German WW II Economy - not just working more people harder

[AMF]

Quite a number of contributions in this forum have dealt with the question of how German armament production during WW II could have been boosted. If I remember correctly they have focused on three main issues so far: 1. Getting a larger workforce (not starving Soviet POWs to death, not murdering the Jews, integrating more women into the workforce) 2. Introducing longer working hours earlier 3. Increase production of effective weapons at the expense of ineffective ones.
While these measures would probably indeed have increased production, there are others, which have to do with using the available manhours more effectively, rather than increasing the number of people in the workforce or the number of hours they work. Here are just three possible measures, which of course could be combined with the measures, described earlier, that increase the available manhours:

1. Abolishing the Reichsarbeitsdienst (labour service). The Reichsarbeitsdienst was founded before the Nazis came to power to give work to as many unemployment people as possible and was made mandatory only by the Nazis. It was originally not planned to employ these people as efficiently as possible. It used manual tools such as shovels and pickaxes to a degree that was high even for the times. It was seen as ineffective even by contemporary critics.

2. Payment for weapons should encourage efficient use of resources. At least at the time when General Thomas was in charge of the German armament industry, the payment for weapons actively increased waste of resources. This was because the armament firms always received an amount of money that covered their expenses plus a certain percentage of those expenses, fixed by the armed forces, as a profit margin. The greater their expenses were, the greater became their profits, since the profits always constituted the same percentage of expenses.

3. Weapons purchases should follow a strict value for money for money policy. In OTL many firms were chosen as suppliers not because they offered the best or cheapest goods, but because the Army wanted to avoid unemployment in a certain area, or because it wanted to strengthen small firms as competitors to big ones.

More ideas welcome.

 

[Wozza]

The answer is that it's very, very difficult. Most of the usual suggestions are invalid, or will only have marginal benefits.

The Nazis actually had a higher rate of female participation than any other power, indeed it has higher before the war than most other countries reached within it. This was a different profile of participation than most other countries - German women had traditionally worked in family businesses, often on a part-time basis and continued to do so.

There might be some potential to change the labour participation profile of German women to get more of them into factories, but as they have to be moved out of other occupations the overall benefits will be limited.

The problem with expanding the labour force in any way is food, industrial work requires lots of calories, and even more important the factories have to be powered by coal mining that requires even more calories (circa 6,000 a day).

Europe simply did not grow enough food for the Germans to support several million more people carrying out industrial work.
Under these circumstances working POWs and Jews to death was entirely logical - you get their labour for less than the going calorific rate, and when they die you replace them with more people you do not want to live anyway.
There was an extensive network of urban concentration sub-camps in Germany to support industry in this manner.

This economic logic to what are often described as wasteful policies is demonstrated by the close political alliance between Speer and Himmler in the later stages of the war - the goals of these two men were compatible. Speer later claimed that they were in conflict - that there had been a primacy of politics over economics - to save his own skin.

I am not sure how much effect reforming or abolishing the Reichsarbeitsdienst would have, it is only one part of of a massive economic system - and quite possibly they are using picks and shovels because there are only picks and shovels.

Regarding efficiency this improves steadily throughout the war. Industrial productivity had declined in the 30s whilst heavy industry expanded, the 40s saw a rationalisation programme, under Todt then Speer, that dealt with the inefficiencies, much the same thing happened in the other war economies. Realistically this takes time and improvements are gradual. There is potential for Germany to do better of course, but again this would hardly be a revolutionary improvement in production - which is ultimately determined by the supply of steel and non-ferrous metals.

 

[Riain]

The figures of 1944 showed what germany was capable of, it just came 2 years too late. If Germany had reached their 1944 output in 1942 and leveled off from there they would have won the war.

 

[Wozza]

The figures of 1944 showed what germany was capable of, it just came 2 years too late. If Germany had reached their 1944 output in 1942 and leveled off from there they would have won the war.

The 1944 production levels are largely produced from screwing the entire German economy, ensuring that it would fall apart the next year.

Also it benefits from various extraneous factors not available in 1942 - including more time to improve efficiency, more time to make the plunder of Europe more rigorous, and the benefits of the new factories in the four year plan that were completed during 1942.

 

[Riain]

The figures of 1944 showed that even after 5 years of war there was a lot of slack in the German economy. Big numbers were possible in 1941-2 if the political will to make them happen existed. One example which sticks with me was when Hitler was advised to end cosmetics production Eva Braun whinged so he changed his mind. 3 cheers for the fhurerprizip.

