Discussion: Comparing British and German industries 1900-1940

Thomas1195

Banned
Quite. You could also look at how many were made. So the British in their wattle and daub cottages spoon whittling in steam powered factories travelled to work in cars and buses. Leading to a plethora of mechanics able to fix internal combustion engines and drivers and suchlike while the germans travelled on trams powered by mains electricity.

Shame they could's run tramlines for the tanks and planes when war came.

Same for radios, in the Britain and France they are a something teenagers build for fun. In germany there is a massive state effort to make radios avialable so people can listen to propaganda speeches, so fixed tuned to one station and comparatively rare.

The whole synthetic fuel and rubber issue is a case study in stupidity and attempted autarchy. Yes you can make it at around the twice the price of importing it. But to import it requires global trading and exports people want and there are only so many guns you can sell. From 1910 - 1940 with a brief interruption in the 20's Germany did not have a viable export economy because it was gearing up a military.
1914: germany was world second largest exporter, and their exports were mainly high tech engineering stuff, while british exports were low tech things like textile and garments
 

Thomas1195

Banned
Germany was really behind in this area, for some reason.
USA was the leader here, much of it driven by Radios for rural areas, where Electrification was slow due to the vast areas. So radios used wet cells for the tube heaters( 'A' Battery, 1.5 to 12V), and other high voltage batteries for the plates ('B' Battery, 22.5V to 90), and a 'C' Battery for the bias grid, typically 4.5 to 6V
batteries.jpg


For portables, the Germans typically went for magnetos, either clockwork or continuous crank than dry cells
Do not mention US. That juggernaut led in nearly every sector during 1900-1940
 

Thomas1195

Banned
Germany had a big lead in machine tool compared to Britain.

When you process a piece of metal into a machine part, you must use machine tool. Better machine tool would allow you to produce that part more quickly and/or increase accuracy and reliability
 

Thomas1195

Banned
Again, German factories were often larger, more modern, equipped with more modern machine tool.

British factories were no match for Krupp Essen, a gold standard at least for European plants.

Among british machine tool stock, only imported American machines were better than German machines.
 
Oh, i did said that britain outperformed in motor car industry. German aircraft industry was not allowed to free develop at that time.

Okay German civil aircraft then and compare with British civil aircraft exports for example the Junkers G 24 of 1925 so there cannot have been that many restrictions.

But others, CHEMICAL, pharmaceutical, electrical and electronic goods, machinery, precision instruments like optics used in labs, Germany clearly outperformed. Germany also led in other heavy sectors like steel (very big lead), construction material and general metallurgy. In this thread I am comparing industries in today's sense, all about peacetime and commercial aspect

Oh, I also forgot magneto and ball bearings

Of course the lag was much bigger before 1914

Okay that is fine you are not going to even try and answer the question. I am getting the feeling that as soon as you find the British actually did better at commercially exploiting a sector it is relegated to no longer hight tech or if you cannot pull that off "dyestuffs!"

You could at least give us numbers, say the comparative output of wireless sets or telephones or ammonia production for examples. Even if you must cherry pick your favourite sectors show you have some idea of the relationships between each nation's industries.
 
Chaim Weizman discover how to obtain acetone from bacteria 1910, this discovery being an important contribution to cordite supplies in World War 1

also 1910 William Hill develops the first gastroscope.

1919 Robert Alexander Watson-Watt patents the radiolocator a system for establishing the position of ships and aircraft by radio waves, this system will of course be subsequently improved on by using microwaves but sadly I am not aware of anyone managing a version using synthetic dye.

I mean I do have to ask where you are looking and what for?
No, but IIRC a German named Christian Hülsmeyer patented a radiolocation system in the 1900s.

They had Lorenz radio navigation system in the early 1930s which they developed into Knickebein several years before the British developed Gee. So although the Luftwaffe was behind the RAF in the application of radio waves for defensive purposes they could bomb more accurately at night at the start of World War II.
 
It's amazing to me that Germany were so obviously superior in all areas of technology and industry and yet had absolutely no qualitative superiority in weapons in either war (particularly in WW2 where Germany had been planning the war for at least six years while the UK sat with their fingers in the their ears shouting 'la, la, la, I can't hear you' until 1937).

