We all know about the rivalry between the various Nazi potentates. Goering in his position as boss of the Four Year Plan, Schacht and later Funk in charge of the Economics Ministry, and not the least Todt and Speer as leaders of the Armaments Ministry. We saw how Germany's inefficiencies helped to bring it to ruin as the various organizations and ministries jostled for power, profit and pillage. How could the German economy have been better organized?
How could Germany's economy have been better organized in World War 2?
- Thread starter Praetor98
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Lucius Verus
Banned
Well then it wouldn't be Nazi Germany no? The system was the natural result of Hitler's vague and often contradictory hands off management style combined with a lack of oversight and focus on sycophants and divide on conquer. if Himmler and Goring dies then expect Hitler to appoint more underlings to prevent power consolidating with a rival .Corruption, mismanagement and constant paranoia (real and WWI legacy) dramatically shackled a state with the industry of mainland Europe at its hands.
Much of that was deliberate on the part of Hitler. What if he created the Armaments Ministry earlier? Who could have managed it best?
McPherson
Banned
Were German tanks over engineered? - Page 2 - Axis History ...
My point of view is that would have been perfect (1940 inflicted instead of 1945.) before the Berlin Maniac and his associated scumbags and co-villains murdered over 38 million innocent human beings in his wars of aggression and assorted genocides.
McP.
Attachments
Wasn't Todt the one who warned Hitler that he couldn't play soldier for too much longer?
He also died rather unexpectedly in an aircraft explosion not too long after that, IIRC :-/
Lucius Verus
Banned
Fritz was better, Speer did some branding and claimed the glory for projects initiated before (note that it was called a panther/tiger instead of continuing the naming convention of incrementing Panzer mark x). When things went to hell in 1944, he was unable to slow the German economic collapse and spent considerable effort at deflecting blame all the way to the end of the Nuremberg trials (worked out as he got early parole while most others his level were executed).
BlackDragon98
Banned
There are some who say that Speer had a hand in Fritz's death, because he refused to take the same plane as Fritz when they were going to a meeting.
BlackDragon98
Banned
But he wasn't executed, because he sweet-talked his way to a prison sentence when he should have hung like the others for his role in the Holocaust.
Speer was guilty of horrible acts and the fact that he got away managing a slave empire with 20 years while Hess got life is madness. But that’s not the point. German economy could have indeed produced more but to what end? Say it could produce tens of thousands of tanks more. What do you fuel them with? Rubber was so scarce that destroyed trucks and those that had to be abandoned were under strict orders to scavenge rubber off of. They sent submarines on cross oceanic trips for tiny shipments of rubber. German fighters had worse performance not because German designers had no clue about turbochargers or high octane fuel but because high octane fuel was an impossibility. Rocket development program is widely decried as a waste yet budget for it was relatively small and it didn’t require oil or other scarce resources to produce. Would Soviets have still made 80000 T-34s if they lost the oil fields? Would America relly on out producing the enemy if it was target of constant bombing raids? Looking at things like production, quality etc in a vacuum is wrong. No one entered the war with a desire to lose it. Economics included. They are a product of specific circuimstances that produced it and more often than not when an inferior decision was made it generally had a reason to it
That's the part I was most interested in. Had there been a Reich Ministry of Armaments and War Production early on, could the German economy have better compensated for the early shortfalls such as gasoline production, coal production, etc?
Why do you always bring morality into tangentially related threads about administrative inefficiency? Yes, we know well that the Nazis and Stalin were evil. You don't have to tell us about it every time something related to Nazi Germany or the USSR are discussed. It's honestly getting obnoxious. You're treating us like children.
Were German tanks over engineered? - Page 2 - Axis History ...
My point of view is that would have been perfect (1940 inflicted instead of 1945.) before the Berlin Maniac and his associated scumbags and co-villains murdered over 38 million innocent human beings in his wars of aggression and assorted genocides.
McP.
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They could have coordinated better to prepare for the war. However you have a problem when you don’t know when it will start exactly. To Raeder Hitler promised no war until mid 40s and Raeder prepared accordingly. Hitler himself miscalculated and didn’t think Britain and France would be willing to go to war over Poland. So in that regard the stockpiling of resources may have been increased but it would not be in sufficient quantities for war in 1939 unless someone from the future tells Hitler when war would start and even then its questionable if he would tell anyone that due to fear of leaks.
Could Germany have produced more tanks and such? Certainly. It couldn’t fuel them however so that would be a waste considering the incredible pace of armor development over the few years of the war, what was state of the art in 39 was practically a death sentence to climb into in 43 or 44.
Can Germany produce more fighters? Yes. It still couldn’t produce high performance ones like Mustang because it didn’t have access to high quality high octane fuel.
Can Germany have more trucks? No. They require rubber and armaments ministry in 41 or 42 recommended further demotorization of Wehrmacht due to lack of it. Germans used horses for a reason.
What armaments ministry could have done is enforced standardization from day one, and made weapons development projects based around economy’s capability to support it and manage it resource wise. No sturmtiger, earlier E program etc.
That is objectively false. Morality and efficiency are separate, and you know it. If morality determines effectiveness, why did the highly immoral Wehrmacht win so much in the early war?