A lot of the economic and developmental gap between the West and the East can be explained with the reparations as well. The DDR had to figure out how to pay it all (and get the USD to do so, and fund their own recovery), while the US had learned from its interwar foreign monetary policy mistakes and gave the GDR the USD required to pay off the reparations (Marshall Plan), which doubled as a recovery fund.
I hate that we have to celebrate annexation day here.