Did we get paid back for lend lease? (war, Great Britain, Hitler)

[krsheely]

Did USSR pay us back for the materials we supplied during their intital war effort? Or was it just part of some agreement between the countries after the war?

Also this might make the question a two parter but how much of both the allies (mainly soviet) and axis Japan/ Germany industrial output from wartime was directly from forced labor either in the form of concentration camps, or work camps?

[2cold]

Hope this answers your question.
lend-lease, arrangement for the transfer of war supplies, including food, machinery, and services, to nations whose defense was considered vital to the defense of the United States in World War II. The Lend-Lease Act, passed (1941) by the U.S. Congress, gave the President power to sell, transfer, lend, or lease such war materials. The President was to set the terms for aid; repayment was to be "in kind or property, or any other direct or indirect benefit which the President deems satisfactory." Harry L. Hopkins was appointed (Mar., 1941) to administer lend-lease. He was replaced (July) by Edward R. Stettinius, Jr., who headed the Office of Lend-Lease Administration, set up in Oct., 1941. In Sept., 1943, lend-lease was incorporated into the Foreign Economic Administration under Leo T. Crowley. In Sept., 1945, it was transferred to the Dept. of State. Lend-lease was originally intended for China and countries of the British Empire. In Nov., 1941, the USSR was included, and by the end of the war practically all the allies of the United States had been declared eligible for lend-lease aid. Although not all requested or received it, lend-lease agreements were signed with numerous countries. In 1942, a reciprocal aid agreement of the United States with Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand, and the Free French was announced. Under its terms a "reverse lend-lease" was effected, whereby goods, services, shipping, and military installations were given to American forces overseas. Other nations in which U.S. forces were stationed subsequently adhered to the agreement. On Aug. 21, 1945, President Truman announced the end of lend-lease aid. Arrangements were made—notably with Great Britain and China—to continue shipments, on a cash or credit basis, of goods earmarked for them under lend-lease appropriations. Total lend-lease aid exceeded $50 billion, of which the British Commonwealth received some $31 billion and the USSR received over $11 billion. Within 15 years after the termination of lend-lease, settlements were made with most of the countries that had received aid, although a settlement with the USSR was not reached until 1972.
fromhttp://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Lend-Lease+law

[MrMarbles]

1. Technically only what was left after the war was subject for payment. What got destroyed or used up during the war was simply given. For example, if the US gave USSR 10 tanks, and 8 of those tanks were destroyed in the war, USSR had to either return or pay for the remaining 2 tanks. Since much of the L-L was raw materials, food, explosives etc, determining what was used up and what is left over is not an exact science. Thus the ammount owed was subject of debate.

That said, USSR paid very little even of what its government agreed it owed. Given that Soviet Union took the brunt of the fighting against Germany, Russians don't feel too bad about it.

2. Not sure about Germany/Japan but I doubt USSR made much use out of forced labor. Most of its workers in concentration camps during the early part of the war were its own citizens. As Soviet Union experienced manpower shortages at the front, many of the prisoners were armed and sent to fight. And because of food shortages, many that remained in concentration camps starved to death. Camp population dropped significantly in the first couple of years of the war.

If you mean German POWs in Soviet camps - there simply weren't many of them until the end of the war.

[noetsi]

Yes Hitler did not take over the world. It was a pretty good return on our investment, particularly give the fact that the huge number of Germans the Russians killed would have been fighting the US had they not done so.

[2cold]

On subject of forced labor, from Wiki:
This form of forced labor was handled by the Chief Directorate for Prisoners of War and Internees Affairs (Главное управление по делам военнопленных и интернированных, ГУПВИ, transliterated as GUPVI) of the NKVD, established in 1939 (initially as the "Directorate for Prisoners' Affairs", управление по делам военнопленных) according to the NKVD Order no. 0308 "On the Organization of POW Camps" to handle Polish POWs after the Soviet Invasion of Poland. The first POW camps were formed in the European part of the USSR. It was noted[1] that Polish military could not have been formally classified as POW, since there was no war announced by either side, and with some exceptions Polish forces did not resist to Soviet invasion.
By the end of the World War II, the Soviet Union amassed a huge number of German and Japanese POW and interned German civilians. In 1946, the POW and internees occupied 267 labor camps, 392 labor battalions and 178 "special hospitals" over the whole territory of the Soviet Union.

I did have an uncle who was captured by the Soviets, and not released till 1947. I believe he did have to do forced labor but I'm not quite sure.