 

[Wozza]

The figures of 1944 showed that even after 5 years of war there was a lot of slack in the German economy. Big numbers were possible in 1941-2 if the political will to make them happen existed. One example which sticks with me was when Hitler was advised to end cosmetics production Eva Braun whinged so he changed his mind. 3 cheers for the fhurerprizip.

This is an anecdote, I have no idea if it is actually true even.

The real picture is gained by looking at the overall figures:

German domestically financed war production is cira 52% of GDP in 1942, amd 60% in 1943. (there are no figures for 1944)

This is reaching the peak of sustainable militarisation but it also takes time to "get up" to this level, initial mobilisations took British and German war production up to about 40% of GDP, and then steadily squeezed it up higher over several years.

All the war economies go through this process - they devote more resources for war and use them more efficiently, it's a natural process as officials learn more about working the war economy. It is possible to work the process slightly quicker and better but not to cut it out entirely, that would be a "wank" scenario, a world of German omniscience and no mistakes.

There is also a serious issue of sustainability in the 1944 economy. Someone mentioned on here a few weeks back that the fertiliser was used for explosives, but there are a string of other examples of "civilian" goods that are ultimately needed to maintain a war economy - trains, typewriters, clothes, steel needed in building maintenance. There is only so far you can go in cutting these things back if you want to make war next year.

 

[Dean_the_Young]

There's also the issue that, had the war waited two more years for what Riain suggests to occur, Germany would have been so outmatched that it couldn't have begun in the first place. The US would be finishing its rearmament, as well as finishing of the Japanese from Pearl Harbor. When a German attack comes, the US can send materials and trainers (if not combat troops) to Britain and France.

Britain will also have two more years to rearm. Better tanks can come on line with spare time, more planes (maybe jets; the Nazis only did them as a last resort weapon). More men with better weapons, along with Pacific War experiance, will make a differance all on its own.

France will also have time to build up. Time for lessons from the US in the Pacific to take place, possibly. Time to build better tanks, to match German tank usage.


Germany was already outnumbered and out produced during the war. Time would only make the disadvantage much worse, not better.

 

[Prinz Richard Eugen]

The German economy was set up for a short war. In the early years, it stressed "guns and butter". Most ethnic Germans (but not the Jews and other undesirables who were only there to be worked to death) had a higher standard of living until 1945 than the civilian populations of almost every other country. This occured because the Nazis stole from the Jews and the population of occupied Europe and gave this food and other goods (clothes, furniture, etc.) to the German people.

With this advantage, it is clear that the Germans could have converted to a "total war" economy well before 1942 - rather than order a reduction in military output as happened in 1941 after the Soviets were obviously defeated. If the decision for "total war" would have occured in 1940 (to prepare for the invasion of the USSR), the production rates of 1943 and early 1944 would have been acheived in 1941/1942 and the losses of Russia could have been replaced. The massive production rates of mid-to-late 1944 were not sustainable as the factories wer using up their stocks faster than they could be replaced.

Finally, there is the matter of wasted effort on competing projects. Had these projects been combined, better weapons could have been available sooner. The number of tank, aircraft, artillery, etc,, may actually be reduced, but the value of the new weapons would be greater.

 

[AMF]

The answer is that it's very, very difficult. Most of the usual suggestions are invalid, or will only have marginal benefits.

The Nazis actually had a higher rate of female participation than any other power, indeed it has higher before the war than most other countries reached within it. This was a different profile of participation than most other countries - German women had traditionally worked in family businesses, often on a part-time basis and continued to do so.

There might be some potential to change the labour participation profile of German women to get more of them into factories, but as they have to be moved out of other occupations the overall benefits will be limited.

The problem with expanding the labour force in any way is food, industrial work requires lots of calories, and even more important the factories have to be powered
by coal mining that requires even more calories (circa 6,000 a day).

Europe simply did not grow enough food for the Germans to support several million more people carrying out industrial work.
Under these circumstances working POWs and Jews to death was entirely logical - you get their labour for less than the going calorific rate, and when they die you replace them with more people you do not want to live anyway.
There was an extensive network of urban concentration sub-camps in Germany to support industry in this manner.

This economic logic to what are often described as wasteful policies is demonstrated by the close political alliance between Speer and Himmler in the later stages of the war - the goals of these two men were compatible. Speer later claimed that they were in conflict - that there had been a primacy of politics over economics - to save his own skin.

