For how long can the Nazi germany holds without war???

Sorry guys if the tread was already discussed recently (I'm only on mobile and the search option on mobile is crap) but i was curious in how long could the germany economy hold without war. let's say: Hitler doesn't get greedy and decide to postpone the occupation of the Czech till the international situation cool down a bit. And maybe trying to get the polish agreeing in the partitioning of the Czechoslovakia later in the year to delegitimize the Polish and than press for the corridor/ war without the intervention of the entete. So considering the mad rearmament policy, how long can the German economy hold? Without Prague? And with it?
 

Deleted member 1487

Depends on if the Nazis actually organize the economy for long term stability and believe that war isn't going to be started by them. IOTL from the moment he got into power Hitler ran the economy of reckless deficit spending to get the public on his side as he rearmed for war; he entire spending scheme was predicated on preparing for war ASAP, so was not designed to be remotely sustainable, because war was coming and when it did finances wouldn't matter anymore. So at no point did the Nazis ever even bother to organize the economy for peacetime sustainability because the big boss said not to, get ready for war ASAP. If Hitler changed his tune for some reason and said hold off, if it happens early enough and they fall back into the Schachtian capitalist/neo-colonialist model it might be able to abide for a long time until general Nazi ideological bullshit and bureaucracy destroys the country like Communism did. But it would have to happen sooner rather than later, because if the economy slows down due to financial issues, Hitler WILL fall into war to solve the domestic crisis (aka Poland IOTL).
 
So theoretically can hold till the 1944? After the planned plan Z? Or Is it pure fantasy?
 

Deleted member 1487

So theoretically can hold till the 1944? After the planned plan Z? Or Is it pure fantasy?
No, they'd have to stop rearmament and focus on imports to prevent the economy from collapsing, which means no Plan Z if no war. Plan Z never was going to work.
 
When German economy starts to collapse, Nazis will eventually start Holocaust.
Remember, that official party line, was that economic problems was caused by Jews. Many Nazis believed their own propaganda.
They already stuffed Jews into ghettos, so they'll conclude that just wasn't enough to stop them from sabotaging economy. And they'll decide its necessary to get even harsher.
And if you'd say that maybe Germany's economic troubles could have other causes than Jews, well, you're obviously Jewish spy.

That is the only explanation as to why Nazi were conducting Holocaust during war, rather than wait until after victory.
Sane person would note, that doing so while you need trains to transport supplies to front, is counterproductive. But if you literally, non-ironically, believe that killing Jews is best way to help your war effort, you're gonna prioritise killing Jews over supplying armies on front.

Crazy? Well, duh.

For comparison, Stalin murdered many Ukrainian peasants. Why? My theory, is that he noticed that Soviet economy was shit, so he wanted to improve it. How you improve economy, if you're a communist? You collectivise it. Economy does even worse? "Well, damn, I'll better hurry with collectivisation, that'll make everything better. Soon". Even worse? "Damn, I should better kill those kulak hoarders who sabotage our economy". Cue fields of corpses.
 

thorr97

Banned
It wasn't so much that Germany's economy was predicated on preparing for war as much as it was a Socialist one in general. In order to win over the German people the NSDAP had to make some truly grand promises to them. To fulfill those promises it had to provide huge amounts of government services "for free" to the people. That was... expensive. The German state could only do that for so long by borrowing. Doing that however, ran up the debt and ran the risk of inflation as well. Given that is was the deliberate "hyper-inflation" during the Weimar years which convinced the German people that the Weimar regime was incompetent, allowing for inflation to return would have been a death-knell for the NSDAP. So it had to be avoided at all costs.

The only other option then was to find new sources of wealth through plundering others. The first target of this were the German Jews. Their wealth however, was only enough to keep the Reich's economy humming for but a short while. The wealth of the nations around Germany thus became the next logical target.

"Economic stability through conquest" however, has its strategic limitations...
 

