Admiral Beez
Major
FWIW, I ran post #298 through ChatGPT, asking AI if this post was made by AI. AI says most likely not. So, if we trust AI to out AI then it's not AI.
German logistics, purchase programs and war booty, reality and alternatives 1935-43
- Thread starter tomo pauk
- Start date
History Learner
Airman
- 21
- Jul 24, 2025
Personally, I'll take it as a compliment. To advance the conversation, though, I think the biggest missed chance for the Germans in the specified time-frame is the failure to rationalize production in May of 1941.
Following the Fall of France, victory disease led the Germans to cancel many of their build-out plans and efficiency measures (The ending of the "Closure Campaign" is an example of this) in the expectation of the conflict ending soon. As 1941 dawned, however, this belief began to wane with Britain still in the fight while confrontation with the USSR loomed. Recognizing this, Hitler began pushing for resumed and intensified rationalization as the stakes came into focus throughout the year. A May 1941 conference was organized to this end but failed to produce results, resulting in a political deadlock that went unbroken until December 3rd when Hitler finally issued a Fuhrer Order after the leaking of the American Victory Program made it clear a further expansion of the conflict was imminent. Richard Overy in Blood and Ruins covers this in greater detail:
Even with Göring zealously defending his control over the air ministry and the Army resisting consolidation of production models limiting Speer from total rationalization until 1944, the reforms he and his predecessor Todt implemented in the wake of the Fuhrer Order in January to February of 1942 still yielded great results. Starting in February of 1942, armaments production began increasing on average 5.5% per month resulting in a doubling of production until the RAF's Ruhr Campaign in the Spring of 1943 brought this run to a close. Had Hitler forced this through in May of 1941 instead of December, production presumably would've started increasing in July and thus would've had 22 months to grow instead of the historical 15.
Graph is from Wages of Destruction by Adam Tooze
The Soviet Winter Offensive(s) of 1941-1942 would've thus found the Germans ~20% better equipped, and German production output would've reached its 1943 levels (i.e. doubled) in mid-1942 amid the onset of Fall Blau. It is extremely likely this is enough to knock the Soviets out and thus set the conditions for the Germans to force an armistice on the Western Allies as access to Soviet resources and Speer gaining total control over the German economy in ATL 1943 would result in output too high to be sufficiently overcome in a defensive struggle by the Anglo-American bloc.
Last edited:
Geoffrey Sinclair
Staff Sergeant
- 1,270
- Sep 30, 2021
The 1930's depression and reactions like tariffs pushed world economies back towards autarky, or at least going outside their currencv zone, the Nazis accelerated that for Germany.
The article notes there were cuts in allocations at times but does not explain why. Nor does it give ideas about the size of stockpiles captured.
Scrap reclamation and substitution of ingredients were done pre war with the usual impacts on costs and the risks of quality loss, a big one would be durability, the idea was to cut foreign exchange costs by paying more in local currency, including buying ores and smelting them in Germany. Then came the surveys of metals in use, things like church bells, and the plans to use them as raw materials.
By the looks of things the article indicates German annual wartime consumption was around 250,000 tons of copper, 8,500 tons tin, 7,500 tons nickel, 2,100 tons Wolfram/Tungsten. Only overcoming a major shortage of copper ore would really show an effect on an economy the size of Germany, assuming it was one shortage at a time, the real problems come from multiple shortages. In 1940/41 Japan shipped 538 tons tin and 587 tons of tin ore, 1,087 tons of Wolfram/Tungsten ore via the USSR. Portugal output was 3,000 to 3,500 tons of Wolfram/Tungsten per year, trade route open mid 1940 to mid 1944. Copper stocks are put at 194,000 tons in September 1939.
Going to steel from brass in ammunition cut copper consumption, at a price of new tooling in and retraining of industry, the capture of so much steel making capacity, along with coal and iron mines made this more possible. Aluminium supply was made plentiful with the capture of France and it had an ability to substitute for copper. Given ammunition shelf life limits there was no large scale production pre war.
In summary for these 4 metals the Germans made pre war changes to cut usage and plans to mine higher cost sources if required, tin requirements were low, nickel and tungsten supply was good until 1944, apart from a 1939/40 interruption. The substitution efforts meant the stockpiles would last longer than the outside estimates of the time and were based on a WWI length war, the repurposing of the metals in existing use would extend the time more, though tearing down electric power cables would have issues, but not in occupied Europe, it says
"Wartime metal imports from Scandinavia, Finland, Italy, the Benelux countries, the Baltic states and South-Eastern Europe, excluding re-exports, would be at least as high as in 1938 and could be financed by German exports... In the case of copper, for example, for which 1938 imports from these countries reached 80,000 tons, they estimated imports up to 140,000 would be possible in the long run." Which implies a third to a half of copper consumption was covered by reliable imports, Germany supplied 17% of its copper, giving a half to two thirds of consumption, no mention of where the rest came from.
Germany was producing crude oil in the 19th century. In 1930 it was around 175,000 tons per year by 1939 it was 750,000 tons per year, in 1940 it topped 1 million tons before dropping during the war. However Austrian crude production went up, so the "Greater Germany" production went from just under 1.5 million tons in 1940 to 1.9 million in 1944.
My original words, How exactly does an April 1939 decision be affected by a long standing trade situation? Which is different to hegemony, that came in 1940/41. Also how does Poland fit in the hegemony concept, given its trade in 1938 in value terms is around those of the Balkan countries, though Poland had 1.75 to 5.7 times more people than the Balkan countries listed. The Balkan states noted they were at a disadvantage with Germany, being a minority of German trade but a big slice of theirs, unfortunately the British table of Balkan trade in 1938 only lists the major powers, there had to be intra Balkan trade for a start, so these percentage will need adjustment down, but 54.5% Germany, 7.1% Austria, 10.3% Czechoslovakia, 9.2% Italy, 4.7% France, 14.2% Britain
18 July 1934 RAF Scheme A, expansion to 84 home squadrons, including 8 heavy bomber, by 31 March 1939
21 May 1935 RAF Scheme C, expansion to 123 home squadrons, including 20 heavy bomber, by 31 March 1937
21 November 1935 RAF Scheme F, expansion to 124 home squadrons, including 20 heavy bomber plus reserves, by 31 March 1937
27 April 1938 RAF Scheme L, expansion to 141 home squadrons, including 47 heavy bomber plus reserves, by 31 March 1940
Post Munich Crisis
7 November 1938 RAF Scheme M, expansion to 163 home squadrons, including 85 heavy bomber plus reserves, by 31 March 1942
Depending on how you count it scheme L or M would give the November 1918 RAF size while at peace. The British imports drop shows how hard it was to externally derail the economy and slow war production.
As a way of highlighting selected figures, British tank production 1938 to 1940 was 419, 969, 1,399, German and Czech was 804, 743, 1,515
What is the compound growth when using March 1942 as the starting point at 130 versus the probably below 100 February 1942? Ever noted aircraft production tends to dip in winter or be more erratic thanks to weather problems with acceptance flights? Seen the data behind the index calculations?
German AFV production, USSBS, Jentz, Panzertruppen
Oct-41 / 308 / 306
Nov-41 / 348 / 348
Dec-41 / 332 / 334
Jan-42 / 315 / 320
Feb-42 / 395 / 377
Mar-42 / 317 / 330
Apr-42 / 355 / 366
May-42 / 390 / 420
Jun-42 / 337 / 369
Jul-42 / 330 / 339
Aug-42 / 319 / 325
Sep-42 / 319 / 318
Oct-42 / 319 / 300
Nov-42 / 315 / 316
Dec-42 / 426 / 447
Not quite ever upward and onward, pick October 1941 and December 1942 and production is up maybe 150%, October 1941 to October 1942, stagnant, November 1941 to November 1942, going backwards.
1941 produced two major shocks into the German production program, the Luftwaffe had new Do217, Fw190, He177 and Me210, the Do217 was a solid performer, but the other three programs had real problems, the Me210 program cost a lot of Bf110 production, the Fw190 came close to cancellation, the He177 mostly a waste. The discovery of the T-34 rendered almost all of Germany's Panzer stocks somewhere between second best and obsolete, despite it being a minority of Red Army tanks in 1941 and 1942. Similar to 1938/39 where production fell as the lighter Panzer types were replaced, after doubling between 1939 and 1940 and then doubling again 1940 to 1941, production rose by a third in 1942 while the mixture was adjusted and existing models upgraded.
Arado Warnemunde switched from Bf109 to Fw190 in Q3/41, numerical output returning to early 1941 levels in mid 1942, the Fiesler Kassel switch was last Bf109 June 1941, first Fw190 May 1942.
The bad German decision making started end 1940, with the failure to implement the lessons of the fighting. In respect of the Luftwaffe as a whole a larger training program and something like a doubling of the fighter force relative to the bomber force. Jeschonnek has a famous quote from March 1942, saying he would not know what to do with a production of 360 fighters per month. What is usually missed is his reason was the number of fighter pilots in training, some 1,662 fighter pilots were trained in 1942, and another 3,276 in 1943 after the training system was overhauled, that is graduations finally reached being able to cope with Battle of France/Britain loss levels. However things like instrument flying were dropped and the Luftwaffe became a force only able to fly in numbers in good weather.
