Germany had to pay HUGE reparations after WWI.

It was one of the things (just one, and this is extremely simplified) that led to the economic desaster that made the rise to power of Hitler possible.

Germany also paid after the war (starting in 1952, and is still paying AFAIK) billions of dollars' worth of aid, both financial and material, to Israel as reparation for the holocaust.

At the same time, the United States' Marshall plan helped get Germany's economy up and running within a few decades.

-s*