After the end of WWI, the Treaty of Versailles was signed by the Allied Powers and forced upon Germany. In this treaty, Germany had to take full responsibility for starting the war and were forced to pay reparations. A reparation is an amount of money a country/individual must pay for damages they have caused. In this case, Germany had to pay for the damage they caused in other countries during World War I. The cost of these reparations were very expensive, leading to the rapid decline of the German economy.
