Just a little fun fact I found out recently

Background: When the US gave money to Europe through the European Recovery Program (Marshall Plan), it was a mix of grants and loans, second ones had to be paid back. But while for example for the United Kingdom, about 90% of the money was in form of grants and therefore was clear from the beginning that it wasnt needed to be paid back, the expectations for West Germany by the US was that eventually West Germany has to pay it back in full. Considering this, the German government didnt spend the money but established a special state fund (ERP-Sondervermögen) in 1948, which was managed by the Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KfW). Companies could get loans from the KfW with low interest rates and after they paid it back, those funds would be available to get loaned out again. This had the obvious advantage that it could assist the reconstruction and reindustrialization of West Germany while the government still holds onto the money and could just return it once the US asks back for it. With the London Agreement on German External Debts, the USA forgave over 90% of the West German loans from the recovery program but the ERP-loan program was so successful that the German government decided not to disband the state fund. Until the 60s it was used to support small- and mid-sized businesses through favorable loans. After the reunification of Germany the fund was used to give out loans to Eastern German business to strengthen the middle class there. Nowadays, the fund is (considering inflation) still about the same size as it was 1950 (6 billion DM in 1950, 25 billion Euro today) and mainly used for development aid and loans for investors. There were several discussions about liquidating the fund, the last major one was in 2004, but those discussion never went into fruition. Therefore to this day, Germany still has this ERP-Sondervermögen as a remnant of the earliest policies of the German Federal Republic.

My economics teacher literally talked about this yesterday The KfW still does loans with a better interest rate than normal banks apparently, but your bank decides if youre applicable for one or something like that I already forgot. They now support environmental things too.

This is funny knowing that germany also only *recently* finished paying off the Treaty of Versailles

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