Halder, as of 31 December 1941, German armies in the east, 830,903 casualties, including over 200,000 dead and missing, the casualty rate was around 4,240 personal per day since the start, by 20 June 1942 1,299,730 casualties, including over 330,000 dead and missing, or a rate of about 3,540 casualties per day every day since the invasion began. So in 1941 an almost all German force attacked all along the front, in 1942 a German force plus 4 axis allied armies attacked on about half the front. The Luftwaffe went from air superiority plus interdiction plus battlefield support to mostly battlefield support to help compensate.
There is a book which the blurb reads sort of like "it was the economists wot wun it", the theme being the US authorities massively underestimated the amount of stuff that could be produced and mismanaged things until the economists became involved. As usual it is some of the story, mass production was new, only the US had a lot of the know how and European economies had to compromise efficiency due to the air raid threat. It costs a lot of time, effort and so money to set up a production line, doing so for the most complex machines available really costs. Governments have way more money than any company, War Industrial Facilities Authorised July 1940 - August 1945 by Civilian Production Administration for the aviation industry $2,380,638,000 public and $229,857,000 private funds for 219 different facilities. The USAAF says July 1942 to December 1945 it bought aircraft and spares to the value of $25,632,308,000, it means if the idea was to recover all the War Industrial Facilities funds during the war it would cost about 10% of the USAAF aircraft built.
Ford Willow Run did a major amount of work on making the B-24 truly mass produced but kept running into the continual need for changes, making it hard to recover tooling costs, for the more stable CG-4A design Ford Iron Mountain produced 4,190 of the 13,902 built, the next biggest producer Northwestern at Minneapolis built 1,509. For fighters in particular a dangerous performance gap could open up if upgrades were not done while dangerous numbers gaps would open if not enough were built.
The production "miracle" was based on a willingness to make investments knowing they would be loss making or not recovered, even though of course buildings, tools etc. could and were repurposed post war.
One of the most short term war (non) planning examples can be seen in WWI, putting aside the idea international trade had grown so much by 1914 that it precluded war given the economic cost of trade disruption, everyone used natural nitrates for explosives, Germany had no access to deposits and required a crash program to scale up nitrogen fixing from laboratory scale to mass production to avoid surrendering in 1915.
One of the biggest WWII supply shocks was the allied loss of rubber and tin supplies to the Japanese, the US synthetic rubber program had a Manhattan project type budget and urgency.
The Scherner article about the 4 metals "exploring how it enabled Germany to hold out for so long against a far superior coalition", except it was not a far superior coalition in capacity terms until end 1941, then came it was Germany plus allies that held out, and in western Europe the way the US needed to build a merchant navy plus escorts plus invasion shipping which all competed with each other for resources before it could deploy its ground forces, meaning it contributed token forces in 1942, rising to minority in early 1943 to parity in late 1943 to the dominant partner in 1944. Meantime the Red Army recovered the territory the USSR lost in about the same amount of offensive time as the Germans used to take it.
The article is about copper, tin, tungsten and nickel, it points out Germany surveyed areas for local production of each, noting the extra costs of bringing these deposits into production, costs that would include workers, machinery, electricity etc. A major trouble is since most of this capacity was not drawn on it has to assume the expansion plans would have worked as expected, the mining resources made available and output ramped up according to schedule, going from mining 1,100 tons a year of nickel to 4,400 tons required 100 more workers, or it might be increasing the nickel output from existing ore stocks required 100 more workers, nickel being 1% of ore content. It looks like during the war Germany built up nickel ore stocks, mainly from Finland. In any case if 100 workers could provide that much more supply why was it not done anyway.
The article notes there were cuts in allocations at times but does not explain why. Nor does it give ideas about the size of stockpiles captured.
Scrap reclamation and substitution of ingredients were done pre war with the usual impacts on costs and the risks of quality loss, a big one would be durability, the idea was to cut foreign exchange costs by paying more in local currency, including buying ores and smelting them in Germany. Then came the surveys of metals in use, things like church bells, and the plans to use them as raw materials.
By the looks of things the article indicates German annual wartime consumption was around 250,000 tons of copper, 8,500 tons tin, 7,500 tons nickel, 2,100 tons Wolfram/Tungsten. Only overcoming a major shortage of copper ore would really show an effect on an economy the size of Germany, assuming it was one shortage at a time, the real problems come from multiple shortages. In 1940/41 Japan shipped 538 tons tin and 587 tons of tin ore, 1,087 tons of Wolfram/Tungsten ore via the USSR. Portugal output was 3,000 to 3,500 tons of Wolfram/Tungsten per year, trade route open mid 1940 to mid 1944. Copper stocks are put at 194,000 tons in September 1939.
Going to steel from brass in ammunition cut copper consumption, at a price of new tooling in and retraining of industry, the capture of so much steel making capacity, along with coal and iron mines made this more possible. Aluminium supply was made plentiful with the capture of France and it had an ability to substitute for copper. Given ammunition shelf life limits there was no large scale production pre war.
In summary for these 4 metals the Germans made pre war changes to cut usage and plans to mine higher cost sources if required, tin requirements were low, nickel and tungsten supply was good until 1944, apart from a 1939/40 interruption. The substitution efforts meant the stockpiles would last longer than the outside estimates of the time and were based on a WWI length war, the repurposing of the metals in existing use would extend the time more, though tearing down electric power cables would have issues, but not in occupied Europe, it says
"Wartime metal imports from Scandinavia, Finland, Italy, the Benelux countries, the Baltic states and South-Eastern Europe, excluding re-exports, would be at least as high as in 1938 and could be financed by German exports... In the case of copper, for example, for which 1938 imports from these countries reached 80,000 tons, they estimated imports up to 140,000 would be possible in the long run." Which implies a third to a half of copper consumption was covered by reliable imports, Germany supplied 17% of its copper, giving a half to two thirds of consumption, no mention of where the rest came from.
Germany was producing crude oil in the 19th century. In 1930 it was around 175,000 tons per year by 1939 it was 750,000 tons per year, in 1940 it topped 1 million tons before dropping during the war. However Austrian crude production went up, so the "Greater Germany" production went from just under 1.5 million tons in 1940 to 1.9 million in 1944.
So you compare Germany trade figures in 1928/9 to Germany + Austria + Sudatenlands at least in 1938/9 and say how German only trade had recovered. German population in 1913 was 67 million, in 1939 it was 69.5 million in the 1937 borders and around 80 million in "Greater Germany", a 15% bigger population, after absorbing two more trade orientated economies.
My original words, How exactly does an April 1939 decision be affected by a long standing trade situation? Which is different to hegemony, that came in 1940/41. Also how does Poland fit in the hegemony concept, given its trade in 1938 in value terms is around those of the Balkan countries, though Poland had 1.75 to 5.7 times more people than the Balkan countries listed. The Balkan states noted they were at a disadvantage with Germany, being a minority of German trade but a big slice of theirs, unfortunately the British table of Balkan trade in 1938 only lists the major powers, there had to be intra Balkan trade for a start, so these percentage will need adjustment down, but 54.5% Germany, 7.1% Austria, 10.3% Czechoslovakia, 9.2% Italy, 4.7% France, 14.2% Britain
It seems the January 1939 plan for building the German navy so by 1945 it had 8 battleships, 3 battle cruisers, 3 pocket battleships, 2 aircraft carriers, 5 heavy and 44 light cruisers, 68 destroyers, 90 torpedo boats and 249 U-boats, had such an impact on steel supplies the other German armaments programs had to be drastically impacted in 1939. Nothing to do with April 1939. If navies have that sort of impact consider the way the RN building program was much bigger than the German one in 1939.
It was in the text that was ignored. When I see someone inventing reasons then ignoring the problems it raises red flags.
Actually there was, hence the cut backs in armament production, the German government debts while doing so much military spending were reaching the point where hard decisions needed to be made, in the first instance cuts in armament production.
A table called war making potential, bothered to add dominions, at around 50% the UK population which raises the population to around that of Germany at the time.
In the table above US is 3 times the military potential of Germany, 3 years later it is parity, or rather a sector of the economy the Germans were pushing hard had ended up at around parity with the US sector in the depression, the first table is a form of absolute, the second relative, but all consistently chosen to make Germany look good. By the way with all German the effort to push the aviation industry in numerical terms the depression stuck US industry was turning out about as many aircraft as Germany, but generally smaller and less well armed.
In terms of obtaining important war machine foreign materials they have a point, in terms of the German government finances there was a problem, hence changes to programs.
