It certainly was the dominant factor in Europe.
You're entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts. The dominant factor was Germany fighting a multi-front war against multiple major opponents, each of which outnumbered her alone; it is no mystery that the Soviet 'skillz revival' happened right as the Luftwaffe was being pulled off to other fronts and Germany was facing US forces on the ground.
At the start of 1944, strategic bombing had not shattered their economy, the Luftwaffe was not yet massacred, and most of their forces were in the east. They were still losing massively.
I didn't say it had completed it by January 1st 1944, but over the course of 1944 inflicted fatal damage to it; in 1943 it had struck serious wounds on the economy that were felt into 1944, the Ruhr bombing for instance blunting any growth in armaments production for months, which Tooze describes in detail in his book.
It was not gone. It was depleted, but not remotely gone. As late as 1945, German troops were still receiving equipment that had been taken from Western Europe in 1940. Until late into 1944, French, Low Countries, and Balkan mines worked for Germany, as did their factories. French, Low Countries, and Balkan slave labor worked in German factories in enormous numbers.
Scrapping the bottom of the barrel in 1945 to dredge up some obsolete gear to fight a war that was already over is hardly proof of the importance of Western European resources. Captured fuel was used up by the end of 1941, raw material stocks were as well, France and Western Europe yielded food through 1944, but most of that was used to feed the occupied peoples and occupying forces; remove the need to occupy Western Europe and you lose the need for the vast majority of the weapons used, plus Hitler building up a bunch of new divisions for planned use on other fronts instead of supplying the forces in the East during Barbarossa.
Without war with anyone but the Soviets the barter agreements with the Lowlands, Balkans, Latin America, Baltic States, etc. continue while the need to maintain as large an army as IOTL is not needed. Not having to conquer and occupy Yugoslavia would be a HUGE boon (same with not having to conquer France and lose the Battle of Britain) in terms of resources saved, which were not offset by the gains of conquest, especially as the insurgency in the Balkans and Western Europe grew and threats grew with the recovery of the British and entry of the US.
Before Germany conquered Europe workers from foreign countries, especially the Dutch, Italians, and various Balkans people worked in Germany on contracts because pay was better; without war that would continue (the Italians continued working in Germany, but the flow of workers was cut off by the entry of Italy in the war and the need for that labor at home IOTL).
Except yes they did. German imports crashed in spring of 1939, with concurrent impact on German production: the Luftwaffe's aluminum access fell by 2/3rds and copper to a measly 1/5th. (Adam Tooze, "The Wages of Destruction," pp. 304-305). Overall German ammunition production had fallen to a mere 25% of 1938 levels by the summer of 1939, again, due to resource shortages. (Tooze, p. 314). Tank, artillery, and small arms production tell similar stories. All told, German currency reserves on the eve of war were only enough to finance 1/10 of their peacetime imports (H.E. Volkmann, The National Socialist Economy in Preparation for War, Pg 365).
Did you totally ignore the article (from 1938 BTW) I posted about how the Germans were mostly not financing imports with cash? They had a series of barter agreements to get around the cash crunch, which were actually more effective at leveraging weaker economies into being permanent raw material suppliers to Germany at an unfavorable rate. Beyond that new evidence demonstrated that claims about cash stocks being low was exaggerated, which was even then bolstered by Czech gold taken in March 1939. That and the Czech raw materials, military equipment, and industry. Much like Poland would yield once they were occupied and exploited, including their labor, as the Poles were an important source of farm labor and agricultural goods, a major import item.
Tooze doesn't really explain how then the Luftwaffe production rapidly recovered and expanded beyond previous highs as soon as war was declared (show on Tooze's chart P.305), but before Poland was conquered/exploited and certainly many months before France was able to be plundered. With the lack of need for naval construction, huge savings were already present there, same with being able to cut back on civilian air defense spending if war with the west wasn't on the table. Then goes on to talk about how important the trade deal with Romania was in 1939, which supplied Germany with resources on barter rather than paid with cash.
Also on P.333 Tooze has a chart showing imported industrial inputs to Germany, which were rising and peaked in August 1939, collapsing due to the start of the war and blockade, never thereafter rising to pre-war levels. Even at the peak of importing during the war from I assume occupied countries and the Soviet trade deal pre-1941, it was only 80% of the pre-war importing peak. It fell from January 1941 on throughout the rest of the war, despite German war production increasing from 1941 on to all time highs; 1944 was as low or lower an import bottom as January 1940, but production in 1944 was at an all time high. How the hell did that work if pre-war the import situation was collapsing as Tooze claims, and the peak import period after the war started ended by January 1941?
