The German economy is a ticking time bomb even without Versailles. They funded over 90% of their entire war effort by borrowing, leaving them with a debt of 156 Billion marks in 1918, ...
... which were almost completly internal debts as the war bonds were only sold in Germany to germans , private persons as well as institutions and institutional investors (
like the companies producing the war materials adn the banks creating the 'financial backings' of these production) which were the mayor (
to overwhealming) holder of these bonds. While their devaluation during the inflation crisis was for the private holders there were truly catastrophic they were still the much smaller part of holders.
However ... Internal debts have the luxury of being or being made subject of whatever financial shenanigans there might be :
rename,
reallocate,
redeploy
remake their maturtities,
remake paying conditions
combine them into other financial products
...
and thereby GREATLY delay payment day as well GREATLY remove them from the 'public' eye.
(The MEFO bills for i.e. might serve as a model. Despite becomming 'mature from 1938 the latest (IIRC) from the 12 billion RM there were still 8 billion held by the investors in 1945. ... due to some 'additional' legislations like not having to show these in to be published bank reports or certain accounting possibilities against other ... debts of certain tax-advantages granted to holders of such bilss etc., etc..)
As the victor there would also be quite some possibilities to 'refund' those debts i.e. accounting them against certain investments goods now under administration of the victorious goverment. ...
simplest might be soil to be sold,
then there might be railways rights
harbour rights
mining rights to be sold/leased to said institutional investors, may these 'rights' lay within eastern europe or middle africa.
In opposite the Entente powers debts were foreign, external to the (much) greater ammount and from 1919 these external debtors (
mainly american banks but in the re-re-reloaning of the entente poweres between each other) were at the doors of the treasuries of Paris, London, Rome, Belgrade etc. demaning their loans to be repayed. ... in public ... not subject to a single goverments measures and means.
Therefore I'm quite convinced that the victorious german goverment - regardless of how much reparations they actually might drew out of a victory (
'only' 6 billions from russia are already set plus 10 billions from France ITTL) - would be well able to considearbly minimize its short(er) term debts, delay their payment and maturity and likely finally sit them out.
It won't be paradise but MUCH better and higher living standard for the populace compared to OTL as well as the war time just having ended.
... note the Versailles reparations were considered almost unpayable at 132 billion marks. ...
... well ... , only afeter a considerable time the Entente arrived at this numbers
- 1919: first "off hand" 20 billion to be paid in gold (equal to ~ 7.000 t of gold)
- June 1920 (conference of Boulogne): 269 billion (equal to ~ 94.150 t of gold)
(
wee reminder: Frankfurt treaty was 1.450 t of gold and Brest-Litovsk were a mere 6 billion)
and only in
- May 1921(one of the many London conferences): 132 billion
... Of course it is also possible that we don't have a large scale return to the gold standard allowing monetary freedom to deal with these issue, but that goes against the economic orthodoxly of the time
Well ... looking into what is known of plans and ideas that Helfferich, Erzberger and Rathenau during the war - esp. later in the war - developed ... they seemed to be well prepared with keeping the actual war time system of 'masking' the gold standard (
and other finance political shenaningans) for ... some time longer until the economy had enough (
open to free definition what 'enough' might mean) recovered. If ... after such a time (
from 2 to 12 years as in some letters by Rathenau) there would be a return to gold standard system at all ... might very much depend on how the economics and finances of everybody else might have developed until then.