I am not sure how much effect reforming or abolishing the Reichsarbeitsdienst would have, it is only one part of of a massive economic system - and quite possibly they are using picks and shovels because there are only picks and shovels.

Regarding efficiency this improves steadily throughout the war. Industrial productivity had declined in the 30s whilst heavy industry expanded, the 40s saw a rationalisation programme, under Todt then Speer, that dealt with the inefficiencies, much the same thing happened in the other war economies. Realistically this takes time and improvements are gradual. There is potential for Germany to do better of course, but again this would hardly be a revolutionary improvement in production - which is ultimately determined by the supply of steel and non-ferrous metals.

Dear Wozza,

thank you very much for your reply. I am aware of this contradiction that some authors claim that Germany could have increased production through more women workers, while others claim that the number of women workers was relatively higher than in most other combatant nations. A possible (just possible) solution to that contradiction might be that women constituted a large part of the total work force, but did not take part in industrial production, rather in clerical work.

But this is not really the one thing I am most interested in.
I am not interested in the "tough" solutions like cutting down civilian consumption or longer working hours, rather in the "clever" solutions, that might have gotten better results out of the same amount of manhours.

I am not all so sure that "Europe simply did not grow enough food" for increased industrial production. Britain increased its internal food production (in order to need less shipping space for food imports) while greatly increasing its industrial production, too.

More to come soon.

 

[Dean_the_Young]

But this is not really the one thing I am most interested in.
I am not interested in the "tough" solutions like cutting down civilian consumption or longer working hours, rather in the "clever" solutions, that might have gotten better results out of the same amount of manhours.

Sometimes, however, there isn't a "clever" solution. You might invent some method to speed production, but how long would it take to install it everywhere else, and how much would it cost? You might invent a better quality steel armor. Is that worth the cost to other weapons, when the tank can still be ruined by a mine or fighters?

Opportunity cost is often the big thing against "clever" solutions. In the long run something may turn out to be better, but in the short run it likely has a massive cost and would effect immediately relevant areas. And considering how if you fail in the short run you fail in the long run, but not necessarily the reverse, it's better to use the tools at hand rather than take the time to build something new. Especially when your oppenents have more resources and manpower than you do.

I am not all so sure that "Europe simply did not grow enough food" for increased industrial production. Britain increased its internal food production (in order to need less shipping space for food imports) while greatly increasing its industrial production, too.

More to come soon.

Problem with that analogy is that Britain isn't the best example. Britain "increased food production" by telling every civilian to plant seeds in every spare patch of grass they could. Even so, Britain still wasn't anywhere near to self-sufficient, which is the big issue. Had the nazi u-boat blockade worked, then Britain would have been forced to withdraw, victory gardens or no victory gardens.

 

[Riain]

I learned the cosmetics anecdote at uni in a double credit point unit on WW2, itwas used to show the lack of political will which drove the idea of the Blitzkrieg economy. It was contrasted with the early slaughter of zoo animals in Britain to cut down on useless mouths to feed, a sign of British will to 'do the nasty' economically to win. Instead, with their early victories Hitler didn't want to risk his popularity in this marginally popular war by taking away German people's luxuries. He could get away with it while they had such an operational lead, assisted by plunder up to about 1942. I think the German economy could have reached production levels similar to their 1944 numbers in 1942 with political will and foresight, and held these levels with a gradual decline until 1944 when they run out of resources or win the war.

 

[Agrippa]

The production boom of spring 1944 was the result of Speer burning through all the reserves in the German economy. The last reserves of raw materials, the last surplus slave populations (ex. the Hungarian Jews), the most vicious worker repression programs went into one final gasp of mass production. It was one last desparate attempt by the Third Reich to match the industrial production of its enemies and it failed miserably. It was inherently unsustainable. Afterwards, Germany would live from hand to mouth in terms of raw materials. After the war, for example, there was no more fertilizer left in Germany, one of the causes behind the post-war famine.

There were some sources of slack in the German economy that could have been stretched. Many German factories overinvested in new physical capital in the last years of the war, hoping to be left with something permanent after the war rather than Reichmarks that none of the conquerors would have accepted. Had the Third Reich gone for a more centrally controlled economy rather than the hybrid bastard child of central control and free market principles that it developed, it may have been able to more efficiently allocated those resources to current production rather than investment. An extra plane in 1944 was infinately more valuable than the promise of three more planes in 1946. Continued civilian consumer goods had a negligible impact. By 1944, the shop shelves were becoming empty, the black market was a key compenent of each household, and bank accounts filled with Reichsmarks that could not be spent.

