This merry-go-round in which Germans borrowed money from the Americans to pay the British and French who then paid the Americans raised anxiety on all sides.20 However, it served its purpose. The US Congress insisted on the fullest possible repayment of the inter-Allied credits owing to America.21 The new American lenders to Germany were making handsome profits. And the Weimar Republic enjoyed a standard of living considerably higher than would have been possible if it had been constrained to pay reparations out of an export surplus.
