It isnt just in the last 10 years, this was mentioned in The documentary series "The World at War" that I watched in the mid 1970s. While German soldiers were dying of cold in the east, German industry was still making fur coats for the ladies fashion industry. Politically Adolf didnt want the population to suffer the privations of war. "Huge" is elastic and also relative. The capabilities of the LW were huge compared to anything in WW1. However Goring was so good at propaganda he scared the UK and USA into massive action to counter his threat. By 1940 the UK passed Germany in arms production, the USA did shortly after to a much higher peak while I believe Russia passed Germany in about 1942/43 having moved a lot of industry eastwards.Just a follow up. It is only within the last decade or so that historians are taking a close look at the German economy under Hitler. The degree to which the Nazi's subordinated military spending to public spending in order to insure a reasonably comfortable standard of living for the populace in the years leading up to and during WWII is shocking. Huge is obviously an elastic term and one might compare Germany's spending in the years leading up to WWII to Russia's spending during the same period. Clearly if Germany had spent money to that degree they certainly would have been able to advance their Jet Turbine programs more easily. They would have been stockpiling or coming up with viable substitutes for scarce materials. While slave labor during the war was a factor of mass production after the successful completion of developments, it had nothing to do with the initial developments before the war.
If whoever was in charge of aircraft procurement had a crystal ball that told them of the importance of Jet engine technology and they convinced the government leadership of such, they would have faced the dilemma of either reallocating public expenditures or would have had to cut other military programs to come up with the monies.