Germany was required to pay reparations after the Treaty of Versailles. This caused Germany to have to pay a good sum of the things that were severely damaged during World War I. The amount they were supposed to pay was actually around 33 billion dollars but I believe this was greatly reduced afterwards.
Explanation: You said it was in your journal. Not on a piece of paper. I can tell you rushed to write that down quickly. That was wrote down a couple minutes ago.