So you really do not know much about the topic. Remember above how building ships does horrible things to other weapons programs, the RN building program in existence in 1939 was bigger than the German one. More importantly the 1938/39 British programs were based on peace time finance rules, not the ones being used in Germany. Next during the war Britain's imports halved, around half a ton per person per year less stuff arriving and war output went up. Officially 2,828 aircraft in 1938, 7,940 in 1939, 15,049 in 1940, ignoring gliders the USBS says Germany 8,267 aircraft in 1939, 10,826 in 1940.
18 July 1934 RAF Scheme A, expansion to 84 home squadrons, including 8 heavy bomber, by 31 March 1939
21 May 1935 RAF Scheme C, expansion to 123 home squadrons, including 20 heavy bomber, by 31 March 1937
21 November 1935 RAF Scheme F, expansion to 124 home squadrons, including 20 heavy bomber plus reserves, by 31 March 1937
27 April 1938 RAF Scheme L, expansion to 141 home squadrons, including 47 heavy bomber plus reserves, by 31 March 1940
Post Munich Crisis
7 November 1938 RAF Scheme M, expansion to 163 home squadrons, including 85 heavy bomber plus reserves, by 31 March 1942
Depending on how you count it scheme L or M would give the November 1918 RAF size while at peace. The British imports drop shows how hard it was to externally derail the economy and slow war production.
As a way of highlighting selected figures, British tank production 1938 to 1940 was 419, 969, 1,399, German and Czech was 804, 743, 1,515
The area of Poland designated the Ostgau in 1939 could just generate a small surplus, about enough to feed 650,000 people at a time Germany controlled 112 million people. The rest of occupied Poland could feed itself. Germany at the time was 83% self sufficient in food. Greater Germany 98%. Essentially the Ostgau added 7.37 million people but could feed 8.03 million.
We return to the Germans as victims, World War II Operational Documents is a copy of the actual Rainbow 5 plan which has a divergence from the claim "planning to lead the United States into war against Germany", everyone knows one of Hitler's biggest mistakes was declaring war on the US, so admirers have come up with reasons why he really did not make the decision, it was made for him, similar for that other big one, operation Barbarossa
December, production presumably would've started increasing in July and thus would've had 22 months to grow instead of the historical 15."
What is the compound growth when using March 1942 as the starting point at 130 versus the probably below 100 February 1942? Ever noted aircraft production tends to dip in winter or be more erratic thanks to weather problems with acceptance flights? Seen the data behind the index calculations?
German AFV production, USSBS, Jentz, Panzertruppen
Oct-41 / 308 / 306
Nov-41 / 348 / 348
Dec-41 / 332 / 334
Jan-42 / 315 / 320
Feb-42 / 395 / 377
Mar-42 / 317 / 330
Apr-42 / 355 / 366
May-42 / 390 / 420
Jun-42 / 337 / 369
Jul-42 / 330 / 339
Aug-42 / 319 / 325
Sep-42 / 319 / 318
Oct-42 / 319 / 300
Nov-42 / 315 / 316
Dec-42 / 426 / 447
Not quite ever upward and onward, pick October 1941 and December 1942 and production is up maybe 150%, October 1941 to October 1942, stagnant, November 1941 to November 1942, going backwards.
1941 produced two major shocks into the German production program, the Luftwaffe had new Do217, Fw190, He177 and Me210, the Do217 was a solid performer, but the other three programs had real problems, the Me210 program cost a lot of Bf110 production, the Fw190 came close to cancellation, the He177 mostly a waste. The discovery of the T-34 rendered almost all of Germany's Panzer stocks somewhere between second best and obsolete, despite it being a minority of Red Army tanks in 1941 and 1942. Similar to 1938/39 where production fell as the lighter Panzer types were replaced, after doubling between 1939 and 1940 and then doubling again 1940 to 1941, production rose by a third in 1942 while the mixture was adjusted and existing models upgraded.
Arado Warnemunde switched from Bf109 to Fw190 in Q3/41, numerical output returning to early 1941 levels in mid 1942, the Fiesler Kassel switch was last Bf109 June 1941, first Fw190 May 1942.
The bad German decision making started end 1940, with the failure to implement the lessons of the fighting. In respect of the Luftwaffe as a whole a larger training program and something like a doubling of the fighter force relative to the bomber force. Jeschonnek has a famous quote from March 1942, saying he would not know what to do with a production of 360 fighters per month. What is usually missed is his reason was the number of fighter pilots in training, some 1,662 fighter pilots were trained in 1942, and another 3,276 in 1943 after the training system was overhauled, that is graduations finally reached being able to cope with Battle of France/Britain loss levels. However things like instrument flying were dropped and the Luftwaffe became a force only able to fly in numbers in good weather.
No, The armoured forces assembled for Barbarossa on 22 June 1941, 17 Panzer divisions and some other formations, had 794 mark II, 155 35t, 625 38t, 269 Panzer III with 37mm guns, 707 with 50mm guns, and 439 mark IV, plus 188 command tanks, comes to 3,422 vehicles, another 1,254 arrived with new units, then comes replacements, as of 1 January 1942 there were 1,015 Panzer present in the east, none serviceable. A combination of losses, supply issues and major tank repair units being in Germany.
Halder, as of 31 December 1941, German armies in the east, 830,903 casualties, including over 200,000 dead and missing, the casualty rate was around 4,240 personal per day since the start, by 20 June 1942 1,299,730 casualties, including over 330,000 dead and missing, or a rate of about 3,540 casualties per day every day since the invasion began. So in 1941 an almost all German force attacked all along the front, in 1942 a German force plus 4 axis allied armies attacked on about half the front. The Luftwaffe went from air superiority plus interdiction plus battlefield support to mostly battlefield support to help compensate.
In mid 1942 Stalin decided listening to generals was usually a good idea, and so when the Germans attacked the large encirclements did not happen, furthermore the area being lost did little to the USSR economy. While Hitler started listening less to generals and decided a city was very important or not or was, so things like a motorised division was given a front of 60 miles were done.
There is a book which the blurb reads sort of like "it was the economists wot wun it", the theme being the US authorities massively underestimated the amount of stuff that could be produced and mismanaged things until the economists became involved. As usual it is some of the story, mass production was new, only the US had a lot of the know how and European economies had to compromise efficiency due to the air raid threat. It costs a lot of time, effort and so money to set up a production line, doing so for the most complex machines available really costs. Governments have way more money than any company, War Industrial Facilities Authorised July 1940 - August 1945 by Civilian Production Administration for the aviation industry $2,380,638,000 public and $229,857,000 private funds for 219 different facilities. The USAAF says July 1942 to December 1945 it bought aircraft and spares to the value of $25,632,308,000, it means if the idea was to recover all the War Industrial Facilities funds during the war it would cost about 10% of the USAAF aircraft built.
Ford Willow Run did a major amount of work on making the B-24 truly mass produced but kept running into the continual need for changes, making it hard to recover tooling costs, for the more stable CG-4A design Ford Iron Mountain produced 4,190 of the 13,902 built, the next biggest producer Northwestern at Minneapolis built 1,509. For fighters in particular a dangerous performance gap could open up if upgrades were not done while dangerous numbers gaps would open if not enough were built.
The production "miracle" was based on a willingness to make investments knowing they would be loss making or not recovered, even though of course buildings, tools etc. could and were repurposed post war.
One of the most short term war (non) planning examples can be seen in WWI, putting aside the idea international trade had grown so much by 1914 that it precluded war given the economic cost of trade disruption, everyone used natural nitrates for explosives, Germany had no access to deposits and required a crash program to scale up nitrogen fixing from laboratory scale to mass production to avoid surrendering in 1915.
One of the biggest WWII supply shocks was the allied loss of rubber and tin supplies to the Japanese, the US synthetic rubber program had a Manhattan project type budget and urgency.
The Scherner article about the 4 metals "exploring how it enabled Germany to hold out for so long against a far superior coalition", except it was not a far superior coalition in capacity terms until end 1941, then came it was Germany plus allies that held out, and in western Europe the way the US needed to build a merchant navy plus escorts plus invasion shipping which all competed with each other for resources before it could deploy its ground forces, meaning it contributed token forces in 1942, rising to minority in early 1943 to parity in late 1943 to the dominant partner in 1944. Meantime the Red Army recovered the territory the USSR lost in about the same amount of offensive time as the Germans used to take it.
Shortround6
Lieutenant General
Trying to turn generalities in specifics of production can be difficult. Same is true of trying to go the other way.
Not all armor used the same percentages of alloys and the same heat treatment. For heavy ship armor sometimes it was the shortage of heat treatment furnaces that limited production.
One reason that the British ordered limited amount of armor from Czech steel mills. The British could make steel, just not enough armor steel.
Maybe I an not looking in the right places but it sometimes seems like the German plan Z is a fictitious excuse.
8 battleships, or 10(?) but with 4 already built (mostly) and only 2 more even laid down or a few hundred tons of material gathered on the building site/s?
3 battle cruisers, never laid down but plans completed
3 pocket battleships, (or more?) but these were the old 1920s ships
2 aircraft carriers, one built and one built up to the armored deck
5 heavy Cruisers. 3 commissioned, one slated for carrier conversion and one incomplete sold to Soviet Union
44 light cruisers. Only the 5-6 old light cruisers were built and since the Nurnberg (last of the 6) was completed in 1935 none of them slowed down any other German construction after Sept 1939. 2 of the M class were laid down but didn't get far.