Per your claims that would have ONLY been a period of collapsing production rather than increasing output as actually happened IOTL throughout 1940-44.
Tooze:
As Tooze himself says the German economy not only avoided economic collapse, but was able to increase war output to new highs. War with the Soviets isn't going to change that especially with being able to cancel OTL naval construction, avoid the losses in the war with Britain, not face blockade, not lose access to barter deals outside of Europe, not lose trade from nations like the Baltic states, and so on.
Which was all a drop in the bucket. Not even enough to replace German losses to Poland. Again: they had to tap into their emergency reserves for that.
Tooze shows that despite all those losses, pre-France invasion outputs only increased despite imports utterly collapsing:
And yet not remotely as important as the combined labor pools they got out of Western Europe, Southern Europe, and the USSR. Germany loses out on all of those first two and even the gross majority of the last one (owing to picking up only a fraction of the land, along with ).
Without war they could continue to contract foreign labor as they had been pre-war and they were during the war, especially from Italy. Slave labor wasn't particularly good, especially considering the sabotage of material rates, but in huge bulk it had utility; the thing is without needing to fight any other conflict but the Eastern Front they didn't need the huge bulk of slave labor used IOTL. Depending on how far they get and how many Soviet soldiers they capture, much of that labor would still be available.
Compared to France? Yeah it did. Not enough to even make up for the Germans own losses fighting Poland.
Got some numbers to show things one way or the other? Don't forget to factor in the costs associated with occupying France, feeding it (both food and industry), defending it, and dealing with the resistance.
Germany didn't even attempt to feed all of Europe for years. Had they done so, they would have collapsed years earlier. They mostly let Europe starve. Such draconian measures were precisely how the Germans managed to squeeze out the maximum of Western Europe over the next four years: by exporting the hardship onto occupied territories. The expenses of occupation only outpaced the costs in the later years of the war, as did defenses. And besides, the Germans are still gonna have to hold back huge forces against the Soviets to guard against a Anglo-French attack anyways. Without all the loot from Western Europe, Germany won't even have a strategic reserve by 1941, much less later.
In 1944 they let them starve in the west; in most of Europe they did actually feed most people for most of the war except in parts of Poland and the USSR per the Generalplan Ost; in Poland Poles and Jews were fed, though very little; more was rationed for the Poles than the Jews, while Poles working for the Germans were able to get more, which apparently led to a large number of Poles signing up to work in Germany where there was enough food, but terrible treatment. So while Poland isn't going to meet Germany's needs on it's own, it would have been a huge help due to it's surpluses, that is what existed naturally from production and the artificial 'surpluses' created by enacting the Hunger Plan in the General Government area. That genocidal policy then means reduced import requirements compared to the pre-war period and increased long term sustainability of the war effort against the Soviets.
Without Italy being in the war there is also the possibility to source labor and food from Italy, like Germany did with Spain during WW2:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spain_during_World_War_II#Resources_and_trade
https://books.google.com/books?id=Y...wDg#v=onepage&q=spain German ww2 food&f=false
But again Germany can continue it's barter agreements internationally without the blockade.
Plus the ex-pat German communities around the world sent Germany food during the war, but were cut off by the blockade eventually:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockade_of_Germany_(1939–1945)#Gruss_und_Kuss
Gruss und Kuss
From the war's beginning, a steady stream of packages, many marked
Gruss und Kuss ("greetings and kisses!") had been sent from the United States through neutral countries to Germany by a number of US-based organisations, euphemistically termed 'travel agencies', advertising special combinations of gift packages in German-language newspapers.
[30] Despite high prices, one mail company, the Fortra Corporation of Manhattan admitted it had sent 30,000 food packages to Germany in less than three months, a business which exceeded
US$1 million per year. The British said that, of 25,000 packages examined in three months, 17,000 contained contraband of food items as well as cash in all manner of foreign currency, diamonds, pearls, and maps of "potential military value." When a ton of air mail from the
Pan American Airlines (PAA) flying boat
American Clipper was confiscated in
Bermuda, the American government banned outright the sending of parcels through the US airmail. During this period, the Italian
Lati Airline, flying between South America and Europe was also used to smuggle
[31] small articles such as diamonds and platinum, in some cases, concealed within the airframe, until the practice was ended by the Brazilian and US governments and the airline's assets in Brazil confiscated after the
British intelligence services in the Americas engineered a breakdown in relations between the airline and the Brazilian government. The US travel agencies were eventually closed down along with the German consulates and information centres on 16 June 1941.
During the early months of the war—the
Phoney War—the only place where there was any real fighting was at sea.