 

[Wozza]

The German economy was set up for a short war. In the early years, it stressed "guns and butter". Most ethnic Germans (but not the Jews and other undesirables who were only there to be worked to death) had a higher standard of living until 1945 than the civilian populations of almost every other country. This occured because the Nazis stole from the Jews and the population of occupied Europe and gave this food and other goods (clothes, furniture, etc.) to the German people.

The short war claim is repeated in many books but is simply not true. In fact the German economy did not offer "butter" in the thirties, hence the jokes about margarine being made from Ruhr coal In fact from 33-39 consumption shrunk as a share of GDP from 81 to 59%. On a range of socio-economic indicators, such as meat consumption the German standard of living is lower than elsewhere in western Europe. All this because resources are going into armamments.

During the war of course the Germans plunder, but they are not maintaining a "peacetime" level of consumption, which they did not have before the war.

With this advantage, it is clear that the Germans could have converted to a "total war" economy well before 1942 - rather than order a reduction in military output as happened in 1941 after the Soviets were obviously defeated. If the decision for "total war" would have occured in 1940 (to prepare for the invasion of the USSR), the production rates of 1943 and early 1944 would have been acheived in 1941/1942 and the losses of Russia could have been replaced. The massive production rates of mid-to-late 1944 were not sustainable as the factories wer using up their stocks faster than they could be replaced.

The Germans spent about 20% of GDP on defence in 1939, this is as high as the peak of Italian wartime mobilisation, and far excess of any other power. Germany moves to a total war economy no slower than Britain - moving into the 40-50% of GDP on defence range over 40-41. In fact the period Jan-July 1940 was the fastest growth period for armaments production.
If you look over the month by month figures there is no appreciable run down over 40-41 - there are many ups and downs and big changes in the production profile, such as less emphasis on munitions.

The other thing is that from 1938-1942 a lot of resources were tied up in the production of heavy plant as part of the four year plans, resources which could not really be shifted to weapons production. In part it was this fresh plant that enabled the 42-44 weapons boom.

 

[Wozza]

I learned the cosmetics anecdote at uni in a double credit point unit on WW2, itwas used to show the lack of political will which drove the idea of the Blitzkrieg economy. It was contrasted with the early slaughter of zoo animals in Britain to cut down on useless mouths to feed, a sign of British will to 'do the nasty' economically to win. Instead, with their early victories Hitler didn't want to risk his popularity in this marginally popular war by taking away German people's luxuries. He could get away with it while they had such an operational lead, assisted by plunder up to about 1942. I think the German economy could have reached production levels similar to their 1944 numbers in 1942 with political will and foresight, and held these levels with a gradual decline until 1944 when they run out of resources or win the war.

See above, the Blitzkrieg economy is essentially a myth, the German people suffer quite considerably from loss of luxuries from the mid 30s onwards, and in the early years of war German mobilisation is no less intensive than British. The weapons boom is by and large not due to a larger share of war production being devoted to weapons production but to other factors already discussed.

 

[esl]

Mass production of armaments took off when the cost pricing of the 1930s was replaced by the fixed batch prices of the 1940s. This is why production increased. It didn't have much to do with either labor, resources or Speer. Luftwaffe moved to 'fixed pricing' in 1937/38 , while the rest of the Wehrmacht didn't moved to fixed pricing until in mid 1941. When pushed in this direction the industry found the efficency in resources and saving in production that was needed to make profit.

Defense Minister Blomberg called for such a multi year production of armaments based on fixed batch prices. But Blomberg was a Hitler appointee and Beck and other Wehrmacht leaders refused to cooperate, as did Goering who was not going to be ordered around by some minister. Raeder saw no reason to go through Blomberg, when no one else was .

So the kind of financial and resource efficency possible and demonstrated during the war , were ignored, until Hitler forced the change during the war due to reversals at the front. It all rests on Hitlers shoulders , since he too was unwilling to enpower his defense ministers and would rather have inefficent armaments production inorder to control the various service branches and personalities.

The massive production of 1944 was as much built on the slave labour, as well as emergency mobilization of all resources at the expense of future.

