112 gripes

    80. "The French cleaned out Stuttgart, we saw lots of stuff going back to France - machinery, goods, cattle, supplies, horses, - long convoys of stuff looted from the Germans."

     Where had the Germans gotten the stuff ? From France. The long convoys you saw were not "loot": they were authorized reparations, approved by the United States, Great Britain and Russia. The French had a right, under international law, to take back some of the commodities the Germans had stolen from them.

     Here are sample figures on what the Germans took out of France:

Wheat 		2,340,000 metric tons                
Oats		2,360,000                  
Hay		1,539,000
Straw		1,870,000                   
Potatoes	600,000                 
Fresh fruits	290,000
Cider apples	210,000
Sugar		180,000
Horses		650,000
Eggs		150,000,000 dozen
Wine		190,000,000 gals
Beer		83,000,000
Champagne	16,000,000
Cognac		3,458,000
(1 metric ton equals 2,205 pounds, approximately equal to 1 long ton of 2,240 lbs.)

     The Germans also "requisitioned" or damaged: 668,253,000,000 Francs worth of agricultural products ; 448,474,000,000 Francs worth of industrial and commercial products; 246,361,000,000 Francs worth of war material. (See also question # 106.)

   

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