Ealier War Economy

The front at its farthest extent, back then, was just too weak to contain a major Soviet counter-push; the German simply had inadequate forces. The Germans were lucky that the Soviets just cut off Stalingrad, rather than all the Caucasus; between them and the Black Sea were three weak Italian and Romanian divisions and little else. Such a move would've cut off three army groups to the East.

I meant the winter clothing shortages. :p But Stalingrad kept the Soviets occupied, so they couldn't cut off the Caucasus, probably one of the few advantages it had.

That would border on ASB; Hitler's government wasn't strong enough for that by far. There is also the issue of using up strategic resources; A not insignificant part of Speer's lauded success was in simply expending more of them and using up the reserves. (I see it's already been mentioned, but I'll add to the recommendation of Tooze anyway.) Not to mention, it ruins any "surprise" element there might have been to Barbarossa.

Hmm, so would a War Economy tooling starting smack-dab on Barbarossa be plausible? I mean, you're going to wage a pseudo-holy war here, and you have lots of victories behind you, so who's stopping you?

I just got Tooze : 'Wages of Destruction, The Making and Braking of the Nazi Economy' and his other book : 'Statistics and the State'. Hefty price, but so what.
 

burmafrd

Banned
I really doubt legitimacy was a problem for Hitler after 1940's triumphs. Whatever he wanted to be done would be done. If you have real evidence of your claims please give specifics.
 
I really doubt legitimacy was a problem for Hitler after 1940's triumphs. Whatever he wanted to be done would be done. If you have real evidence of your claims please give specifics.

Are you talking about Admiral Canaris's post? What he meant was that Hitler mobilized for war economy in time for 1941 Barbarossa. Mobilization has to start way before that, and he doubts that Hitler had enough legitimacy before his 1939-1940 successes to make that happen.
 
I meant the winter clothing shortages. :p But Stalingrad kept the Soviets occupied, so they couldn't cut off the Caucasus, probably one of the few advantages it had.

Actually, that was a deliberate Soviet policy decision; they had two plans, "Big Staurn" and "Little Saturn", calling for immediate advance on Rostov and just solidifying the Stalingrad pocket, respectively. Stavka chose Little Saturn, because they weren't aware just how weak the local Axis forces were.

Hmm, so would a War Economy tooling starting smack-dab on Barbarossa be plausible? I mean, you're going to wage a pseudo-holy war here, and you have lots of victories behind you, so who's stopping you?

The German people wanted peace, not total war; if they launched that, it'd be wildly unpopular, and that's troublesome even in a totalitarian state. It also shows that you aren't certain that you'll win and the troops'll be back before Christmas. For that matter, it requires extensive replanning; the Oberkommando never reckoned that they'd need full mobilisation, since Russia would be beaten in a Blitzkrieg...

I just got Tooze : 'Wages of Destruction, The Making and Braking of the Nazi Economy' and his other book : 'Statistics and the State'. Hefty price, but so what.

Congratulations, then you have some interesting reading to look forward to.
 
I really doubt legitimacy was a problem for Hitler after 1940's triumphs. Whatever he wanted to be done would be done. If you have real evidence of your claims please give specifics.

I didn't mean "legitimacy" in that sense, but in the early war years his hold on power was still somewhat tentative, and he was still somewhat dependent on being popular. Moreover, the Nazis always contended with the "Spectre of 1918"; they really feared that the deprivations of the total war economy would trigger another revolution (in fact, they greatly overestimated the risks).
 
Greatly overestimating the risks of being overthrown was another hurdle to earlier mobilisation that needed to be overcome, as important in it's own way as other shortages and bottlenecks. Also a total war economy like Britian's mean that food and other essential civilian products are taken care of and rationed in the fairest way possible.

I don't think that ramping up to a production peak between Sept. 1939 and early 1942 would endanger Nazi legitimacy. Pointing out that prudence demands sacrifices while the war is on, and pointing out that British bombing is the reason for such prudence is surely within the competence of Gobbels.
 
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The Germans had a high peacetime defence expenditure from 1936 onwards, and a full war economy from within the first year of war.

After 1942 they ramp up to what one might call "the next level," and after that they move to something cut throat and unsustainable.

I think they could go deeper faster but there are important practical constraints - a lot of resources were tied up in Four Year plan industrial infrastructure projects, the completion of which freed up resources for the military economy and created new plant which could be worked more intensively.

Fundamentally conversion to a war economy takes time, and the deeper you go the longer it takes. The German conversion process in the first year is actually quite rapid, January-July 1940 is the fastest period of armaments production growth.
 

burmafrd

Banned
A steady reduction in consumer goods while also requiring working weekends and other steps in increasing production could have been done that would have had substantial benefits. They waited too long OTL.
 
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[quote="Wozza, post: 1994993"]
I think they could go deeper faster but there are important practical constraints 
- a lot of resources were tied up in Four Year plan industrial infrastructure 
projects, the completion of which freed up resources for the military economy 
and created new plant which could be worked more intensively.

I think Wozza has hit on the critical choice. The synthetic fuel plants was the biggest project (although there were things like the KdF aka. Vauxwagon factory). Synthetic fuel largely came on stream from 1943 by which time the war was lost. If by July 1940, Hitler had decided to attack Russia in 1941 (which is controversial: see discussions on Axis History board), he should have known that he would either capture Baku or lose by 1943. Thus it would be logical to transfer the steel to tank and anti-tank gun production.

There was also a great deal of inefficiency but the British built over two thousand completely useless Covernanter tanks, so this was not completely unique.
 
But the coventers were built, unlike the unbuilt tanks which didn't roll of German lines. If the Germans were to build more tanks in the 1940-2 timeframe they would be useful Pz 3, 4 & 38t.
 
One obvious way to have raised production was to avoid inefficiency. The problem is that while this included simple incompetence, it also resulted from frequent changes of plan, some sensible but others less so. The challenge is to plan ahead.

In 1939, one problem was that the plans were preparing for a war around 1943-1944. Thus, as described by Tooze, the first step was to raise ammunition production. This accounts for most of the initial increase in war production.

At the same time, to free space for U-boat construction, two H-class battleships and an aircraft carrier were broken up. Several civil liners were also abandoned. Another aircraft carrier was stopped, later restarted and then abandoned. One large heavy cruiser was sold to Russia and a second, Seydlitz, which had been launched pre-war, was never completed.

U-boat production rose steadily until conventional U-boats were defeated in 1943. The need to build different designs after 1943 must have again reduced output.

From July 1940, the luftwaffe and navy received higher priority but the highest priority was preparation for Sealion, which slowed the completion of Bismark and Tirpitz by removing labour. I am not sure when army production gained higher priority but I think it was some way into the short campaign planned to start in June 1941.

Looking closer at aircraft output, there are huge well documented loses because it was planned to replace the Bf-110 by the Me-210 and the He-111 by the Ju-288 and He-177 from 1941. The production of the old aircraft was tapered off but had to be increased after their replacements were found not to be ready for production.

There was also a long running dispute between Milch and the operational commanders on the introduction of improved variants. Naturally both were correct. The best solution was probably what the US did for the B-29 by running production lines without too many interuptions while the airforce modified the aircraft (battle of Kansas). The Luftwaffe also followed that method which may account for some of the later increases in production. Oddly, the Luftwaffe may have had to add midification packs more as they shed men to the new (and generally unsuccessful) luftwaffe field divisions.

Finally, if you want real inefficiency, look at the occupied countries (I am currently reading Mazower's Hitler's Empire)! However, the most obvious example of getting Ukrainian industry working, might have only raised output from 1942.
 
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