 

[AMF]

Mass production of armaments took off when the cost pricing of the 1930s was replaced by the fixed batch prices of the 1940s. This is why production increased. It didn't have much to do with either labor, resources or Speer. Luftwaffe moved to 'fixed pricing' in 1937/38 , while the rest of the Wehrmacht didn't moved to fixed pricing until in mid 1941. When pushed in this direction the industry found the efficency in resources and saving in production that was needed to make profit.

Defense Minister Blomberg called for such a multi year production of armaments based on fixed batch prices. But Blomberg was a Hitler appointee and Beck and other Wehrmacht leaders refused to cooperate, as did Goering who was not going to be ordered around by some minister. Raeder saw no reason to go through Blomberg, when no one else was .

So the kind of financial and resource efficency possible and demonstrated during the war , were ignored, until Hitler forced the change during the war due to reversals at the front. It all rests on Hitlers shoulders , since he too was unwilling to enpower his defense ministers and would rather have inefficent armaments production inorder to control the various service branches and personalities.

The massive production of 1944 was as much built on the slave labour, as well as emergency mobilization of all resources at the expense of future.

Thank you very much indeed, esl, this is very much the kind of information I am looking for. Could you kindly tell me your sources? I knew that a Freiburg professor of economics, Adolf Lampe, argued for a more market based approach for the war economy (I found this in Bernhard R. Kroener, Organisation und Mobilisierung des deutschen Machtbereichs). But Freiburg is very far away from the center of power, and of course his advice went unheeded (which of course was a good thing since it might have prolongued the war). Blomberg is of course much better POD material.

I would be very grateful for an answer, thank you very much in advance for your troubles.

 

[AMF]

The answer is that it's very, very difficult. Most of the usual suggestions are invalid, or will only have marginal benefits.


The problem with expanding the labour force in any way is food, industrial work requires lots of calories, and even more important the factories have to be powered by coal mining that requires even more calories (circa 6,000 a day).

Europe simply did not grow enough food for the Germans to support several million more people carrying out industrial work.
Under these circumstances working POWs and Jews to death was entirely logical - you get their labour for less than the going calorific rate, and when they die you replace them with more people you do not want to live anyway.
There was an extensive network of urban concentration sub-camps in Germany to support industry in this manner.

This economic logic to what are often described as wasteful policies is demonstrated by the close political alliance between Speer and Himmler in the later stages of the war - the goals of these two men were compatible. Speer later claimed that they were in conflict - that there had been a primacy of politics over economics - to save his own skin.

I am not sure how much effect reforming or abolishing the Reichsarbeitsdienst would have, it is only one part of of a massive economic system - and quite possibly they are using picks and shovels because there are only picks and shovels.

Dear Wozza,
concerning the Reichsarbeitsdienst: You are right, it formed only a small part of the German wartime economy. In August 1941, there were only 176.000 men in it. One can assume that its total membership was twice that number, since service was obligatory for both sexes. But on the other hand, a book on border fortifications in WWII informs me that it was indeed a deliberate policy not to use too many machines, in order to employ as many people as possible, not because machinery was unavailable.

Re: Starving people to death as an efficient economic policy?
Questions of morality (which of course are extremely important) apart, I have my doubts whether starving your labor force to death really has any economic advantages. Assume you have a certain number of slave laborers in your factory. You start starving them to death and their productivity decreases dramatically. But that's not even half the story. When these laborers work for you, you have, so to speak, invested in them. You have to pay for the fact that these laborers have to be rounded up by the armed forces, often against very active resistance. They have to be transported, through an already overburdened transport network, to Germany and to your factory. They somehow have to be registered, trained - of course only with the help of a translator - for their job. All of this "investment" is for nothing if they die, and the whole laborious process of catching, transporting, registering and training has to be done all over again. If it is not you, the factory owner, who has to pay for this kind of expenses, someone else in the German economy will have to. As a matter of fact, a number of German entrepreneurs argued in favor of increasing food rations for the slave laborers. They did not do this out of the kindness of their hearts. The effort to needed to guard people in a factory is also much bigger if they sense that they will soon starve if they don't escape from their present position, than if they are given sufficient food.

 

[esl]

Thank you very much indeed, esl, this is very much the kind of information I am looking for. Could you kindly tell me your sources? I knew that a Freiburg professor of economics, Adolf Lampe, argued for a more market based approach for the war economy (I found this in Bernhard R. Kroener, Organisation und Mobilisierung des deutschen Machtbereichs). But Freiburg is very far away from the center of power, and of course his advice went unheeded (which of course was a good thing since it might have prolongued the war). Blomberg is of course much better POD material.