How was it that such a technologically and industrially advanced nation like Germany could manage to end up relying on horse drawn logistics and captured vehicles until the end of the war while the British Army in Europe was 100% motorised by 1939?

How did the massively superior German industry never manage to gain any advantage over the crappy British retards sitting in their darkened cottages in any area of warfare?

Sheds.
Garden Sheds, the British secret answer to every technological problem.
 

hipper

Banned
Germany had a big lead in machine tool compared to Britain.

When you process a piece of metal into a machine part, you must use machine tool. Better machine tool would allow you to produce that part more quickly and/or increase accuracy and reliability

There is a very interesting paper here which discusses the things we are talking about

http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/staff/sbroadberry/wp/labmkt5.pdf

And as ever Astrodragon got to the heart of it in 1910 German industry was about 25% more productive than British,
which was either due to German intellectual superiority or the result of patterns of capital investment.

However due to protectionism in the agricultural sphere the German econonomy as a whole was less efficent than the British economy. With 37 % employed in agriculture compared with 12% in the UK

by the end of ww 1 however German so lead in productivity had disappeared and German industry only became as efficent as the UK in the late 1930's when it was destroyed in another war.

Cheers Hipper.
 

Thomas1195

Banned
There is a very interesting paper here which discusses the things we are talking about

http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/staff/sbroadberry/wp/labmkt5.pdf

And as ever Astrodragon got to the heart of it in 1910 German industry was about 25% more productive than British,
which was either due to German intellectual superiority or the result of patterns of capital investment.

However due to protectionism in the agricultural sphere the German econonomy as a whole was less efficent than the British economy. With 37 % employed in agriculture compared with 12% in the UK

by the end of ww 1 however German so lead in productivity had disappeared and German industry only became as efficent as the UK in the late 1930's when it was destroyed in another war.

Cheers Hipper.

I also had a paper which compared individual industries (engineering, textile...). I would find it again today.
 

Thomas1195

Banned
It's amazing to me that Germany were so obviously superior in all areas of technology and industry and yet had absolutely no qualitative superiority in weapons in either war (particularly in WW2 where Germany had been planning the war for at least six years while the UK sat with their fingers in the their ears shouting 'la, la, la, I can't hear you' until 1937).

How was it that such a technologically and industrially advanced nation like Germany could manage to end up relying on horse drawn logistics and captured vehicles until the end of the war while the British Army in Europe was 100% motorised by 1939?

How did the massively superior German industry never manage to gain any advantage over the crappy British retards sitting in their darkened cottages in any area of warfare?
Lend lease. Britain would never be able to achieve more than two third of OTL output without lend lease.
 

Thomas1195

Banned
Okay German civil aircraft then and compare with British civil aircraft exports for example the Junkers G 24 of 1925 so there cannot have been that many restrictions.



Okay that is fine you are not going to even try and answer the question. I am getting the feeling that as soon as you find the British actually did better at commercially exploiting a sector it is relegated to no longer hight tech or if you cannot pull that off "dyestuffs!"

You could at least give us numbers, say the comparative output of wireless sets or telephones or ammonia production for examples. Even if you must cherry pick your favourite sectors show you have some idea of the relationships between each nation's industries.

Chemical industry as a whole:
http://www.professor-murmann.net/murmann_oeeh.pdf
 

Thomas1195

Banned
During the interwar period, there could be few exceptions like aircraft and motor car, but before World War 1, Germany was superior in basically all new, high-tech industries.

Before 1914, the only significant new industries were chemical and electrical goods. The car industry was too insignificant in both countries.
 

Thomas1195

Banned
Chemical, Yes Germany had a lead in 1914 but Britain had a massive lead 4 years later.

Railways. British railway companies and rolling stock manufacturers were able to replace all the French and Belgian rolling stock lost in 1914 within a year.
.

Since when Britain had a lead in chemical? Never. I have posted a paper about chemical industry after 1850 in post 151

Railway and locomotives were old products, except for electric trams
 
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hipper

Banned
http://personal.lse.ac.uk/ritschl/pdf_files/KETCHUP.pdf
This paper showed that without the first world war German per capita GDP would surpass British figure somewhere in mid 1930s. The war broke its trend

Your paper makes my point

"In aggregate comparison, the broad picture painted by previous research does not change much before World War I. Germany did partially catch-up to Britain. However, the convergence was only conditional, given the persistence of a large, unproductive peasant agriculture in the German economy. During the inter-war period, the German economy appears to have fallen behind farther than previous studies suggest. We find that in terms of aggregate productivity, the German economy was no closer to Britain on the eve of World War II than thirty years earlier. After World War II, we find that domestic output per capita in Germany converges roughly to the same trend established by the growth of British GDP after the depression of 1921."

