 The London Schedule of Payments , of 5 May 1921 , established the full liability of the combined Central Powers at 132 billion gold marks . Of this figure , Germany was only required to pay 50 billion gold marks ( $ 12 @.@ 5 billion ) , a smaller amount than they had previously offered for terms of peace . Reparations were unpopular and strained the German economy but they were payable and from 1919 – 1931 , when reparations ended , Germany paid fewer than 21 billion gold marks . The <unk> Commission and the Bank for International Settlements gave a total German payment of 20 @.@ 598 billon gold marks , whereas historian Niall Ferguson estimated that Germany paid no more than 19 billion gold marks . Ferguson also wrote that this sum was only 2 @.@ 4 per cent of German national income between 1919 and 1932 , while Stephen Schuker places the figure at an average of 2 per cent of national income between 1919 and 1931 , in cash and kind , making a total transfer equal to 5 @.@ 3 per cent of national income for the period . Gerhard Weinberg wrote that reparations were paid , towns were rebuilt , orchards replanted , mines reopened and pensions paid but the burden of repairs was shifted from the German economy to the damaged economies of the victors . 
