After the lost First World War, the victors demanded reparations from Germany for the damages caused, primarily in the form of railway materials and later also in cash payments as well as the delivery of coal, coke, and other industrial products. To secure the German reparations payments, the Allies occupied the area west of the Rhine from the Lower Rhine to the Palatinate. The railways were monitored by the Allied Field Railway Commission. When Germany fell behind on its payments, two of the four Allies took control of the Ruhr area, its mines, and its railways to oversee the production of the mines and to transport coke and coal. The state-owned Reichsbahn, established in 1920, was transformed in 1924 into the German Reichsbahn Company with bonds worth billions in favor of.