I would be very grateful for an answer, thank you very much in advance for your troubles.

The conflict between Blomberg and the rest is highlighted in Diests "Rearmament and the Wehrmacht", 1981. Alot of this is duplicated and expanded upon in the first vol of "Germany and the Second World War" Vol1 translated in 1991.

Berenice carroll "Design for Total War" 1968 goes into depth on the politics of rearmament and the struggle between Schact and Thomas and later with Goering. Heres some quotes.

“Hitler never issued a directive encompassing all Wehrmacht armaments and prescribing some limitation of objectives , which would have called for at least a loose coordination of armaments programmes of the individual services, before the outbreak of war. Instead all available evidence indicates that his participation was confined to making decisions in each case solely on the basis of factors important for the service concerned. The development of naval armaments is the most striking example. In addition ,by constantly demanding acceleration of the armaments programmes of the services on the one hand and setting up new institutions important for the defense economy on the other, Hitler greatly intensified competition among the services.”

Deist etal : Germany and the Second World War, pp 506.



“ Such an order could only be filled if the production methods were radically changed. With the decisive help of one of their directors Koppenberg, Junkers developed the so called ‘ABC-Programme’ in the following months under which mass production of the Junkers 52 was begun around the end of the year. In this programme a number of small firms supervised by Junkers produced individual parts . Only the final assembly of the aircraft was done in the factory at Dessau. This represented a decisive step in the efficient organization of supply firms and at the same time marked the beginning of the co-operation among aircraft producers, who until then had jealously guarded their independence….In this way Secretary Milch and the technical office of the ministry of aviation under Colonel Wimmer , working in close co-operation with the producers , laid the foundation for the Luftwaffe build-up in a surprisingly short time.”
[“German and the Second World War”, Deist , pp 488].



“The navy followed the same course as the Luftwaffe and insisted on independently carrying out its own measures. As chief of the navy command, Raeder sought and established contact with Hitler from the beginning in the interest of his own rearmament plans. At the end of June 1934 he bypassed Blomberg and obtained Hitler’s approval for important changes in the planning of ship construction. The net result of these developments was that Blomberg’s attempt as commander in chief of the Wehrmacht to organize and define the build up and expansion of the armed forces within the framework of his own authority failed as early as the autumn of 1934.”

“Blomberg’s difficult relation to Goering , who was far more powerful politically , is not in itself an adequate explanation of this failure. Next to the consolidation of the regime at home, rearmament was given absolute priority within the framework of Hitler’s policies, consequently , intervention on his part to achieve a coordinated rearmament of the Wehrmacht would certainly have been conceivable. But he did not intervene-quite the contrary…We can only observe that in this most important area for conduct of future wars, the Wehrmacht idea suffered its first and , in the final analysis, decisive defeat”

Deist etal ; “Germany and the Second World War”, pp 512.



Berenice Carroll [“Design for Total War , Arms and Economics in the Third Reich 1968, pp76] clarifies further on the impact of this when he writes.

“Blombergs position was much weakened by the fact that not only Goring , but also the Commanders in chief of the Army and Navy who resisted his authority. The army , tradtitionally the mainstay an dominant element of Germany’s armed forces , was resentful of any superior military agency , imposing itself between the army and the Supreme Commamder.Since the assention of Hitler, however, a sharp divergence had developed between the ministry and the Army High Command. This divergence centered upon the political split between the ‘pro-Nasis’ in the War Ministry and the ‘anti-Naziz’ , or less enthusiastic in the Army High Command. Blomberg who was Hitlers appointee and Blombers chief of Staff von Reichenau, were both committed to the cause of National Socialism. In 1933 Hitler had tried to put Reichenau in charge of the army , but was over ruled by Hindenburg, who appointed a non-Nazi General von Fritsch, instead. … The political split was extrabated by personel rivalries , Reichenau surely not forgetting that Fritsch had displaced him, and the army leaders generally despising Blomberg and Reichenau. Further more the navy , though long accustomed to playing second fiddle to the army , was quick to emulate both army and airforce in adopting a line of aggressive self interest.”

