they could have probably done so within credit agreements signed with Soviets? but likely they have to receive LESS oil?
IF Germany had further built out their synthetic oil program or perhaps discovered some of their own and Austrian oilfields (or combination of both) they could have altered the mix of what they traded from Soviets?
do not know if it starves the Soviets into collapse, as that is the real question? it is probably likelier than starving them of oil by capture or bombing.
Or they will need to export much more tech. I posted some time ago Soviet German trade balances from 1939 to 1941. It were interesting numbers. Definitely Germans were not getting stuff for free.
The German economy in 1939 is a train wreck. Everything is being channelled into war industries and even they are experiencing shortages. The Wehrmacht is cannibalizing the civilian economy to arm itself. If Germany could have persuaded the Soviets to supply them on credit they would almost certainly have done so IOTL. The Soviets however were perfectly well aware of Germany’s lack of solvency, they were never going to offer to trade on credit and Germany was buying all it could afford.
The real problem for Germany as far as food supply goes is the collapse of its own agriculture. Shortages of imported fertilizer and animal feed, the syphoning off of farm labour to factories and the military, and the fundamental inefficiencies of a system based on small family farms all conspired to create a situation that isn’t going to be fixed by buying a bit less oil and a bit more grain from the USSR.
Really?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German–Soviet_Credit_Agreement_(1939) the first "baby steps" agreement
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German–Soviet_Commercial_Agreement_(1940) "Between January 1940 and date of the German invasion, the total Soviet export to Germany estimated at 597.9 million Reichsmarks. The German deliveries accounted as 437.1 million Reichsmarks." (unfinished cruiser was 104m RM of German deliveries)
final trade agreement signed
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German–Soviet_Border_and_Commercial_Agreement amounts of grain vs. oil "During both the first period of (February 11, 1940 to February 11, 1941) and the second (February 11, 1941 until the Pact was broken), Germany received massive quantities of raw materials, including over 1,600,000 tons of grains ...900,000 tons of oil"
my point was NOT to remedy the ills of Nazi economic problems and NOT that the Soviets would ("what the hell") finance their trade, but that under the historical
credit agreements, the only way to obtain more grain would be to obtain LESS oil.