[4] News of the successes achieved by the men of Contraband Control were rarely out of the newspapers, and provided useful propaganda to shore up civilian morale. In the first 15 weeks of the war the Allies claimed to have taken 870,000 tons of goods, equal to 10% of Germany's normal imports for an entire year. This included 28 million US gallons (110,000 m3) of petrol and enough animal hides for 5 million pairs of boots, and did not take account of the loss to Germany from goods that had not been shipped at all for fear of seizure.
There would be no need to also rely on the Soviets to transship materials for them either to get around the blockade:
the Soviets – 'Belligerent Neutrals' in Churchill's words – also accepted large quantities of wheat, tin, petrol and rubber from America into its ports in the Arctic and Black Sea and, rather than transport them over the entire continent, released identical volumes of the same material to Germany in the west.
Plus Germany was still exporting even after the war started IOTL in 1939 and trade was still extremely valuable, so without blockade and war a lot of revenue can be raised even if not to finance pre-war levels of imports:
From early December 1939 the British began preventing German exports as a reprisal for the damage and loss of life caused by the German magnetic mines.
[32]
Before the war, 70% of Germany's export trade was with European countries, mostly the Netherlands, France and England, but the Ministry estimated that Germany's remaining annual exports were worth £44m to South America, £19m to the Far East, £15m to the US, and that although nothing could be done to prevent the overland exports to Scandinavia, Italy, Russia and the Balkans, it was believed that German sea trade could be reduced by 45% by the measure.
Regardless of that Germany was still able to buy in 1940 via friendly neighbors:
A third of Dutchmen derived their livelihood from German trade, and Dutch traders were long suspected of acting as middle men in the supply of copper, tin, oil and
industrial diamonds from America. Official figures showed that in the first 5 months of war, the Netherlands' imports of key materials from the US increased by £4.25m, but also Norway's purchases in the same area increased threefold to £3m a year, Sweden's by £5m and Switzerland's by £2m. Prominent in these purchases were cotton, petrol, iron, steel and copper – materials essential for waging war. While some increases may have been inflationary, some from a desire to build up their own armed forces or to stockpile reserves, it was exactly the type of activity the Ministry was trying to prevent.
During the last 4 months of 1939, exports from the USA to the 13 states capable of acting as middlemen to Germany amounted to £52m compared to £35m for the same period in 1938. According to a writer in the
New York World Telegram, exports to the 8 countries bordering Germany exceeded the loss of US exports previously sent directly to Germany.
The Germans actually don't have to hold back huge forces against France and Britain, mainly because both of those powers don't want the Soviets to win the war and because their mobilization would take time and give time to properly man defenses. Like throughout the Polish campaign the western border could be held with old conscripts unfit for campaigning with old equipment on the West Wall in case the Allies declared war for whatever reason.
Much of the expenses of fighting Britain, along with the naval, air, defense of Europe, invasion of the Balkans, fighting in the Mediterranean, and even fighting the Soviet Union was financed by the loot from Western Europe. Not being blockaded doesn't mean anything if one doesn't have the cash to import anyways and can't afford to spare anything for export. Fighting the USSR took up overwhelming German resources, which themselves were greatly inflated by the capture of Western Europe.
Some of it was...in 1940-41. But some of it was from Germany (not to mention all the manpower other than Italy) and beyond 1941 nearly all of it was from Germany. All that could be saved without having to fight, while the gains from continuing to export and import would be enormously more beneficial than fighting off of looted stockpiles that didn't even meet usage needs.
Germany was still exporting in 1939 and beyond, including to the USSR and various other states with barter agreements with Germany; Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden among others were dependent on German coal for their electrical networks and they actively aided German trade to get around the blockade before May 1940.
Fighting the USSR never took the majority of German resources or even manpower if you factor in all the Wehrmacht personnel in uniform, but not deployed to the East. "How the War Was Won" p.23 has tables showing that the bulk of armaments and especially ammunition were allocated to the air force and navy, the vast majority of which were fighting the Wallies throughout the war except for a period in 1941 for the air force.
Compared to what the Germans were getting, what they had to export, most of which wasn't even sent, was a pittance. The IOTL trade deals were grossly favorable to Germany. In the end, any of the theoretical savings on those exports gets swallowed up by the industrial demands of actually fighting the Soviets, exactly as happened IOTL. The latter was exorbitantly more expensive then the former.