The large amount of men employed in the agricultural sector held back the German economy so as a hole it was less productive than the British economy which had a smaller labour force.

And in World War One when Germany called on that agricultural labour force to go to war the country starved.

While in the U.K They called up the service sector and bought agricultural products on credit.

Cheers Hipper
 

Thomas1195

Banned
Your paper makes my point

"In aggregate comparison, the broad picture painted by previous research does not change much before World War I. Germany did partially catch-up to Britain. However, the convergence was only conditional, given the persistence of a large, unproductive peasant agriculture in the German economy. During the inter-war period, the German economy appears to have fallen behind farther than previous studies suggest. We find that in terms of aggregate productivity, the German economy was no closer to Britain on the eve of World War II than thirty years earlier. After World War II, we find that domestic output per capita in Germany converges roughly to the same trend established by the growth of British GDP after the depression of 1921."

The large amount of men employed in the agricultural sector held back the German economy so as a hole it was less productive than the British economy which had a smaller labour force.

And in World War One when Germany called on that agricultural labour force to go to war the country starved.

While in the U.K They called up the service sector and bought agricultural products on credit.

Cheers Hipper
I know overall economy German productivity and per capita GDP never surpassed Britain until post war, but their industries (my objective in this thread) were well ahead before the ww1, but fell gain after the war.

But this paper did not show that German had big lead in heavy, engineering sectors. This comparison was in Broadberry's another paper
 
Your paper makes my point

edit.(as you can see the full post just above this one)

Cheers Hipper

Likewise though Thomas your chosen paper for chemicals production rather suggests that taken as a whole the German chemicals industry was ahead but certainly not by a margin sufficient to deserve the hyperbole light years.



Interestingly in 1913 while Britain had only a 20% share of world chemical exports compared to Germany's 40% (as can be seen in table 2 of your papers by Murmmann) it still had near parity per capita in Sulphuric acid production with the ratio only favouring Germany by 1.05 to 1 (Murmann page 5). Basically what we see is that Britain focused efforts where she was most competitive and merely kept the ability to expand production in others.

This meant war cost Britain a far smaller share of the export market as it could more easily recover position post war hence having the cited post war numbers are 17.% in 1929 and 17.9% 1950 going by Murmann and for Germany 30.9% in 1929 and 10.4% in 1950...if World War 1 hurt its global position then World War 2 was twice as bad.

It also suggests that contrary to assertions British chemicals production was not stuck in the First Industrial Revolution but remained competitive afterwards.
 
How was it that such a technologically and industrially advanced nation like Germany could manage to end up relying on horse drawn logistics and captured vehicles until the end of the war while the British Army in Europe was 100% motorised by 1939?
Because the British Army was much smaller and it was only motorised in the second half of the 1930s. The German Army had about 100 divisions in September 1939 and the British Army in the UK had about 30 including the TA divisions.

However, from what I've read the Germans suffered from the same problem as the British which was insufficient production of too many models, but the Germans could not import trucks from the USA and Canada like the British could. Even if they could have produced more trucks, where would the fuel have come from? While I was writing this reply it occurred to me that instead of growing oats for horses, Germanys farms could have grown sugar beet to make ethanol in a similar way to Brazil makes it from sugar cane, but its probably the wrong type of sugar.
 
AFAIK and that is what I half-remember from reading Barnet's Audit of War was that chemicals was one of the few sectors of British industry that was as good as the USA and Germany. That was due to the expansion that occurred during World War One and the creation of Imperial Chemical Industries in 1926. Unfortunately we didn't have equivalents to ICI for steel, aircraft manufacturing, the motor industry, shipbuilding...
 

Thomas1195

Banned
Unfortunately we didn't have equivalents to ICI for steel, aircraft manufacturing, the motor industry, shipbuilding...
And machinery, electrical and electronic industries, too.

Shipbuilding: Vickers after all was still one of the biggest firms in the UK.

Chemical: ICI was still no match for IG Farben.
 
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