Sensational title or not, yesterday marked a somewhat fascinating occurrence: Germany paid off the last of its wartime debts. To be precise, its World War I debts.

The story has been covered by NPR as well as a handful of other publications but perhaps the report from The Local (“Germany’s News In English”) is the most informational.

So just why, in the waning days of 2010, are the Germans only now paying off their final due? The Local explains:

The actual reparations payments themselves were finished in 1983. Under the London Agreement on German External Debts, signed by then Chancellor Konrad Adenauer in 1953, Germany was excused from paying off the 125 million in interest on the bonds until after the country was reunified.

This last payment will come exactly 20 years after East and West Germany were formally reunited following the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War.

The money being paid is going to private investors that leveraged the debt long ago, but don’t let that interfere with any surreal thoughts this news has conjured up. Whatever the financial details or seeming absurdity to the story it is important to remember the massive destructiveness of the war evidenced in lasting effects that will reach beyond even these last reparations.

On a lighter note, I’m personally breathlessly awaiting Erich Maria Remarque’s fictional memoirs to be published. Wait!