My mother worked in a vineyard in Austria for a while during the war and she had pictures of herself and others working together with French prisoners. Some Americans worked outside POW camps, so I gather did some French.

[CHirst]

The UK finished paying back lend/lease in 2006. At the same time as the UK was recovering from the war the US Marshal plan was rebuilding Germany. This might explain the current state of the EU and why US policy is against Brexit.

[OpanaPointer]

Originally Posted by CHirst

The UK finished paying back lend/lease in 2006. At the same time as the UK was recovering from the war the US Marshal plan was rebuilding Germany. This might explain the current state of the EU and why US policy is against Brexit.

Feeding people and making sure they can feed themselves is a way to avoid war.

[southwest88]

Originally Posted by MrMarbles

...

2. Not sure about Germany/Japan but I doubt USSR made much use out of forced labor. Most of its workers in concentration camps during the early part of the war were its own citizens. As Soviet Union experienced manpower shortages at the front, many of the prisoners were armed and sent to fight. And because of food shortages, many that remained in concentration camps starved to death. Camp population dropped significantly in the first couple of years of the war.

If you mean German POWs in Soviet camps - there simply weren't many of them until the end of the war.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German...e_Soviet_Union


"Approximately three million German prisoners of war were captured by the Soviet Union during World War II, most of them during the great advances of the Red Army in the last year of the war. The POWs were employed as forced labor in the Soviet wartime economy and post war reconstruction. By 1950 almost all had been released. In 1956 [1] the last surviving German POW returned home from the USSR. According to Soviet records 381,067 German Wehrmacht POWs died in NKVD camps (356,700 German nationals and 24,367 from other nations).[2][3] German historian Rüdiger Overmans maintains that it seems entirely plausible, while not provable, that one million died in Soviet custody. He believes that among those reported as missing were men who actually died as POWs.[4][5]


"German POWs in the USSR[edit]

"In the first months of the Soviet-German war, few Germans were captured by Soviet forces. After the Battle of Moscow and the retreat of the German forces the number of prisoners in the Soviet prisoner of war camps rose to 120,000 by early 1942.[6] The German 6th Army surrendered in the Battle of Stalingrad, 91,000 of the survivors became prisoners of war raising the number to 170,000[6] in early 1943. Weakened by disease, starvation and lack of medical care during the encirclement, many died of wounds, disease (particularly typhus), malnutrition and mistreatment in the months following capture at Stalingrad; only approximately 6,000 of them lived to be repatriated after the war.[7] As the desperate economic situation in the Soviet Union eased in 1943, the mortality rate in the POW camps sank drastically. At the same time POWs became an important source of labor for the Soviet economy deprived of manpower." ...


(My emphasis - more @ the URL)


The Soviets shot Waffen-SS out of hand. Otherwise, officers might be kept for interrogation. Everyone else worked.


Nazi Germany was a murderous kleptocracy, from what I've read. & they were careless with their slave labor. So was Imperial Japan - both regimes richly deserved to be defeated, & their practitioners, field officers & government officials put up against the wall, & offered a cigarette & a blindfold.

[Unsettomati]

Originally Posted by CHirst

The UK finished paying back lend/lease in 2006. At the same time as the UK was recovering from the war the US Marshal plan was rebuilding Germany. This might explain the current state of the EU and why US policy is against Brexit.

I don't even know where to begin...

First, the UK took until 2006 to pay off Lend-Lease because the interest rate was so good there was no reason to make any more than the minimum payment.

Second, you suggest that the Marshall Plan was only for Germany. It wasn't - (West) Germany got approximately $1.45 billion in aid under the plan, while the United Kingdom got $3.30 billion (they were the largest recipient of that aid).

Third, I haven't the foggiest idea why you think the Marshall Plan or Lend-Lease has anything to do with the EU in 2016. As mentioned above, the repayment plan was hardly onerous - the final installment to the United States in 2006 was $83 million, out of a British budget that year that was nearly 600 billion. Note: it also took until 2006 for the UK to pay off its debt to Canada (though since there's usually no anti-Canadian ax to grind, this is rarely mentioned). As for your comment that this somehow explains U.S. policy opposing the Brexit, I have no idea how present American policy devolves out of either the Marshall Plan or the repayment of the Anglo-American Loan that was concluded ten year ago.

[Brave New World]

Britain has paid off it's debts to the US and has also supported the US Militarily in the war on terror in Iraq and Afghanistan at a cost of around £70 Billion ($100 Billion USD) above that of normal military expenditure.