In short Hitler’s failure to enable Von Blomberg’s authority as C in C of the Wehrmacht in the area of critical rearmament programmes , probably cost Germany the war. Later in 1940/41, Reich minister Todt tried again to set up centralized ministerial committees to rationalize armaments production to increase out put, but again the stifling bureaucracy squashed his efforts.

If one looks for a common features in the rearmament of the three service branches of the Wehrmacht, an institution comes to mind which unlike the isolated programmes of the army , the navy and the Luftwaffe , vigorously advocated a coordination of armaments measures: the war economy staff of Colonel (later major general) Thomas. It had developed from the supply staff of the army ordnance office [ed ; Liese] and played a key role in the organization of the first two rearmament programmes. In November 1934 it was integrated under an alternative name as a department into the Wehrmacht office.
Deist etal Germany and the Second World War, pp507.

Thomas ‘concentrated on economic aspects of preparing and waging war’ . The aim was to integrate the lessons of WW-I ‘that economic warfare was as important as traditional armed conflict’. He reasoned that if the economies of the country were decisive ‘they ought to be systematically inventoried’ and ‘peace time rearmament ought to be integrated into this system of economic war preparations’. Thomas’s department worked the conferences tirelessly preaching this message. But the failure to achieve such integration of economy for war was not Thomas’s departments failure, ‘the primary reason was the refusal of the services to subordinate their own armaments programmes to the guidelines and directives of a single Wehrmacht office’. The effect of Thomas department was limited to consulting and because of ‘uncertain authority’, ‘the influence on development of the only agency that attempted to achieve a coordination of the Wehrmacht armaments programmes must be described as limited’ [Deist etal, pp507].

“The occasional conferences among their representatives did not lead to any coordination of the innumerable armaments claims. In spite of his official authority, Blomberg was not able to assert himself against Goering and Raeder and seems to have given up the attempt at a very early stage. The only feature the armaments programmes of the Wehrmacht services seem to have had in common was Hitler’s approval. As we have seen , he himself exercised no coordinating influence.”

“The dimensions and structure of the rearmament of the Wehrmacht as a whole were thus determined solely by the programmes of the individual services , whose objectives were in turn dominated by their respective , divergent ideas concerning the conduct of a European war on two or more fronts . Moreover the dimensions of the programmes were constantly expanded by Hitler’s demands that they be speeded up. The only limiting factors in an otherwise unrestrained rearmament were the serious shortages of militarily important raw materials, beginning in the second half of 1936, which finally forced the introduction of the allotment quotas, the general economic bottlenecks after 1937 , and the financial difficulties after the end of the Mefo-bills system in the spring of 1938. Hitler had not as he claimed in the Reichstag on 1 September 1939, worked for six years building up the Wehrmacht . Rather , as chancellor and as supreme commander, he had neglected the idea of the Wehrmacht as a unifying force and done his best to promote an uncoordinated expansion of he individual services.”

Deist etal Germany and the Second World War, pp508.




“Consequently , the capacity for producing armaments was not exploited to the full; when , on the eve of collapse in 1945, Speer summed up his period of office as minister of armaments and munitions he came to the conclusion that if the civilian population had been pressed at an early stage, as it had been in Britain , for example , the out put figures of 1944 could have been achieved as early as 940/1”

Deist “The German Military in the Age of Total War” pp 62

Deist “The German Military in the Age of Total War” pp 62

Quote:
"By 1936 the rearmament efforts of the Third Reich had reached a scale which allowing for the country's over all economic needs, seemed just about feasible -at least from the point of view of the minister of economic affairs. In all his calculations and measures Schacht had always proceeded from the view 'that the productive capacity of the economy represented the natural limits of rearmament', and this he thought had been reached, if not exceeded by 1936. The war economy had arrived at a point where a decision had to be made between either slowing down the pace of rearmament in favor of intensified export effort- a decision which would have been justifiable , seeing that the war preparations were general rather than specifically aimed at a fixed date- or maintaining the rearmament drive at an undiminished pace, though at the expense of the population , of the maintenance and development of the party machine and of construction of ostentatious public buildings."

