How would you actually defeat and conquer the USSR during WW2?

[Deleted member 97083]

The Nazis wouldn't be Nazis if they really fought a war of liberation for the easter Sowjet Republics, but they might pretend to do so: Come as liberators and immediately shoot all senior party members. Since under Stalin every leader is a senior party member, this means that they cannot govern themselves effectively so they get some "help" by the NSDAP.
And once the USSR is defeated, they show their real face...
It gives me a cold shiver how well this could have worked out.

Wouldn't this break the trust of Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria, to see German allies marked for annihilation?

 

[sloreck]

Anybody who truly trusted the Germans/Nazis was stupid or delusional or both. As long as places like Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria are making themselves useful for the Nazis, which includes either killing or turning over the Jews to the Nazis. OTL when the Nazis felt that the governments of King Carol in Romania & Adm Horthy in Hungary were wavering they helped the local fascist movements oust them and take over the governments - this is also when those countries went beyond simply making life shit for the Jews but shipped them off to the Nazis and death.

 

[Asp]

The Nazis wouldn't be Nazis if they really fought a war of liberation for the easter Sowjet Republics, but they might pretend to do so: Come as liberators and immediately shoot all senior party members. Since under Stalin every leader is a senior party member, this means that they cannot govern themselves effectively so they get some "help" by the NSDAP.
And once the USSR is defeated, they show their real face...
It gives me a cold shiver how well this could have worked out.

You're getting warmer, I'll give you that, but I still don't think that could have worked.

Keeping such remarkably virulent racism under a basket for a few years would have been hard enough, but the real obstacle is the German economic model and logistics. They needed to loot to keep the whole thing going; it was a plunder-based economy. If they leave the people in Ukraine, Belarus, etc. alone to the extent it would take to get them to cooperate I suspect that among other things their landsers would end up very, very malnourished.

 

[Byz]

Be the U.S, provide no Lend Lease and don't land in Europe until the Soviets successfully counterattacked. Massive military buildup as the Nazis are defeated that keeps on rolling after the Germans go. Support rebels in the Soviet Union with promises of making them Free Republics which you keep after the war.

 

[ObssesedNuker]

Accept that the scale of the Soviet Union and the logistic challenges involved means this would have to be a multi-year campaign. This would mean ramping the German war economy (which had a limited shelf life) up in 1941 with the intent of reaching full power in power 1942/43. Then the objectives of the first year of the campaign should be to cut Russia off from all outside sources of supply, while smashing as much of her army as far west as possible. Leningrad and Ukraine would be the initial objectives, not Moscow. Once these objectives are obtained, halt at the Leningrad-Smolensk-Mius line prior to winter and dig in, putting Germany in a position to maul the Russian winter offensive, and resume operations in the spring from a much more favorable position than historically.

So long as the Germans strike the same crushing hammer blow to the Soviet military as they did historically, while avoiding costly defeats due to over-extension like Moscow and Stalingrad, they actually have the power to successively and deliberately grind the Soviet Union down. The Soviet and Nazi industries were actually pretty evenly matched but the Germans gained significant advantages in key areas due to the damage they inflicted during the invasion. So long as they protect that lead, they can eventually win. The historical obsession the Germans had with finishing the Soviets off in ASAP led them to seek "quick fixes" in the East, which the Soviets were ultimately able to exploit to first survive and then turn the tide.

 

[pattersonautobody]

Accept that the scale of the Soviet Union and the logistic challenges involved means this would have to be a multi-year campaign. This would mean ramping the German war economy (which had a limited shelf life) up in 1941 with the intent of reaching full power in power 1942/43. Then the objectives of the first year of the campaign should be to cut Russia off from all outside sources of supply, while smashing as much of her army as far west as possible. Leningrad and Ukraine would be the initial objectives, not Moscow. Once these objectives are obtained, halt at the Leningrad-Smolensk-Mius line prior to winter and dig in, putting Germany in a position to maul the Russian winter offensive, and resume operations in the spring from a much more favorable position than historically.

So long as the Germans strike the same crushing hammer blow to the Soviet military as they did historically, while avoiding costly defeats due to over-extension like Moscow and Stalingrad, they actually have the power to successively and deliberately grind the Soviet Union down. The Soviet and Nazi industries were actually pretty evenly matched but the Germans gained significant advantages in key areas due to the damage they inflicted during the invasion. So long as they protect that lead, they can eventually win. The historical obsession the Germans had with finishing the Soviets off in ASAP led them to seek "quick fixes" in the East, which the Soviets were ultimately able to exploit to first survive and then turn the tide.