68 destroyers, More impact on production here but with only 21 completed before the war and and another 20 completed during the war But some of these were sunk while fitting out(?) and took until 1944 for the last ones.
90 torpedo boats, which turned into about 36-40 ships of which 12 were totally pre-war.
and 249 U-boats, Here is were there was a real flip. In Sept 1939 there were only 52 boats(?) with only a handful building. Germans built around another 1200 U-boats during the war but obviously German WW II U-boat construction had little to do with Plan Z.
Blaming Plan Z for lack of German tank or artillery production in 1940-41 seems like excuse making.
Both sided shifted production from lighter tanks to heavier tanks even in 1938-1940. For instance As a way of highlighting selected figures, British tank production 1938 to 1940 was 419, 969, 1,399, German and Czech was 804, 743, 1,515.
British tank production in 1938, 39 was primarily the 6-7 ton MK VI light. While they were still making some light tanks in 1940 the majority of production were the Cruisers and Matilda's. actual tonnage of tanks went way up. The Germans were doing the same short of shift, just not quite as marked as the German Pz I had gone out of production in 1937(as a gun tank).
The US may have been better at building large, mass production machinery. Like the rotary centrifugal casting tables making R-2800 cylinders at the Ford Plant (to start with) with eight casting stations per table. Or the use of large specialized machines using only 1-2 operators vs 6-7 smaller generalized machines each with 1-2 operators. Now how do you count in the number of machine lists these large machines? Or the very large change in man hours needed?
Part of America's "might" is also masked by the fact that the US supplied a lot machine tools and semi finished materials to Britain, Canada and the Soviet Union to help increase their production.
Not all armor used the same percentages of alloys and the same heat treatment. For heavy ship armor sometimes it was the shortage of heat treatment furnaces that limited production.
One reason that the British ordered limited amount of armor from Czech steel mills. The British could make steel, just not enough armor steel.
Maybe I an not looking in the right places but it sometimes seems like the German plan Z is a fictitious excuse.
8 battleships, or 10(?) but with 4 already built (mostly) and only 2 more even laid down or a few hundred tons of material gathered on the building site/s?
3 battle cruisers, never laid down but plans completed
3 pocket battleships, (or more?) but these were the old 1920s ships
2 aircraft carriers, one built and one built up to the armored deck
5 heavy Cruisers. 3 commissioned, one slated for carrier conversion and one incomplete sold to Soviet Union
44 light cruisers. Only the 5-6 old light cruisers were built and since the Nurnberg (last of the 6) was completed in 1935 none of them slowed down any other German construction after Sept 1939. 2 of the M class were laid down but didn't get far.
68 destroyers, More impact on production here but with only 21 completed before the war and and another 20 completed during the war But some of these were sunk while fitting out(?) and took until 1944 for the last ones.
90 torpedo boats, which turned into about 36-40 ships of which 12 were totally pre-war.
and 249 U-boats, Here is were there was a real flip. In Sept 1939 there were only 52 boats(?) with only a handful building. Germans built around another 1200 U-boats during the war but obviously German WW II U-boat construction had little to do with Plan Z.
Blaming Plan Z for lack of German tank or artillery production in 1940-41 seems like excuse making.
Both sided shifted production from lighter tanks to heavier tanks even in 1938-1940. For instance As a way of highlighting selected figures, British tank production 1938 to 1940 was 419, 969, 1,399, German and Czech was 804, 743, 1,515.
British tank production in 1938, 39 was primarily the 6-7 ton MK VI light. While they were still making some light tanks in 1940 the majority of production were the Cruisers and Matilda's. actual tonnage of tanks went way up. The Germans were doing the same short of shift, just not quite as marked as the German Pz I had gone out of production in 1937(as a gun tank).
The US may have been better at building large, mass production machinery. Like the rotary centrifugal casting tables making R-2800 cylinders at the Ford Plant (to start with) with eight casting stations per table. Or the use of large specialized machines using only 1-2 operators vs 6-7 smaller generalized machines each with 1-2 operators. Now how do you count in the number of machine lists these large machines? Or the very large change in man hours needed?
Part of America's "might" is also masked by the fact that the US supplied a lot machine tools and semi finished materials to Britain, Canada and the Soviet Union to help increase their production.
History Learner
Airman
- 21
- Jul 24, 2025
Yes, given for one we were comparing 1938 Germany to 1928 Germany, not 1913. As you note below, for another, Greater Germany was largely food sufficient, which reduced the need for food imports and thus reduced overall balance of trade.
Well, for one, the British guarantee to Poland was in March and not April of 1939 so I was not sure what decision you were referring to.
Specific to the overall question, what are you specifically asking? If in reference to the trade disputes I'd recommend A Low Dishonest Decade by Paul Hehn. A major factor in getting the British to back Poland was the mercantilist turn of the 1930s you noted at the start of your post; they feared German hegemony in the Balkans cutting them off from trade access in the region and this did come to pass in 1940-1941 as you note. The exact mechanism of that was because the Germans had conquered Poland and firmly brought Hungary and Bulgaria into her orbit, solidifying their dominance in the region.
That was not my argument? My point was that Plan Z and continued Army expansion was unfeasible together, and thus it made more sense to cut Plan Z in favor of more land/air expansion. Hitler attempted to have his cake and eat it too by getting around the constraints by invading Poland, thus triggering World War II.
Given the British Army was much smaller than the German Army during WWII, I think one can conclude that Naval expansion does have that exact impact.
I'm not sure how asking you to clarify your point, given we've already established you seem confused over key dates of events in 1939, is ignoring it? If you see red flags though, you're under no obligation to continue to respond and we can agree to disagree.
There wasn't, as already established by Adam Tooze and Richard Overy. The issue was they couldn't continue to fund rearmament at the same pace as they had been doing and would have to cut back or make cuts to the civilian side of things, just as they had done previously in 1937.
Population =/= Industrial Capacity. I do agree Kennedy is dated, having come out in the 1980s, but the point was illustrative when added with the Tooze article.
I'm sure Tooze would be shocked to find out his paper was meant to make the Germans look good but luckily he can just refer to the absolute numbers of machine tools to illustrate the point he makes:
That is to confuse cause and effect. The German finances, as both Tooze and Overy (especially) note, were fine. The constraint on rearmament was having enough foreign exchange to keep it going, which required trade to accrue and had required past pauses in rearmament to build stockpiles up.
Perhaps those living in glass houses shouldn't throw stones? From British Rearmament and the Treasury 1932 – 1939 by G.C.Peden:
Under peace time conditions the build out was impossible to sustain and thus required the war in order to relax policy by having democratic buy in by the population.
As mentioned earlier, foodstuffs was a significant source of German imports and thus by expanding the agriculture base they would be improving the balance of trade. This would, in turn, improve the foreign exchange tally and thus help with rearmament.
This is a very odd way of refusing to address the argument made, especially for one who brought up red flags in posting styles earlier? For everyone else reading this in good faith, I think it should be obvious that:
"Hitler ordered production rationalized on December 3rd in response to the leaking of the American War Plans."
Is not the same as:
"Hitler was completely innocent in declaring war on December 11th."
The dates alone invalidate the claim, but I also think deliberating misunderstanding the point made is pretty obvious. As noted by the source previously linked, the leak of the American war plans was learned of by German intelligence almost immediately on December 3rd and was subsequently made public by the Chicago press on December 4th.
Might I suggest re-reading the post, since I was talking about the average rate of growth (Per Tooze) and specifically noted Goring prevented rationalization from being conducted at the Air Ministry until much later?
A state of affairs which would be helped by having higher AFV production in total, along with more spare parts and support vehicles, no? With that said, I think we also need to remember that artillery was the main killer in WWII, especially on the Eastern Front, and thus would be vastly more important than AFVs totals given the Germans were fighting a defensive struggle that Winter rather than attacking.
I would also highly suggest getting caught up on the latest historiography of the Winter 1941-1942 since the view among historians has largely shifted to the Soviet offensive(s) being strategic failures given their failure to achieve the destruction of Germany's armies at high cost:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50NLOcNn9Ho
Again, a state of affairs that would be helped immeasurably by having higher German production right? Particularly in the context of the Red Army being a weaker force in 1942 than it was in 1941:
You don't have to take my analysis alone either, as Flitzer and Goldman make the same argument in Fortress Dark and Stern:
Hence my argument, in that an earlier rationalization of German production would've enabled them to prevail over the Soviets by dent of greater output collapsing them in 1942 when they were already on the brink.
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Wrt raw material shortages, reading some of the posts in this thread it seems it is claimed that the Germans had planned for this eventuality and worked around it and thus problem solved. But I think one needs to distinguish between suddenly having an SHTF moment and being unable to produce thing X, vs. having worked around lack of sufficient quantities of some raw material and thus having to resort to produce things that are worse in some way, or just less of them.