"A third option finally was the tightening up of rearmament production by aiming at a limited strategic objective at the earliest possible moment .A decision along these lines , which would have required intensified economic dirigisme was beginning to take shape in the spring of 1936. 'To ensure further militerization' Hitler therefore instructed Goering at the beginning of April to 'examine and order all necessary measures in governmental and Party institutions"


“Germany and the Second world war” Vol-1 section two [translated 1990] written by Hans Erich Volkmann. pp 273
Schacht declared to Hitler that
Quote:
"the economy itself and more especially industry and the banks bear the burden" [Hitler doubted this could be done ] " Even if such doubts were unfounded , the fact remained that any in depth rearmament oriented towards the concept of total war, could not have been satisfactorily completed until the mid 1940s. For Hitler this would have mean't an intolerable postponement of his plans. This the Furher was not willing to contemplate in 1936 . Instead he was determined to pursue his overall ambitions single mindedly in the future and , whenever possible, to exploit any shifts in the European balance of Power (such as might arise , for instance, in the course of the Spanish Civil war) to pursue his own hegemonistic ambitions on the Continent, even though he had not yet decided on the sequence of his thrusts-France or living space in the east. What mattered then was the pursuit of an economic policy which would make it possible to create within a foreseeable period an operational, numerically large, effective army, with modern equipment , capable of successful operations in campaigns limited in both time and space"
“Germany and the Second world war” Vol-1 section two [translated 1990] written by Hans Erich Volkmann. pp 276-277


Quote:
Hence forward the war economy , in view of the existing situation , was to be guided by the requirements of what was later to be called the Blitzkrieg . Effectively this meant the concentration of efforts on the material equipment of the armed forces , ie the neglect of in depth rearmament in favor of rearmament in breadth. It also meant the intensification of economic efforts to render possible an early operational employment of the Wehrmacht ; this to be ensured by an enlarged economic administrative machine furnished with extended powers.

“Germany and the Second world war” Vol-1 section two [translated 1990] written by Hans Erich Volkmann. pp 277


Quote:
" In his view [Hitlers] no country could succeed in 'stockpile up in advance the quantities of raw materials needed for war", He therefore emphatically demanded that full economic mobilization should neglect long term stockpiling and confine itself to sufficient armaments , equipment and food supplies" .

“Germany and the Second world war” Vol-1 section two [translated 1990] written by Hans Erich Volkmann. pp 278

Thus in the words of Berendice Carroll [pp100-101]
”Hitler was never concerned with building up reserves whether of arms raw materials or foodstuffs so that Germany could endure a long war, because Hitler never meant to fight a long war.”…. “Thus Hitlers economic policy for Germany was to accelerate Germany’s ‘armaments in Breadth’ without imposing any stringent restraints or cut backs on the civilian economy, because he planned a type of wafare which could be fought ‘without regard for reserves’" .



Sorry for the length of these but I think they are important points in trying to understand the confused muddle that typified the reamament phase of Germany history.


http://www.ata.boun.edu.tr/ehes/Istanbul%20Conference%20Papers-%20May%202005/Budrass_Scherner_Streb_Jun05.pdf




Adam Tooze is another good modern source of information .

http://www.hist.cam.ac.uk/academic_staff/further_details/tooze-arming-reich.pdf

the Excel file for this paper is at

http://www.hist.cam.ac.uk/academic_staff/further_details/wages-of-destruction.html

It promts you to select the updated file or no. I found I could not down load the 'updated file'

 

[Wozza]

T
Thus in the words of Berendice Carroll [pp100-101]
”Hitler was never concerned with building up reserves whether of arms raw materials or foodstuffs so that Germany could endure a long war, because Hitler never meant to fight a long war.”…. “Thus Hitlers economic policy for Germany was to accelerate Germany’s ‘armaments in Breadth’ without imposing any stringent restraints or cut backs on the civilian economy, because he planned a type of wafare which could be fought ‘without regard for reserves’" .

Esl, thank you for posting in such detail.

But this is the part I must disagree with, we have plenty of quotes by Hitler about the need to prepare for a long war; and the entire Four Year Plan can be interpreted as an attempt to prepare for one..

I see no documentary evidence of a deliberate move towards the Blitzkrieg strategy in 36-39, it still seems to me to be a narrative imposed after the event - in reality there is just muddle and pressure from the top to produce "more weapons," which naturally leads to a focus on sexy weapons not borindg old munitions.

 

[Riain]

Wozza, I think the idea of the blitzkrieg economy is just an academic attempt to explain away the slap-dash way Hitler and the Nazis ran the German war effort. As if bad planning and up-down procurement were an actual plan, rather than the result of government by dickheads. With quality central direction, resource allocation, prioritisation and addressing bottlenecks and other problems the German economy c/should have produced twice of what Britain did after 1940, the industrial base was there.