Wiking hacked Obsessed's account.

 

[ObssesedNuker]

Wiking hacked Obsessed's account.

Amusing. But really, anyone whose been paying attention to me for the last few years would note that I have been indicating this. I mean, admittedly my scenario is based on the assumption the Soviets make the same catastrophic mistakes they did OTL but given the Soviets own defects (many of which arose from their own assumptions and preconceptions) in this time at every level it's a fair assumption to make. If the off-chance occurs that the Soviets do dodge one of their mistakes though... well, if that happens then I (and Germany) are up the creek without a paddle.

Of course, the cold, hard economic realities that would follow such a German victory over the Soviet Union, like the devastated USSR being a net drain on German resources and German overmobilization seeing their production start to self-destruct, would make the military victory rather hallow unless the WAllies can't stomach the cost of defeating the Germans alone. If that does happen, it's rather more likely to end up like Calbear's AANW to a greater or lesser degree.

 

[sloreck]

Lend-lease came in from three sources - from Murmansk and Archangelsk, via Iran, and from Vladivostok. If the Germans cut off the northern ports (either take them or cut them off from rail access) this cuts off at least a third or more of all LL. If Moscow is taken, or the rail lines from the south seriously compromised then you are left with the Vladivostok route which depends on the Japanese allowing Soviet flagged ships to sail freely and then once it gets there it has to go over a railroad with quite limited capacity to the west where it can be used. However, German strategy and logistics do not belong in the same sentence.

 

[Gudestein]

Accept that the scale of the Soviet Union and the logistic challenges involved means this would have to be a multi-year campaign. This would mean ramping the German war economy (which had a limited shelf life) up in 1941 with the intent of reaching full power in power 1942/43. Then the objectives of the first year of the campaign should be to cut Russia off from all outside sources of supply, while smashing as much of her army as far west as possible. Leningrad and Ukraine would be the initial objectives, not Moscow. Once these objectives are obtained, halt at the Leningrad-Smolensk-Mius line prior to winter and dig in, putting Germany in a position to maul the Russian winter offensive, and resume operations in the spring from a much more favorable position than historically.

So long as the Germans strike the same crushing hammer blow to the Soviet military as they did historically, while avoiding costly defeats due to over-extension like Moscow and Stalingrad, they actually have the power to successively and deliberately grind the Soviet Union down. The Soviet and Nazi industries were actually pretty evenly matched but the Germans gained significant advantages in key areas due to the damage they inflicted during the invasion. So long as they protect that lead, they can eventually win. The historical obsession the Germans had with finishing the Soviets off in ASAP led them to seek "quick fixes" in the East, which the Soviets were ultimately able to exploit to first survive and then turn the tide.

For a 1941 plan, this seems very sensible. If you want it to be even more in Germany's favor and work as a plan not depending on Soviet stupidity, then Germany must expect to fight the major battles further East and we need to heed the calls of logistics mentioned above. Without compromising the front line capabilities.
IMHO the simplest way is to look at OTL bottlenecks that: 1) hampered German economy IOTL and 2) were fixed at least to a degree IOTL (so that they did invest in their remedy). Predicting and preventing the bottlenecks allows a more smooth, less chaotic production and the fixes can be done by moving the solutions forward (only requires prediction).
IOTL the 1933 rearmaments plan dependent on exports and was balanced by Schacht as a tight-rope Walker, but when it was modified and extended in 1936 it was clear that German requirements would supercede what could be imported. The first to suffer in 1936 was steel allocation which was more or less solved/miproved in 1936 by increasing domestic production by 3 million tons followed by a coal crisis when the steel needed to be smelted AND the synthetic fuel production got ramped up. That led to expansion of the coal mining folloed by a collapse in transportation capacity further precipitated by the army's requirements which was insufficiently, but feverishly addressed 1939-onwards.