190 million RM imports from the USSR, 90 Million exports to the USSR. The Soviets in large part were just making up for the loss of Baltic imports when they took over that region (90m RM per year pre-war). The results of getting needed industrial inputs would result in much more war material outputs in terms of value than they'd spend getting the inputs. Plus all the capacity not used up building naval and other materials used IOTL to fight the Wallies can be used for exports to raise money for raw material imports, while specializing war industry for volume production of land war materials for the East, which Germany was not able to do IOTL due to the multi-front war the were fighting, all on what they could produce themselves (not import) or loot. Theoretical savings gets turned into exports to get much more quality raw material imports; beyond that it allows for savings by not having to build up as much synthetic materials industry, as they can import rubber and natural oil instead of having to make only synthetic versions. That a lot of extra coal, iron/steel, and chemicals they can export.
History demonstrates that a Germany even fully mobilized couldn't survive and that is with the massive loot, industrial and otherwise, from Western Europe.
Against the British Empire, the USA, the USSR, and various assorted allies, plus the partisan movements. ITTL we're only talking about fighting the USSR alone, not the rest of the entire United Nations plus occupied nations. Plus of course the loot taken from occupied Europe never approached what Germany was importing pre-war, nor did it even approach offsetting the cost of war spending for even a single year.
Any export program would be quite dependent on British, US, and French cooperation as much of the economic activity went through them. This was recognized by German economists in the pre-war, which is why the proponents of an export emphasized good relations with those countries. Most other countries simply were not wealthy enough to otherwise make up for it. By 1939, the Anglo-French and American governments were already engaged in active economic warfare with Germany. That rogue corporates acted without their consent and against their interests does not change that. Neither France or Britain needed German trade nor did they "go out of their way to help" Germany, something neither of your links even claim much less demonstrate. I’m fact, the latter link says the opposite of everything you’ve been claiming to the point I wonder if you even bothered to read it, given as it says that both German overall exports had been in constant decline from 1932 onwards while imports rose up from 1936 through to 1938, a clear indication of a country burning through it’s currency reserves, before starting to decline in January 1939 (the article doesn’t cover any further, when imports start to fall off a cliff).
Not really, there was plenty of other nations to trade with besides them; it was easier to trade with neighbors right next door, but if there wasn't war, blockade, and expensive economical warfare then they aren't stopping trade around the world. Good relations with major trade partners in a pre-war context is different than wartime trade. The financial problems of the war will hit Germany hard once the war is over, but during the war there are plenty of workarounds to keep the war going at full tilt, especially as the war against the Soviets would only cost a fraction of what was necessary IOTL to also fight the US and UK. Plus friendly neutrals can transship, like the Netherlands, Norway, Italy, Spain, etc.
Also the Brits and French don't like the Soviets either, so don't want to see them win and overrun Germany; having to deal with Hitler was bad enough to them, having to deal with a victorious Stalin dominating Central Europe was unacceptable. Leaving Germany alone to ruin herself fighting to a stalemate while crippling Stalin was about the best possible outcome for the French and Brits.
The 1939 economic trade policies of the French, British, and US were nowhere near active trade war; they were defensive moves to defend their trade markets. Per Tooze's table German imports in August 1939 were the highest they had in the pre-war period, so it's not really obvious that any such policy of peacetime 'active economic warfare' was doing anything.
Adam Tooze, Wages of Destruction goes into extensive details. Some of the material for the Atlantic Walls, and literally every other part of the Germany War effort, came from Germany. Some of it came from France, Belgium, the Netherlands, the Low Countries, or the Balkans. Some of it came from Germany, but the raw materials and manpower to make them came from France, Belgium, the Netherlands, the Low Countries, or the Balkans.
And any of it from Germany would have been totally saved. None of it would have been necessary. Same with the FLAK towers, Subpens, etc.
Your claims of Germany's economic state in 1939 simply bear no relation to the actual reality: They were in AWFUL shape in 1939 even before the war began and had they not achieved such an easy victory against France, total economic implosion would have occurred by 1941 regardless of how blockaded they were. A protracted fight against the Soviets would have seen them collapse as assuredly as one against the Anglo-French.
Except Tooze actually demonstrates otherwise. Despite never even getting close to pre-war imports except for a very short period at the end of 1940, the German war economy did not implode at all, rather it only continued to increase output despite the damage of the strategic air war and collapsed imports. At the point that imports were the lowest German war output was the highest (in 1944). How does your argument make sense then? Certainly looting did help, but it never even came close to approaching pre-war imports and even at it's very peak from September 1940-December 1940 was only 80% of pre-war import levels; after that importing collapsed to a tiny fraction of pre-war imports, yet Germany was still able to increase output in all categories from 1939 on (before the occupation of western Europe) and even after burning up the loot in 1941 and losing Soviet trade (the war in the East cost vastly more than they ever got from looting Eastern Europe...actually same with the war in the West vs. the looting of Western Europe).