<P> Bernadotte Schmitt writes that if "pensions and separation allowances...not been included, reparations would probably never have become the bogey that poisoned the post-war world for so many years . Taylor says, "no doubt the impoverishment of Germany was caused by war, not by reparations . Not doubt the Germans could have paid reparations, if they had regarded them as an obligation of honour, honestly incurred ." However, he says, "reparations...kept the passions of war alive". Peter Liberman writes that while the Germans believed they could not meet such demands of them, the "French believed that Germany could pay and only lacked the requisite will" to do so . Liberman says this is "a position that has gained support from recent historical research". In regard to Germany's capacity to pay, he focuses on coal and says that German coal consumption per capita was higher than France's despite coal shipments being consistently short . He also says, "the reparations demanded at Versailles were not far out of proportion to German economic potential" and that in terms of national income it was similar to what the Germans demanded of France following the Franco - Prussian War . Martin Kitchen also says the impression that Germany was crippled by the reparations is a myth . Rather than a weakened Germany, he states the opposite was true . </P> <P> Keylor says that literature on reparations has "long suffered from gross misrepresentation, exaggeration, and outright falsification" and that it "should finally succumb to the archive - based discoveries of scholars". Diane Kunz, summarizing the historiography on the subject, writes that historians have refuted the myth that reparations placed an intolerable burden on Germany . Marks says a "substantial degree of scholarly consensus now suggests that paying...was within Germany's financial capacity". Ruth Henig writes, "most historians of the Paris peace conference now take the view that, in economic terms, the treaty was not unduly harsh on Germany and that, while obligations and damages were inevitably much stressed in the debates at Paris to satisfy electors reading the daily newspapers, the intention was quietly to give Germany substantial help towards paying her bills, and to meet many of the German objections by amendments to the way the reparations schedule was in practice carried out". </P>

When did germany stop paying reparations for ww1