So, had Germany realized they would accelerate the pace of rearmament they could have predicted the steel shortages and increased domestic production before 1936 and they might also then have predicted that the steel needed to be smelted and the coal transported around. These Investments could have begun from 1933-1936 when there was still a pool of unemployment and would have had the following certain effects benefitting the Germans in Barbarossa:

Enough steel to produce rails and fuel a much more continuous armaments production

A much epanded German rail Network and the possibility of improving the polish much more markedly than OTL from which the rail Network could have been profoundly and rapidly expanded into the Soviet Union (a clear necessity if they need to fight the battles further East)

Further, the steel limitations were the major factor limiting the plans for the expansion of hydrogenation plants IOTL. This would lead to much more german liquid fuel (beyond Barbarossa, this had butterflies in all sectors as diverse as better pilot training programmes, fuel for the Italians to actually become an active navy and possibility of paying the Price to get Spain on the Axis side).

The capacity to fight a multi-year campaign would make it more likely that the Germans accepted it was necessary to beat the SU

It only requires some coherent planning at the most abstract high-level. Fortunately it didnt happen.

 

[Lambtotheslaughter]

Finland allow axis troops to attack east from its soil (revenge for earlier USSR naughtyness) therefore Leningrad falls. Axis high command (Hitler) allows the Ukraine and other anti soviet forces to fight and not be treated as sub humans, also feed and don't harass the local population. Cut the rail line coming into southern USSR though Iran. Let the generals run the war WITH good logistical suppport including winter gear. And finally get Japan to attack after the soviets have moved their troops south. The soviets will be screwed and then the Nazi can re inforce the French coast making D day a very hard if not impossible.

 

[DerWonderWaffles]

Accept that the scale of the Soviet Union and the logistic challenges involved means this would have to be a multi-year campaign. This would mean ramping the German war economy (which had a limited shelf life) up in 1941 with the intent of reaching full power in power 1942/43. Then the objectives of the first year of the campaign should be to cut Russia off from all outside sources of supply, while smashing as much of her army as far west as possible. Leningrad and Ukraine would be the initial objectives, not Moscow. Once these objectives are obtained, halt at the Leningrad-Smolensk-Mius line prior to winter and dig in, putting Germany in a position to maul the Russian winter offensive, and resume operations in the spring from a much more favorable position than historically.

So long as the Germans strike the same crushing hammer blow to the Soviet military as they did historically, while avoiding costly defeats due to over-extension like Moscow and Stalingrad, they actually have the power to successively and deliberately grind the Soviet Union down. The Soviet and Nazi industries were actually pretty evenly matched but the Germans gained significant advantages in key areas due to the damage they inflicted during the invasion. So long as they protect that lead, they can eventually win. The historical obsession the Germans had with finishing the Soviets off in ASAP led them to seek "quick fixes" in the East, which the Soviets were ultimately able to exploit to first survive and then turn the tide.

Thank god you are here! All this silly talk of Germans entering as liberators and attacking early, based on on some fantasy logistics they never had. Makes we want to go over to SpaceBattles instead.

Of course, the cold, hard economic realities that would follow such a German victory over the Soviet Union, like the devastated USSR being a net drain on German resources and German overmobilization seeing their production start to self-destruct, would make the military victory rather hallow unless the WAllies can't stomach the cost of defeating the Germans alone. If that does happen, it's rather more likely to end up like Calbear's AANW to a greater or lesser degree.

How horrible would these economic realities be anyway? I hear of how it would take decades, for it to be a plus, but what would they do during those decades if no WAllies interfere anyway? How bad would the German economy do per se?

Lend-lease came in from three sources - from Murmansk and Archangelsk, via Iran, and from Vladivostok. If the Germans cut off the northern ports (either take them or cut them off from rail access) this cuts off at least a third or more of all LL. If Moscow is taken, or the rail lines from the south seriously compromised then you are left with the Vladivostok route which depends on the Japanese allowing Soviet flagged ships to sail freely and then once it gets there it has to go over a railroad with quite limited capacity to the west where it can be used. However, German strategy and logistics do not belong in the same sentence.

Yep. Everything the Germans did had to be fast and go perfectly their way or else disaster would strike.

For a 1941 plan, this seems very sensible. If you want it to be even more in Germany's favor and work as a plan not depending on Soviet stupidity, then Germany must expect to fight the major battles further East and we need to heed the calls of logistics mentioned above. Without compromising the front line capabilities.

...

The capacity to fight a multi-year campaign would make it more likely that the Germans accepted it was necessary to beat the SU
...

Problem is, the first major fault was the lack of German intelligence in identifying the number of Soviet Divisions available. They assumed they had destroyed almost all of them in the opening month of Barbarossa.