For instance, for the case of non-ferrous metals, did they run out of, say, tungsten? Evidently not. But given an ample supply of tungsten, they could have produced large quantities of APCR anti-tank projectiles with superior armor penetration capability compared to the ABCBC that they largely used instead. Another example, without being required to develop workarounds for using low-nickel alloys in the exhaust valves, the whole 'sparmetall' valve saga might have been avoided. And on the topic of high temperature alloys, similar issues marred their turbocharger and turbojet programs. Germany also never introduced the tri-metal lead-tin-indium bearings for high performance engines, though I'm not sure whether that was due to them being unaware of them or due to not having access to indium.
And even for steel there were issues. As pointed out by Tooze in his book, fear of a repeat of the WWI shell crisis saw a lot of steel allocated to weapon production being diverted into shell production. And even so, Germany generally had to make do with much less shells than the Allies. Again, not running out of steel, but due to steel rationing industry capacity was not able to be fully utilized.
For instance, for the case of non-ferrous metals, did they run out of, say, tungsten? Evidently not. But given an ample supply of tungsten, they could have produced large quantities of APCR anti-tank projectiles with superior armor penetration capability compared to the ABCBC that they largely used instead. Another example, without being required to develop workarounds for using low-nickel alloys in the exhaust valves, the whole 'sparmetall' valve saga might have been avoided. And on the topic of high temperature alloys, similar issues marred their turbocharger and turbojet programs. Germany also never introduced the tri-metal lead-tin-indium bearings for high performance engines, though I'm not sure whether that was due to them being unaware of them or due to not having access to indium.
And even for steel there were issues. As pointed out by Tooze in his book, fear of a repeat of the WWI shell crisis saw a lot of steel allocated to weapon production being diverted into shell production. And even so, Germany generally had to make do with much less shells than the Allies. Again, not running out of steel, but due to steel rationing industry capacity was not able to be fully utilized.
Shortround6
Lieutenant General
That is the difference between totally running out and running low and NOT being able to do what you want. Germans were designing APCR rounds not only for just about all of their tank and anti tank guns, they designed 3 different taper bore AT guns (and few more experimentals) that would not work without Tungsten APCR rounds. Germans stopped production of all army tungsten APCR rounds except the 50mm tank and AT guns to save tungsten for machine tools. 50mm was spared for while because without it the Germans were short of tanks/AT guns that could deal with the Soviet tanks. Once they had more 75mm tanks and AT guns they stopped production of the 50mm tungsten rounds.
So where is the line between running out and having to restrict ammo supply and/or development of entire lines of weapons?
And here we get into different grades of steel, and problems of supply and demands for different aspects of the war.
Did the German AA suffer from wide spread shell shortages in Germany? German field artillery certainly suffered shortages in the front lines for many parts of the war.
Britain got around this by using crappy steel (alloy and heat treatment?) in their shells for most of their field artillery. But this meant they needed to fire more shells.
So for the Germans were the shell shortages caused by lack of steel?
Lack of alloys for high grade steel?
Lack of manufacturing capability to turn steel into shells?
Lack of explosives to fill shells? (this was starting to be a problem in late 1944/1945)
Lack of transport (trains/trucks) to get the shells to the armies in Russia/North Africa?
Lack of field artillery shells because the AA guns in Germany were firing off so many shells?
Germans planned for, or tried to, a number of shortages. Like using steel cartridge cases for both small arms and artillery shells to save on copper/brass.
Even the APCBC shells saw changes, going from nickel-chromium-molybdenum alloy to silicon-manganese-chromium and while this worked it tended to shatter a bit more on impact. Germans also tried an alloy tip butt welded to a plain carbon steel body. Better than no AP shells but things are getting a bit tight.
So, again, are the Germans running out steel, or are they running out of certain materials used in high alloy steel and having to use not quite as good substitutes?
Geoffrey Sinclair
Staff Sergeant
- 1,270
- Sep 30, 2021
So for comparison purposes Germany is defined as whatever Germany controls which means from early 1930's up until around the end of 1941 at least Germany is undergoing strong growth. When asked for comparisons between Germany in 1928 and Germany in 1938, for something like standards of living, quote the Greater Germany figures which make things look so much better.
Sorry the British announcement was 31 March, the various enabling was in April.
How a decision made in 1939 was based on avoiding a situation you said already existed before 1939.
Thanks for misquoting me, the British hit the emergency button in March 1939 as Hitler had broken the reason behind the Munich agreement, uniting German speakers only. It also was based on the start of anti Polish propaganda during March, indicating Germany was planning further expansions, including claims of into the Balkans which would make defeating Germany harder when Hitler fulfilled his statements about revenge on France. Then on 6 April came the Italian invasion of Albania, so on 13 April came the lesser known guarantees to Romania and Greece. Then the Anglo Turkish Declaration. The Balkan countries had plenty of reasons to distrust each other, forming an alliance amongst them was hard enough, an emergency one impossible. Trade was secondary.
Or earlier as you reported.
Not in 1939, the Balkans had options, including appeals to the USSR, in mid 1940 they did not.
Your claim was a proposed January 1939 naval building program, to take 5 to 6 years did such damage to German steel supply in mid 1939 it forced big changes elsewhere, which is nonsense, the twin constraints of government money and foreign exchange forced the changes.
So the steel that goes into a navy stops the manpower going into the army it seems. Germany as you define it in 1939/40 had twice the population of Britain for a start, over the years it pulled in lots of foreigners into the economy and army which enabled a bigger ground force plus of course lots of security units rather then combat units were needed. Are we counting divisions or manpower? Britain's army hovered at around 2,500,000 to 2,600,000 in 1942/43 and kept climbing to 2,900,000 in mid 1945. The British peaked at around 4,500,000 people in the armed services. Germany peaked at around 9,500,000 in 1943 down to 9,100,000 in 1944.
I see being out by 1 day for 1 event is being confused over multiple dates. From little things...
Actually what I normally do is switch treating things as comedy relief.
There was a finance issue, hence the cut backs in armament production, the German government debts while doing so much military spending were reaching the point where hard decisions needed to be made, in the first instance cuts in armament production programs.
So it seems reducing the pace is defined as not a cut back. Despite the graph showing cuts.
Another avoid, drop the problem on Kennedy, not the person quoting the figures. My debate dodge bingo card is now deployed.
Yep, the author of the quote is shoved up front again, not the person doing the quoting that is all consistently chosen to make Germany look good.
No they were not, the interest and repayments on the loans were biting, plus the big expansion of Government workers and the bill for running the equipment the workers were using, the Luftwaffe in particular had a big equipment usage bill. Hence the adjustments to programs, nothing spectacular, they tried, discovered it was too much and adjusted, but the trajectory was such that it turned out by the end of 1940 the government would be spending more on loans than the war.
Germany has this wonderful autarky, see that paper on 4 metals, years of stockpiles and internal capacity, no it does not, it needs lots of vital imports, no it does not everything is fine, no finance issues, Germany good, no problems.
Then stop doing it. Your comment "What was different in 1939 was that the Anglo-French had begun to rearm following Munich,"
18 July 1934 RAF Scheme A, expansion to 84 home squadrons, including 8 heavy bomber, by 31 March 1939
21 May 1935 RAF Scheme C, expansion to 123 home squadrons, including 20 heavy bomber, by 31 March 1937
21 November 1935 RAF Scheme F, expansion to 124 home squadrons, including 20 heavy bomber plus reserves, by 31 March 1937
27 April 1938 RAF Scheme L, expansion to 141 home squadrons, including 47 heavy bomber plus reserves, by 31 March 1940
Post Munich Crisis
7 November 1938 RAF Scheme M, expansion to 163 home squadrons, including 85 heavy bomber plus reserves, by 31 March 1942
So how doe the above fit into post Munich rearmament claims? It does fit into Germany as helpless forced on the path it went by others.
Germany in 1939: Under peace time conditions the build out was impossible to sustain and was cut and thus required the war in order to relax policy by having enforced buy in by the population.
Anyone see a difference? Except in how each is being described? Germany did make program downgrades, Britain was still holding out. Oh yes, British finances were fine, it was foreign exchange that was the problem, given the reported reduction in gold reserves, if we use the German 1939 finance logic.
For a start the food was a small amount of help, counter balanced by the forces needed to govern a population that did not want to be there and in any case war was on, the finance rules had changed.
Then stop doing it, the plan has a divergence from the claim "planning to lead the United States into war against Germany", or perhaps your quote, "after the leaking of the American Victory Program made it clear a further expansion of the conflict was imminent."
Who said he was completely innocent, another exaggeration, just that ideas abound that all his worst mistakes were due to outside influences.
The time line is publication in the US morning of 4 December, so later that day in Europe, leads to a Hitler order on 3 December. By the way a 1 day error in a date invalidates so much according to you. Or the time line is Germans in America learn about the leak on the third, still later in Europe's day, transmit a copy to Europe, which is decoded, evaluated and then passed to Hitler to read and action all in time for him to issue an order dated 3 December. Figured out how long it took in those days to radio that much text?
