Comment by klipklop

Well I mean destroy and seized in a generic sense. I am wording it poorly, but Germany lost a massive amount of industrial capacity post WW1. In the treaty of Versailles, Germany had to make massive concessions.

"The treaty stripped Germany of 65,000 km2 (25,000 sq mi) of territory and 7 million people."[1]

They also specifically lost coal and iron rich areas to pay back France for destroying theirs.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Versailles