Also, the Soviet economy was very unified on what to produce and had focused creating very little models as to make it easy to supply manufacturing parts for the few models they had. Unlike the Nazi economy, which would make hundreds of models, and still have trouble agreeing on what to make, making logistical maintenance a living hell. Lack of standardization is another huge factor in what also killed them for the war.

But for them to rectify these shortcomings, the Nazis would not have to act like Nazis. Their deep rooted ideology of racism also prevented them taking their opponents seriously after the Fall of France.

 

[sarahz]

Ally with the Belorussian and Ukrainian independence movements, and all anti-Soviet forces generally, and treat them as equals.

Also invade the USSR in April 1941 instead of June 1941.

This is the key, Politics. Get enough anti communists to overthrow the government establish peace and cede independence to the Ukraine etc. Quite ironic really perhaps a sealed train and the finland station can be brought into it somehow for extra amusement.

 

[DerWonderWaffles]

This is the key, Politics. Get enough anti communists to overthrow the government establish peace and cede independence to the Ukraine etc. Quite ironic really perhaps a sealed train and the finland station can be brought into it somehow for extra amusement.

No, not really. Both his points really ignore the massive logistical and ideological constraints that go with it.

Under the ideological component, the Germans would not use the Soviet populace as extra soldiers. Their entire ideology revolved around the idea that they were superior. How will they convince the German Army to fight alongside the people they consider to be inferior? It's not easy to tell you are superior to someone for eight years, and then be told to fight alongside someone.

Also, there is NO WAY the Germans could have supported having the extra soldiers. The entire plan of Barbarossa was to loot and kill for whatever goods they had. Germany was REALLY dependent on acquiring resources and had been in a near crisis state for achieving no superb results between the Fall of France and Barbarossa. If they even tried to enter as liberators, they would have economically collapsed in 1942/43 as there would be Angry Germans complaining of food, and energy shortages. They had to kill and enslave the population to keep their economy going at a good pace in order to prevent any resentment back home.

 

[Catsmate]

1. Neutralise, by alliance, conquest or otherwise France and Britain.
2. Disrupt the internal politics of the USSR by initiating a military/NKVD/party civil war in the late 1930s.
3. Coordinate activities with Japan.
4. Make extensive use of chemical weapons, both tactically and operationally.
5. Puppetise the Baltics, Ukraine et cetera.
6. Isolate the USSR from external assistance.

 

[thaddeus]

Accept that the scale of the Soviet Union and the logistic challenges involved means this would have to be a multi-year campaign ... the objectives of the first year of the campaign should be to cut Russia off from all outside sources of supply, while smashing as much of her army as far west as possible. Leningrad and Ukraine would be the initial objectives, not Moscow.

So long as the Germans strike the same crushing hammer blow to the Soviet military as they did historically, while avoiding costly defeats due to over-extension like Moscow and Stalingrad, they actually have the power to successively and deliberately grind the Soviet Union down.

Of course, the cold, hard economic realities that would follow such a German victory over the Soviet Union, like the devastated USSR being a net drain on German resources and German overmobilization seeing their production start to self-destruct, would make the military victory rather hallow unless the WAllies can't stomach the cost of defeating the Germans alone.

how much of the equation of USSR being net drain on German resources is vastness of projected area of occupation? (and attendant problems from THAT)

meaning if you just cleave off Baltics & Greater Finland in the north and "most" of Ukraine in south (and clear Black Sea for transportation) you reach different outcome?

 

[Deleted member 1487]

Hello!

What is actually needed conquer the USSR during WW2 or at the very least cripple the army or government? Be it Germany or another country attempting it.

Preparations? Long term strategy?

How much hindsight can we bring to the plan? Moscow is necessary in 1941 IMHO, otherwise you're stuck in a long war of attrition that the Soviets have the upper hand in; they aren't unbeatable even if they hold Moscow, but the task becomes much harder otherwise. I think it was possible IOTL to take Moscow in 1941 with some different strategy, but then it is hardly guaranteed. The best situation is to be more aware of the state of the Soviet rail system and have accurate planning to build up capacity as you convert the rail system to support continuous operations further East. The major problem, as ON likes to point out, as the logistics issues. They were not insurmountable, as the Soviets were able to push in the other direction quiet rapidly based mostly in rail, because they lacked the same level of motorization in 1944 as the Germans had in 1944, but were able to travel nearly as fast somehow, which turns out to be that they understood the nature of their rail system and devoted the necessary resources to repair, rebuild, and upgrade the system as they advanced to sustain operations. So it certainly was possible as the Germans had large construction organizations and the resources to build things up had they been aware of the problem and planned accordingly, which would have enabled a much more rapid and further advance East along the Moscow axis (provided the Kiev and Leningrad sideshows were avoided).