What was that about deliberate misunderstanding?
Might I suggest re-reading the post? What is the compound growth when using March 1942 as the starting point at 130 versus the probably below 100 February 1942? Ever noted aircraft production tends to dip in winter or be more erratic thanks to weather problems with acceptance flights? Seen the data behind the index calculations? Noted the AFV output and far more importantly how choosing start and end dates matter a lot. Noted how your ideas require more German army equipment, but AFV figures are ignored and instead comes look at the aircraft? Which by the way the USSBS says combat types production near doubled December 1941 to December 1942, doing better than AFV production, use the last quarter and it is on the order of 600 becomes 1,100 a month. Quoting expansion of aircraft production produces a better case for the Germans.
Luftwaffe combat aircraft in operational units, Strength/serviceable
3,609/3,159 on 2 September 1939
4,867/3,453 on 4 May 1940/
4,176/1,915 on 27 December 1941 (including 302 night fighters, not around in 1939)
5,008/3,180 on 10 June 1942
Serviceable figures then hovered around the 1939 figure until the uptick started in March 1943.
No, as the 1942 offensive proved, more equipment was more likely to compound the supply problems, rather than increase combat power. Out of a total German military of around 7.1 million Halder notes 830,000 Heer in east casualties in under 6 months then you need to add in the other services and theatres, but somehow that is not an issue worth addressing, or noting the combat military was smaller than the total military, or the German mid 1942 objectives did not imperil anything the USSR was really worried about unless it went a very long way. However do not worry coming soon is look how bad the Red Army is, ignore the reports of how few German formations in the east in early 1942 were rated good in terms of strength and offensive capability, after all if the Germans were so good to go why keep half the front quiet and use 4 axis allied armies in the front line?
Sorry we have no tanks for sale, but wait look at all the artillery we have, great for defensive warfare during our campaign winning offensive in 1942. Understand Germany good, always have the right tool for the right reason.
Both winter offensive were strategic failures under those rules. As for latest scholarship say John Erickson Road to Stalingrad, published in 1975? Latest scholarship has the downside of a continuing decline in interest in WWII, making it easier to market old as new and nonsense as scholarship.
Really, what military historian gives the mid 1942 Red Army such strength and how do they explain why it then went backwards for months? The reports are a much weakened army had to trade space for time and being given it by a German attack that wanted distant objectives.
The quotes are from the above reference,
"In reality it was numerically far weaker than it had been in June of 1941. For instance, in spite of concentrating production on key weapons systems like tanks, aircraft and artillery and mortars the Red Army's stocks hadn't come anywhere close to pre-war levels. In June of 1941 the Red Army had 22,600 tanks on its books. "
Oh it is always a joy to see this one rolled out, take away all the Soviet tanks, the majority, that were not working. That makes a big difference. The figure that says only 3,800 out of 14,200 tanks with the Red Army troops were serviceable. Some 29% of the tank park in army hands needed major overhaul and 44% needed "medium repair". German Panzer Generals defeat an army of 22,600 tanks sounds so much better than defeat an army that had fewer working tanks. All you need to do is remember the Red Army did not scrap many of the tanks it built over the 1930's at least. Tank park in June 1941 was 500 heavy, 900 medium and 21,200 light.
"In May of 1942 this total had fallen to 9,325 such machines. "
On 1 January 1942 the Red Army had 600 heavy, 800 medium and 6,300 light tanks, by the end of 1942 2,000 heavy, 7,600 medium and 11,000 light tanks. Is it a surprise to note May 1942 was a low point, given the defeats that month?
"Aircraft had dropped from 20,000 to 14,967. "
Think the Red Air Force did much retiring of older types in the 1930's? Combat aircraft down from 20,000 in June 1941 to 12,000 in January 1942 to 21,900 in January 1943 and a much better pick up in average quality than the Luftwaffe went through
"Artillery and mortar stocks were down from 112,800 to 107,795 on the eve of the 1942 German summer campaign. "
Note how small this drop is, almost rounding error then recall above the wonders of artillery in defensive positions, no need for tanks. In reality field guns, 33,200 to 18,900 to 36,700, mortars 56,100 to 38,000 to 186,100
"Moreover, the increased focus on tank, artillery, and aircraft production that had even enabled the Red Army to maintain such those numbers came at the expense of other very important items - not least of which being truck production. "
Fighting defensively reduces the requirements for trucks as the Heer kept demonstrating, Motor Vehicles, unfortunately all types, 272,600 to 318,500 to 404,500. Data from Krivosheev Soviet Casualties and Combat Losses in the Twentieth Century published in 1997.
And so on, western allied supplies did little to help the USSR in 1941 and were still small in 1942, there is a tendency to use the time the supplies were shipped rather than arrived when counting the aid, filling gaps was important and if anything was vital it was the materials required to make explosives, not tanks etc, then ready to go items like food and steel.https://www.globeatwar.com/article/state-soviet-economy-and-red-army-june-1942
I assure you I have no intention of taking your analysis, another just one more push, the sort of idea taken from WWI that keeping going in 1914 would have caused Paris to fall and end the war, according to post war ideas, so in 1941 Moscow or bust.
Which would be much more convincing if the data supported it.
The naval Z plan included what had already been built, like Scharnhorst and Gneisenau and those well under way, Bismarck and Tirpitz.
In mid 1940 the German economy workforce was 3.3% foreigners, in mid 1941 8.3%, in mid 1942 11.8%, in mid 1943 17.2%, foreigners were not nearly as committed to work as Germans and even less so as it became clearer who was winning. A handicap to increasing production.
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fubar57
General
Hey, Geoffrey
G
Geoffrey Sinclair I can't get onto the https://www.airhistory.org.uk/spitfire/ or https://www.airhistory.org.uk/Hurricane/home.html without my Bitdefender going apesh!t on me. Any thoughts as to why this is happening? This is the message I'm getting
Sorry about hijacking the thread
SpicyJuan11
Senior Airman
Scharnhorst and Gneisenau are not part of Plan Z, they were designed many years before Plan Z was ever conceived of. This is dishonest bookkeeping on your part.
SpicyJuan11
Senior Airman
Greater Germany was not food self-sufficient. The annexation of Austria and Czechia actually reduced their level of food sufficiency.
SpicyJuan11
Senior Airman
No, the Balkans did not "have options" in 1939, and the amount of leeway they had depends on the country. The were betrayed by Britain in 1938 and were already solidly in the German economic sphere, even if German economic hegemony wasn't achieved until 1940. By 1939, Hungary and Bulgaria were already economic satellites, according to the GSSW series and Paul Hehn. In 1937, Germany was the destination for 43% of Bulgarian exports, growing to 71%(!) in 1939. Hungary increased from 24% to 52%, Yugoslavia from 22% to 46%, and Romania from 19% to 43% in the same time period.
SpicyJuan11
Senior Airman
There was no finance issue. There was a balance of trade issue. Key distinction
History Learner
Airman
- 21
- Jul 24, 2025
Or we can just keep it at 1928 and 1938, since those were the years we were actually discussing until your last post?
I believe the "enabling" was the build up to issuing the guarantee which you acknowledge further into this post.
Perhaps by starting with the fact I didn't make that argument? If you'll recall, I said they should cancel Plan Z in favor of more resources to Air-Land Production since they had finite resources and could not do both.
Thank you for deliberately missing my point, given the reason why the British set about issuing those guarantees and the reason they thought it would be harder to defeat the Germans after they solidified their control over the Balkans would be because of the loss of Anglo-French market access.
I've already explained to you at least twice the means to German hegemony in 1940-41 was the conquest of Poland.
Good thing it's not my "claim" but actually directly sourced from Adam Tooze's Wages of Destruction, which was a book you were originally citing from earlier in thread. Now, unless you're proposing the Germans were making weapons out of foreign exchange, they were spending said foreign exchange on inputs for the military buildup on things such as steel.
If the Germans aren't using foreign exchange to buy the inputs for Plan Z that means the foreign exchange historical spent on that is now available for Air-Land Production, which was my point.
...did you forget that ships need manpower to crew them? Unless the Britain of the 1940s invented a means of altering the laws of physics, Sailors in the Royal Navy can't simultaneously be soldiers in the British Army.
Except you weren't talking about days until this post but instead were talking about months, hence why I asked for clarification twice to understand what you were referring to since you had the date wrong.
I guess that explains your behavior in response to being corrected on rather basic facts of the period, as demonstrated above.
Either you're not actually reading what I've posted or you are deliberately misconstruing what I've said to engage in strawmen:
So, which of the above is it?
How about actually addressing the point I made since I did a straightforward comparison of machine tools? Really starting to notice a pattern in terms of personal attacks here when you can't make an actual argument.
Both Richard Overy and Adam Tooze disagree and I've provided excerpts from both of their works, as well as indexes of German civilian consumption to show there is no truth to this. The onus in a debate is on you to provide counter evidence.