RousseauX

Donor
It wasn't so much that Germany's economy was predicated on preparing for war as much as it was a Socialist one in general. In order to win over the German people the NSDAP had to make some truly grand promises to them. To fulfill those promises it had to provide huge amounts of government services "for free" to the people. That was... expensive. The German state could only do that for so long by borrowing.
No it's not, deficit spending is fine if you are producing civilian goods/infrastructure with it. Inflation isn't nearly as big a problem because inflation is when too many dollars chase too few goods. If you are printing money to build tanks it's a problem because your workers get paid $ but don't want to buy tanks with it, if you are producing like radios or chars it's fine because your workers can buy consumer goods with it. Especially when the initial problem was the depression and depressions are deflationary while deficit spending is stimulative.
 

Hunter W.

Banned
I'd say around 1941 at the latest. The German economy was being held up by no more than, to be frank. Bullshit and hot air.
 
The US drastically reduced credit to Germany as early as 1934. Other commercial banks and nations were taking a harsh look at nazi Germanys credit through the entire 1930s. Accquiring the Austrian reserves allowed another year or two of scraping by with short term high interest loans for key imports. The Cezch assets seized in March 1939 came in time to buy more loan extentions. Absent that the moment of truth may have come earlier than 1941, even with last minute reforms.
 
Thank you guys!!!! Finally I have a grasp on how bad the situation was :) last question because I'm getting away from the OP: aftet the acquisition of the France resources, for how long can they run? If the Soviets became only a raw material peovider, and the german decide to keep the war with the UK, how long their economy can hold?
 
Thank you guys!!!! Finally I have a grasp on how bad the situation was :) last question because I'm getting away from the OP: aftet the acquisition of the France resources, for how long can they run? If the Soviets became only a raw material peovider, and the german decide to keep the war with the UK, how long their economy can hold?

a few years i guess, France had the second biggest gold reserve after the UK. In 1939 it had more gold than every axis country together.
 
Thank you guys!!!! Finally I have a grasp on how bad the situation was :) last question because I'm getting away from the OP: aftet the acquisition of the France resources, for how long can they run? If the Soviets became only a raw material peovider, and the german decide to keep the war with the UK, how long their economy can hold?

Depends on how much the nazis reform their policies. i.e: putting French workers to task in French factories would have some efficiencies over transporting them to Germany, which was not done en mass until latter 1941. Instead they kept a mass of PoW in Germany working at jobs that usually mismatched their skills.

One problem economically Germany never got around was the loss of food imports to Europe from north and south America. The creaky rationing system Germany ran over the occupied nations, & accompanying corruption. lowered labor efficiency, lowered morale, and contributed to resistance. Other items like petroleum were similar. While Germany scraped by for its war needs on Rumanian & other oil occupied Europe as a whole was stalled on empty. Ellis in 'Brute Force' has a couple charts showing the shortages the Axis had in chemicals, alloy metals ect... OTL the nazis never had much of a economic policy for their ad hoc empire. To get their economy much further along you have to waive away their kleptocratic operating methods & institute something ultra efficient.
 
Thank you guys!!!! Finally I have a grasp on how bad the situation was :) last question because I'm getting away from the OP: aftet the acquisition of the France resources, for how long can they run? If the Soviets became only a raw material peovider, and the german decide to keep the war with the UK, how long their economy can hold?

I think that depend on how long is going to be the war with the UK (and eventually the US, thanks Japs ;)), because Stalin isn't going to help the German war effort forever (and probably he have his own plans for Germany ;)).

Another thing is that taking in account the extremely bad German policies towards agriculture, if Stalin doesn't provide food for Germany and if Hitler isn't able to plunder the Ukraine for obtaining food, then we could talk about the repeat of the German hunger of WW1.

In sum, if the war extends to say 1945, and Hitler isn't able to secure the raw materials needed for the war industry, and isn't able to secure the food shipings, then i can assure that the German economy (and with it, the war effort) can start to collapse even if the military situation isn't as terrible as in OTL's 1945.

Btw, this is my first post at the forum :).
 
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