ouch, they had to pay in native currency), Germany can write off their debt for starting one world war that laid the foundations for another. It only took 90 years to cough up the reparations put upon them by the Treaty of Versailles. It was established as compensation to Belgium and France, and to pay back the Allies some of the costs of the war.
The initial sum agreed upon for war damages in 1919 was 226 billion Reichsmarks, but was later reduced to 132 billion (or £22 billion at the time). And if not for that douche Hitler who reneged on payment, would have been settled much earlier. Most of the money goes to private individuals, pension funds and corporations holding debenture bonds as agreed under the Treaty, and Germany was made to sign the 'war guilt' clause, accepting blame for the war.
On a less cheerful and fiscally prosperous note, the United States apologized for an experiment conducted in the 1940s where government researchers deliberately infected Guatemalan prison inmates, women and mental patients with syphilis. What, like they weren't going to get it sooner or later anyway? Besides, there's no better lab rats than a third world country when testing a then-new drug like penicillin, where inmates were infected by prostitutes and later treated with the antibiotic to see it's effectiveness.
The experiment, which is similar to the 1960s Tuskegee study in which black American men were deliberately left untreated for syphilis, was revealed by a professor following up on a book about Tuskegee. In total, 696 men and women were exposed to the disease and then offered penicillin. The studies ran from 1946 to 1948, and records suggest that despite intentions, not everyone was probably cured. The link was made through Dr. John C. Cutler, a Public Health Service physician who would later be part of the Tuskegee study.
The Assistant U.S. Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs - which is an actual position in our government, said it was not yet clear whether any compensation would be offered. That's because it's questionable that any of the people who were experimented upon could be traced...and I'm sure that will be a very thorough investigation.
First, with a final payment of £59.5 million (ouch, they had to pay in native currency), Germany can write off their debt for starting one world war that laid the foundations for another. It only took 90 years to cough up the reparations put upon them by the Treaty of Versailles. It was established as compensation to Belgium and France, and to pay back the Allies some of the costs of the war.
The initial sum agreed upon for war damages in 1919 was 226 billion Reichsmarks, but was later reduced to 132 billion (or £22 billion at the time). And if not for that douche Hitler who reneged on payment, would have been settled much earlier. Most of the money goes to private individuals, pension funds and corporations holding debenture bonds as agreed under the Treaty, and Germany was made to sign the 'war guilt' clause, accepting blame for the war.
On a less cheerful and fiscally prosperous note, the United States apologized for an experiment conducted in the 1940s where government researchers deliberately infected Guatemalan prison inmates, women and mental patients with syphilis. What, like they weren't going to get it sooner or later anyway? Besides, there's no better lab rats than a third world country when testing a then-new drug like penicillin, where inmates were infected by prostitutes and later treated with the antibiotic to see it's effectiveness.
The experiment, which is similar to the 1960s Tuskegee study in which black American men were deliberately left untreated for syphilis, was revealed by a professor following up on a book about Tuskegee. In total, 696 men and women were exposed to the disease and then offered penicillin. The studies ran from 1946 to 1948, and records suggest that despite intentions, not everyone was probably cured. The link was made through Dr. John C. Cutler, a Public Health Service physician who would later be part of the Tuskegee study.
The Assistant U.S. Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs - which is an actual position in our government, said it was not yet clear whether any compensation would be offered. That's because it's questionable that any of the people who were experimented upon could be traced...and I'm sure that will be a very thorough investigation.
1 comment:
This came at just the right time, as I had finished going over the causes of the Great War in class here in Germany and the kids were as amazed as me that there was still the issue of reparations.
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