It's almost as if a weight of evidence against your position exists.
I don't see a reason to stop making factual arguments simply because you can't argue against them. With that in mind, instead of simply re-stating what the British plans were, how about addressing the fact they couldn't be paid for without going to war which was the point of my citation? You'll notice Scheme A, L, and M all completed after Munich. After that, might we also recall the Royal Navy and British Army existed and it's rather noticeable you've left them out?
Or, maybe, we can recall Germany was out-competing the British in Eastern Europe and this granted Berlin greater fiscal space to engage in rearmament than Britain? It's extremely odd how you pick and choose your arguments, given earlier you noted the Germans solidifying themselves in the Balkans would make them harder to defeat but here you seem to "forget" that.
Again, it is bizarre how you forget your own arguments when convenient:
By your own statistics, annexing Poland would almost close that remaining 2% gap via it's surplus. With rationing, you'd be able to fully close it. This would mean, as I stated before, more foreign exchange had the invasion not led to the outbreak of World War II
Again, just because you can't argue against the point doesn't require me to drop it. Might I suggest actually responding to what I said instead of inventing a quote I literally didn't say?
You literally did in this very post, for one:
Again, it is truly remarkable how you forget what you've said when convenient.
Or you could read the sources provided which confirm the leak was on the 3rd, found out by German intelligence the same day and and transmitted back and then reported by American Press on the following morning. So, is it deliberate misunderstanding on your part or did you not bother to read the sources provided? I'm sensing a very strong pattern with you here.
Good thing we have averages in mathematics, fixed dates for the timeframe at hand and ground production includes more than just AFVs. Would you like to address what was actually said now or continue to engage in strawmen?
Good thing more production in ground equipment includes railcars, rails, trucks, etc to prevent said supply issues, right? Let's also review what the logistics situation was in reality:
The fundamental problem facing the occupying Ostheer during its time in Russia was that everything it needed, apart from food and fodder, had to come from Germany, and it simply lacked the railway transport in order to carry this. Each Heeresgruppe required 75 trains a day, the economy required trains to move materials toward the Reich, the occupied population required substantial train traffic as the northern zone was a food deficit area, and the railways themselves imported good-quality coal and finished products from home. The economic traffic for Quarter IV 1942 was: into Russia 557,192 tonnes, within Russia 2,400,980 tonnes, and into Germany 1,471,808 tonnes, with 613,900 head of cattle,67 which is approximately 14 trains a day into Russia, 58 trains moving within Russia, and 36 trains heading toward Germany. In January 1943, the traffic crossing the border into GVD Osten per day was 76 trains HBD Nord, 87 HBD Mitte, 67 HBD Süd, plus nine trains crossing from Romania to Odessa plus 81 trains carrying coal, construction materials, and equipment for the railway.68 This would indicate that the railways were only just meeting minimum demand, with little extra capacity — for instance, when the 305 Infanterie Division was moved from France in May 1942, 'the bulk of the division's motorized units drove all the way from Germany… . The vehicles would not reach Kharkov for another fortnight'.69
The only Army Group not meeting its minimum needs was AGS. AGC was actually running a surplus, for example.
Because these numbers are not based in reality. Per Enduring the Whirlwind by Gregory Liedtke, total combat losses on the Ostfront between July and November numbered 498,786 men, but this was compensated by the arrival of 509,700 replacements. The German Army in the East actually reached its Barbarossa strength again in early 1943 and millions of men remained untapped in 1942 per Liedtke.
Or we could look at what Stalin was saying to come to the same conclusion as Goldman? From The USSR and Total War: Why Didn't the Soviet Economy Collapse in 1942? by Mark Harrison:
Roosevelt also contributed to Soviet stabilization. The first installment of wartime Allied aid that reached the Soviet Union in 1942, although small by later standards, amounted to some 5 per cent of Soviet GNP in that year. Although Allied aid was used directly to supply the armed forces with both durable goods and consumables, indirectly it probably released resources to households. By improving the balance of overall resources it brought about a ceteris paribus increase in the payoff to patriotic citizens. In other words, Lend-Lease was stabilizing. We cannot measure the distance of the Soviet economy from the point of collapse in 1942, but it seems beyond doubt that collapse was near. Without Lend-Lease it would have been nearer. Stalin himself recognized this, although he expressed himself more directly. He told Khrushchev several times that the Soviet Union had suffered such heavy losses that without Allied aid it would have lost the war.1
It's okay to admit you didn't know artillery was the main cause of casualties in WWII.
David Stahel's book is from the 2010s, so how about you start addressing that first instead of noticeably avoiding it?
Problem was it wasn't trading space for time, it was getting smashed in the field per Soviet records:
Meanwhile in reality...
The Western Allies and Soviet Potential in World War II by Martin Kahn:
The Soviets were very interested in receiving material aid from the Western Powers. According to a telegram sent by Stalin to Churchill on 3 September, the Soviets would be defeated, or so seriously weakened, that they would be unable to undertake any active operations against Germany if it did not receive material help from Britain, and without the opening of a second front in France or the Balkans.67 The next day Ambassador Cripps sent a telegram, distributed to Churchill, the War Cabinet and the FO. Cripps urged British action in order to create a diversion from the hard-pressured Soviets, otherwise a collapse would commence.68 Three days later he sent another telegram to the FO and the War Cabinet, describing a meeting with Stalin. On a direct question Stalin was uncertain as to whether or not the Soviets could hold out until the spring. But by this Stalin did not mean a separate peace, but outright defeat, even though he did not see this happening and rather implied prolonged retreat, possibly to the Volga.69
America sent gear to the USSR to help win World War II, U.S. Department of State:
At a dinner toast with Allied leaders during the Tehran Conference in December 1943, Stalin added: "The United States … is a country of machines. Without the use of those machines through Lend-Lease, we would lose this war." Nikita Khrushchev, who led the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, agreed with Stalin's assessment. In his memoirs, Khrushchev described how Stalin stressed the value of Lend-Lease aid: "He stated bluntly that if the United States had not helped us, we would not have won the war."
Given Plan Z didn't start until January of 1939, can you please explain how these vessels whose construction began before then were part of it?
And yet, German munitions output doubled between 1942-1943 and 1944 was the height of German production output.
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History Learner
Airman
- 21
- Jul 24, 2025
The numbers came from Sinclair, I probably should've checked them before using them:
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Ok, too much to read to try and figure out who's the blame here. We have received several reports by concerned members who think this thread is about to get out of hand. So here is a reminder to all…
1. Play nice. Healthy debate is great, but keep it civil. If you cannot get your point across without insulting someone, or making snide comments, don't post anything at all.
2. Attack the post (in a civil manner) rather than the poster. If you cannot do that, don't respond at all.
Thanks
1. Play nice. Healthy debate is great, but keep it civil. If you cannot get your point across without insulting someone, or making snide comments, don't post anything at all.
2. Attack the post (in a civil manner) rather than the poster. If you cannot do that, don't respond at all.
Thanks
Shortround6
Lieutenant General
There seems to be a lot of confusion as to what "Plan Z" included depending on source used. Using "Conway's The Worlds Fighting Ships 1922-1946" as source so other sources may differ.
Ships in plan total...............................................ships in commission/under construction in 1939
carriers 4..................................................................2
Battleships 8...........................................................4
Battlecruiser 5........................................................2
heavy cruiser 8......................................................8 (includes the pocket battleships)
light cruiser 13......................................................9 (the 9 includes 3 type M light cruisers)
Scouts 22.................................................................0
Destroyers 68.......................................................30
Torpedo boats 90................................................36
Submarines 249..................................................129 (?)
small fighting vessels 302...............................187
Mineships/layers 10..............................................3
auxiliaries 909........................................................123
We can argue about Scharnhorst and Gneisenau being battleships or battlecruisers but they (and the Deutschlands) were included in the Plan Z totals. Plan Z may also have included re-gunning the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau to six 15 in guns.
According to this list even the Emden (laid down in 1921) was included in the "total" cruiser count for Plan Z.
Plan Z took a while to evolve and the March 1st 1939 plan was last version. The Ships included in Plan Z would remain in commission until 1948.
Some people may have a different interpretation and consider Plan Z as an 'expansion plan' to the existing navy.
They have neglected to renew the certificate, hence the certificate is deemed invalid.
Unfortunately a common problem with amateur websites and sometimes even professionals. The fact that this is already 4 years over due is very amateurish.
Geoffrey Sinclair
Staff Sergeant
- 1,270
- Sep 30, 2021
Message 291 for 1928 mention, try gain.
Amazing how people are claimed to agree with History Learner
Message 297, try again.
"Without question, the loss of trade with the Soviets was a blow initially, but the Germans made up for it by intensified trade with Southern and Eastern Europe, as Germany had effectively established economic hegemony in the region and this was a major reason for the Anglo-French taking a hardline on Poland: "
How a decision made in 1939 was based on avoiding a situation you said already existed before 1939?
I like to mirror things, apparently the problem for the allies is not Germany getting resources, it is then unable to replace the resources Germany gained.