A really interesting article about the influence of rail on the conflict:
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13518046.2017.1308120

I corresponded with the author about the issue of what the Germans did specifically wrong relative to the Soviets and what they could have done differently and this was the response I got:

As to what the Reichsbahn might have done given the opportunity, is pure speculation. They need time to collect intelligence (which we know from the accounts of the FED that they lacked.) If so they may have identified the fact that the Soviets had not upgraded the Polish eastern network. This means a second Otto Plan to upgrade this 350 km gap between the upgraded Polish network and then the Soviet network. The plan can be made smaller because you do not need the surge capacity required for the pre-Barbarossa build up so instead of 7 railway lines, perhaps 5 lines of lower capacity (especially as HG Nord can be supplied by sea to a large extent) and instead of 3 months and 300,000 tonnes of steel a smaller amount and shorter time. But ideally you need to use all the assets of the Reichsbahn to achieve it.

Once you are onto the Soviet network, there is another choice, changing the gauge on two main lines per Heeresgruppe area is the easy bit, you then need to build capacity by adding signalling, sidings, shunting yards, engine depots of the correct size, working engines (there are sufficient engines across Europe but the Reichsbahn does not control them - so you have the choice of building more or moving the ones you do have) and rolling stock. Or you can retrain all your railway men to new operating safety standards and run the railway with less capable signalling in the Soviet manner, using lower speeds and bigger trains run to a different standard (or run by the local railwaymen who by and large stayed put). But retraining tens of thousands of men on new operating procedures is a large, complex task. (The German military's solution of using captured rolling stock was never going to achieve any real capacity - there is no example of a country leaving behind large amounts of undamaged engines when invaded not since 1917 in the Ukraine. Poland 1939, France 1940 all evacuated their rolling stock with time to spare. Any hope of that had to wait until you had won the war, not during it.) But it does allow you to gain a considerable capacity from lines that lack a lot of equipment but only if you provide sufficient engines to make it work. The Germans need locomotive columns as well to provide lots of motive power. Running trains in the Soviet manner is not enough if there are not enough engines, depots and men to run them, you need everything in place. As a guide we know that the Soviet mobilisation plan envisaged 360 odd trains a day running to the border, so the track is there for the Germans to run 200 odd trains a day for the invasion. Remember that they planned for 75 trains a day.

But if the GTR is utilised properly for connecting the Supply Districts to the troops over 300 km, then you have to put in place two main lines per Heeresgruppe to deliver 60+ trains a day from the border to the Supply District. HG Mitte actually has 3 main lines in its area and a couple of secondary ones, so upgrading one main line is possible even if you have to use the other ones in the meantime. Big effort on these main lines for a distance of 600 km over July and August is a large task but possible.

The conclusion drawn is that to achieve long distance operations, you have to put a serious effort into achieving it utilising national resources, just as the US and British Empire did at sea and the USSR did on land. The optimum for Germany was to use her huge coal reserves and railways to achieve this rather than as many have proposed to use scarce petrol and motor vehicles. It is still a large task and there are a number of different ways of achieving it but all of them are expensive in different ways. The simple fact is that this concept was a very long way from German military thinking which was to run a short term, shoestring logistical operation, win the battle quickly and then sort out the rest after the campaign is won. In that sense Fall Barbarossa represented a campaign beyond the capacity of the military system to deliver, 3 months and 600 km was the Germans limit both in terms of transport but also in other areas such as replacement men and weapons, ammunition, etc. A serious railway effort using all the nations resources surely would have got them another 600 km and another 3 months but were the other items going to be there?

