AHC: Fixing the German Economy in 1939

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Scenario
: It's August 30th, 1939 and Hitler has just died of a brain hemmorage.
Goering swiftly takes over and after reorienting foreign policy toward autarkic isolationism, appoints you as his chief economic minister.

How do you go about integrating the annexations up to that point as well as cooling down the overheated economy without causing a complete collapse of the government?
 

Deleted member 1487

Pretty much appoint Hjalmar Schacht as economics shadow minister and do what he says. Be prepared for major problems as the economy is reoriented for exports over rearmament, which means unemployment is going to rise temporarily.
 
as the arms industry is fully ramped up, how about large sales of outdated equipment to the chinese nationalists, to pay for more modern tanks? or the japanese as the POD states nothing of a breakout in sanity in Japan?
 
the chinese as a customer have the added bonus that it will please the UK/US into maybe starting the normalization process.
 
the chinese as a customer have the added bonus that it will please the UK/US into maybe starting the normalization process.
Ja. But.
It's 31 August. The Polish invasion kicks off tomorrow, and you can't get word out in time to stop it - even if you can convince Göring to do so. He's appointed you economics minister, not dictator.

So... It's too late to avoid war, and thus too late to really start retooling the economy away from war production. If Germany doesn't conquer France as OTL, they're dead in a few years as the Franco-British economies ramp up to war effort. So.... there's not really a whole lot you can do.
 
Ja. But.
It's 31 August. The Polish invasion kicks off tomorrow, and you can't get word out in time to stop it - even if you can convince Göring to do so. He's appointed you economics minister, not dictator.

So... It's too late to avoid war, and thus too late to really start retooling the economy away from war production. If Germany doesn't conquer France as OTL, they're dead in a few years as the Franco-British economies ramp up to war effort. So.... there's not really a whole lot you can do.

Actually the German assault was originally scheduled to begin at 04:00 on 26 August. but the troops were turned back at the last minute. There are a few things that could be done assuming the war could not be stopped. You can give contracts for war production to companies that knew something about mass production and also standardise production of trucks and other vehicles. You can ramp up existing orders to 1944 levels, ie go to a full war footing right away - production of things like tanks in 1939/40 was comparitively tiny. Even bomb production needed improvement - the Germans used up their pre-war bomb supplies in the Polish invasion. You can build more production and railway facilities, Well I guess there are quite a few threads on this topic with better suggestions.
 

trurle

Banned
Avoiding the war with Poland will ruin the German-Soviet non-aggression pact - because the Soviets are going to invade Poland soon anyway. Therefore, extensive and very expensive fortification program on Polish border would be mandatory. Well, the Germany in 1939 was already pretty much cornered in the political sense (as they perceived) - what`s why they did the high-risk moves like invasion of Poland and France 1939-1940 IOTL. With siege mentality, talking about any economic development is nearly sure way to lead to government collapse.
If Goering would ask me to heal the overheated German economy..i will desert to England or United States. Too silly order. Germany at that point needed a suspension of normal economic mechanisms - a declaration of the state of emergency and a frantic military production to deter or at least delay Soviet Union threat.
 
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