How much did Germany pay in total, as reparation for WWI, in the last 92 years?

20.6 billion marks, which was about 40% of what the Allies had originally expected them to pay.

To put that number into context, the German government had borrowed somewhere between 110 and 150 billion marks between 1914 and 1918 to finance its war effort. They had planned to impose a massive war indemnity on Britain and France after victory in order to recover that money. Instead, they found that they were the ones expected to pay reparations, while still owing their creditors the 12-figure sum they’d just borrowed. It was this, rather than reparations alone, that led to Germany’s financial difficulties in the early 1920s.

The loser being forced to hand over money to the winner was a well-established custom of war. In 1871, Germany had demanded 5 billion francs from a defeated France, as well as annexing the provinces of Alsace-Lorraine.

.. The French were not only interested in compensation; they also hoped that laying a heavy, long-term indemnity payment on Germany would make it impossible for Germany to raise a new army and come back for revenge in a few years’ time.

.. Germany was obliged to pay 50 billion marks, at a rate (agreed in 1923) of 2.5 billion per year. However, rather than raise taxes to cover the payments, they borrowed the money, mostly from the United States.

In short, during the 1920s a financial merry-go-round was in operation. US bankers lent money to Germany. The German government used that money to pay reparations to Britain and France. The British and French used that money to repay their war loans to the US bankers. The US banks made huge profits, and lent even more money to Germany. Everything was going well, until the bubble burst.

..However, these payments were not reparations; they didn’t go to the victims of the war. They went to the banks which had lent money to Weimar Germany in the 1920s.