Based on other well researched works into the Barbarossa campaign, Hitler had held back a lot of resources from the East, so the Germans did have the resources if they were willing to commit everything necessary to achieve the goal. Of course then that runs into the issue of the juice being worth the squeeze, was conquering the USSR worth the effort and cost required? I think most people with any sort of depth of knowledge of the Eastern Front would say hell no. So the issue of it being possible is certainly a yes, if Hitler was willing to dedicate the necessary resources and realize how critical Moscow was from day one, then it was possible to build up a rail support system that would take serious pressure off of the motor transport system so that an advance on Moscow in August-early September has the necessary supplies to happen and be nearly assured of victory. IOTL the supply situation for AG-Center was pretty rickety and held together by spit and shoe lace, when it could have been rock solid with enough effort. But again the benefits of defeating the USSR never made sense in terms of Germany's primary necessity in WW2: winning the war before it escalates to the point you cannot win. Invading the USSR pretty much guarantees that, while being a massive net resource drain.

 

[counterpoint]

To the extent allowed the Balts and Ukrainians did help the Nazis, especially when it came to implementing the Final Solution. If the Nazis are nice to these folks policy wise until the Soviets are defeated, which is possible, they can string them along for a while and then throw them under the bus. Of course this sort of thinking, basically "do whatever it takes to win the war and THEN trash the Untermenschen" was foreign to Nazi thinking. The effort put in to finding, transporting, and killing 6 million Jews (to say nothing of Roma & Slavs sent to camps) detracted severely from the war effort, and using them as forced labor in a more rational way would have been helpful. The "War Against the Jews" (title of a book by Davidowich), and by extension against other subhumans, was seen by the leaders as every bit as important and URGENT as defeating the Red Army. In spite of that you did have things like Vlasov, but Nazi policy never really rationally examined how best to win the war first. Once the Soviets are behind the A-A line and the west stalemated, then you can doublecross your former helpers.

It would be very difficult to implement mass slaughter in peace time. The camps were located outside Germany for a reason. You can get away with a lot during war. Can you really kill 30 million people in peacetime? The Nazi's were limited by politics too.

 

[counterpoint]

As someone pointed out above, and Adam Tooze made a good case, the hardest thing to understand about the Nazi economy in after the Fall of France is that raw GDP numbers don't add up. A lot of France's economic capacity, like Germany, relied on raw materials not available in Europe to reach its full potential. You add up population and factories in 1940 and it seems like Germany has a lot, but without oil and other products its all running way below capacity. The resources they need to consolidate their gains are all in Russia. That's why getting Britain out of the war was so important, it would have gotten them access to world markets.

 

[Gudestein]

Yep. Everything the Germans did had to be fast and go perfectly their way or else disaster would strike.

Problem is, the first major fault was the lack of German intelligence in identifying the number of Soviet Divisions available. They assumed they had destroyed almost all of them in the opening month of Barbarossa.

Also, the Soviet economy was very unified on what to produce and had focused creating very little models as to make it easy to supply manufacturing parts for the few models they had. Unlike the Nazi economy, which would make hundreds of models, and still have trouble agreeing on what to make, making logistical maintenance a living hell. Lack of standardization is another huge factor in what also killed them for the war.

But for them to rectify these shortcomings, the Nazis would not have to act like Nazis. Their deep rooted ideology of racism also prevented them taking their opponents seriously after the Fall of France.

Well the issues about Nazis being Nazis is a big problem in AH. You cannot change their nature, but you can change individual decisions.

The insights required is about the level seen in this link:

The macroeconomical suggestions I listed before are not about selection of individual models. Its simply about beeing able to build the rails and synthesize the fuels needed to keep the war machine going. I think it would not Work in OTL to suggest a railroad plan that required 300000 tons of steel the Germans didnt have and couldnt get in a short time. But if they had the capacity to do it, why gamble when you can win securely? As long as you win.

 

[Deleted member 97083]

The first to suffer in 1936 was steel allocation which was more or less solved/miproved in 1936 by increasing domestic production by 3 million tons followed by a coal crisis when the steel needed to be smelted AND the synthetic fuel production got ramped up. That led to expansion of the coal mining folloed by a collapse in transportation capacity further precipitated by the army's requirements which was insufficiently, but feverishly addressed 1939-onwards.

So, had Germany realized they would accelerate the pace of rearmament they could have predicted the steel shortages and increased domestic production before 1936 and they might also then have predicted that the steel needed to be smelted and the coal transported around. These Investments could have begun from 1933-1936 when there was still a pool of unemployment and would have had the following certain effects benefitting the Germans in Barbarossa:

But wouldn't this early investment in steel allocate resources away from other things? Making the invasions of Poland and France have less resources and less likely to succeed.