And use the term to describe the pre Poland situation.
So provide my cite.
Actually try,
"Because naval buildups are insanely expensive, and Plan Z was no exception. Starting in January of 1939, the Navy was given predominance in the steel rations and this had a drastic
impact for both the Heer and Luftwaffe: "
The Z plan building program was heading towards 1.5 million tons of steel warships built over 5 to 6 years, 1939 German steel production in 1939 was about 1.5 million tons of finished and 2 million tons of crude steel a month. By Q1/44 output had grown to 2.5 million tons finished steel per month with the monthly allocation of the 225,000 tons alloy steel of 200,000 for armaments, 25,000 for essential industrial use, while ordinary steel production in early 1944 could allow for a 50% increase in war production, plus 300,000 tons for civil use backed by up to 15 million tons of stocks. Interesting steel situation the Germans must have been in, implies the drop in coal production in 1939 would have had a similar impact. So what was the specific navy items needed from outside Germany?
I actually gave total British mobilisation, to add detail, the RN was smaller than the RAF, the started off near parity but in 1941 and later at times two thirds to 75%.
Germany seems to have decided who to attack in 1940/41 according to the size of their merchant fleet, Britain was the beneficiary of large numbers of ships and crews joining it, enabling the fleet to remain stable despite the losses. The US Merchant Marine site notes its personnel suffered a higher loss rate than any branch of the US military. British figures are harder to pin down, sailors signed on per voyage, if they died between voyages they could be counted as ordinary deaths, not even war related despite injuries inflicted while at sea. In addition, as usual, sailors were recruited from where wages were lower, Lascars from Asia were part of the workforce and not tracked as carefully. It looks like merchant marine deaths came to half to two thirds the number of air raid deaths.
Steel soldiers, soldiers steeling themselves for battle, men of steel?
As for laws of Physics How did you find out about my many guest appearances on Star Trek, Scottish engineering can do marvels in script writer's hands? Out visiting, stepped out to look at the trek of the stars and joined by the resident about 2 year old.
"Moon, stars..."
"Dark"
"The big light is the moon the little ones are stars".
"Dark!!"
"See how big the moon looks?"
"Daaarrrkkk"
Thereby establishing to two year old standards it is dark at night, we bathe our babies and toddlers with so much light they do not know dark for so long and learn to be scared of it Also noticed it is usually easier to borrow someone's children than their car?
What I am really enjoying with this continual repeat of a 1 day error I made is the admission someone claiming to know all about it could not cope with the error.
No actually, it is more to do with the more advantages handed to the defined good guys the more wasteful stupid, etc. to end up at the historical result, making it a form of hatred of the good guys.
Invalid assumptions again, facts are being provided, rather than some carefully selected examples.
Hard to tell, the implying the internal MEFO loans related to foreign exchange, the claim British and French rearmament began after the Munich conference, the attempt to cite things as a crisis, not an adjustment, ignoring the reports of crossing the 20% GNP spending threshold which was again domestic, the claims of repressing living standards, which indicates government action to raise costs or reduce employment or the idea the naval program in 1939 was so big Germany cancelling it could have avoided any economic need to attack Poland.
I did, adding aircraft production figures, pointing out how selective it was and then announcing the person presenting the claim says see the authors. I am really starting to notice a pattern when you can't make an actual argument.
The German government in 1939 was facing cash flow problems, the amount of previous years borrowings plus the amount being spent on the military meant an adjustment that did not involve loans, the choice was cut living standards by one or more of the usual methods or cut expenditure, they largely chose the latter. Instead the cut backs are being marketed as foreign exchange only.
The resources captured when Bohemia and Moravia were occupied included equipment for 20 divisions, 800,000 ounces of gold and "large" stocks of non ferrous metals. Skoda and Czech Armaments Company made the area the fourth biggest arms exporter in the world, it added 15% to Germany's share of world arms production, this is in March/April. Then the idea is a balance of payments issue forces cuts in arms production to a forecast half of mid 1938 and a quarter of March 1939 levels, despite the big increase in stocks plus armaments production capacity? Nothing to do with those trading with Germany becoming more cautious as war talk ramped up? Did it have anything to do with payments to the Czech factories? Their foreign shareholders expected to be paid. I was under the impression to the first approximation the Nazis used the Czech tax system to pay and use a currency exchange rate good for Germany. As the war progressed the German state took over more of the shareholdings.
Since the Czechs were major weapons suppliers to the Balkans this further increased dependency on Germany.
However within weeks of this windfall Germany has a balance of payments crisis so drastic and so specific arms production drops to a quarter of its previous but can be redeemed by cutting the naval building program. Actually thought there might be the driver of people deciding German was no longer a safe place for their money, given the major step forward to war taken in March/April? Reducing credit terms, moving money out of the country?
Make factual arguments, stop claiming them, like British rearmament started post Munich, simple enough, the data has been posted.
Remember the idea is foreign exchange that caused the German armament reductions in 1939 now it is buying foreign items that gave fiscal space.
Oh a good laugh, apparently rearmament only happens after the plan is completed, so no one was rearming in the 1930's given dates.
Go ahead, but when including navies cancel the Z plan and its effects given its post Munich completion date.
Remember the idea is foreign exchange that caused the German armament reductions in 1939 now it is buying foreign items that gave fiscal space.
Always fun to see people look in a debate mirror and complain when their idea of logic is used elsewhere.
Or bizarre when they are misunderstood.
Now to correct a mistake, Sorry, ran into the Greater Germany definition and a misread, try as of end 1939, Greater Germany = Germany (Altreich), Saar, Ostmark (Austria), Sudaten, Memel, Danzi and Ostgau (annexed parts of Poland), 84%, add General Government Poland, Czech lands and Solvakia, this rises to 87%, or 98 million out of 112 million people in the Greater German economic area, I reported the number of people with local food as the percentage food sufficiency. Austria and the Czech lands needed food for 2 million people between them. Absorption into Germany improved Austria's local food sufficiency while reducing Czech and Slovak. Only Memel and the Ostgau had food surpluses. In 1939 44% of German food imports came from countries either occupied or still trading with Germany by end 1939. By the way the mistake lessens the stress on the pre war German economy.
The time line is publication in the US morning of 4 December, so later that day in Europe, leads to a Hitler order on 3 December. By the way a 1 day error in a date invalidates so much according to you. Or the time line is Germans in America learn about the leak on the third, still later in Europe's day, transmit a copy to Europe, which is decoded, evaluated and then passed to Hitler to read and action all in time for him to issue an order dated 3 December. Figured out how long it took in those days to radio that much text? Do not forget about translation time. Or else high German war policy is determined by unverified US newspaper leaks, possibly summarised and in English.
It is amazing how the averages are ignored and the best start and end points are chosen, the point of the AFV figures.
We are given the January 1943 figure, not the 1941/42 figures, sort of like giving the US Army supply status in France in January 1945 to show there were no problems in September 1944. The reports of supply shortages at the front line versus counting trains well behind that line.
You see I note Halder says by 20 June 1942 1,299,730 casualties, including over 330,000 dead and missing, or a rate of about 3,540 casualties per day every day since the invasion began for the army in the east. You can also look at the army assessments of combat worthiness in early 1942. The above is an unspecified year of replacements that said things returned to the start in early 1943. And of course if millions were standing untapped what does that say about the German command, or perhaps the supply situation, or the drains of trying to occupy that much territory.
You see the German attack in 1942 was not hitting vital areas, so time to provide an opinion that it really did matter. As to what would crack the USSR the starting point is Leningrad, which did not crack, and the rest of the country did not come close to it.
I am enjoying this immensely.
You see it goes like this, the whole idea is to promote "New History", so when the old stuff is shown to be right, demand people read the selected new stuff. Trouble is when the new stuff is inaccurate and/or misleading.
Apart from the disputes about the numbers mentioned above, Germans advanced, then bogged down, the Red Army was willing to pull back.
You see the figures I provided have been replaced by opinions, and dinner toasts. Ignoring for start how end loaded the aid became.
There is Z plan and the 1939 building program to achieve it, unless people believe there was an intention to complete the original 6 pocket battleship program?
In mid 1940 the German economy workforce was 3.3% foreigners, in mid 1941 8.3%, in mid 1942 11.8%, in mid 1943 17.2%, foreigners were not nearly as committed to work as Germans and even less so as it became clearer who was winning. A handicap to increasing production.
Yes, I like to know what happened.
Careful, some data have sensitive feelings. Anyway thanks for a relaxing laugh at the end of a very busy week, helps set up the weekend. Now for something incompletely depressing to return to normal outlook.
People are reading this and admitting it in writing? Life has so many lessons.
So as to not waste all the reader's time
Desperate for a surprise gift? How about a chocolate Easter bunny, hard to see that one coming this time of year, just takes a little planning and forbearance and can be sold by saying how can you have a good Easter if you do not practice for it during the year? Exit chocaholic, enter dedicated follower of Easter, just look out for the odd person wanting to turn it into a religious event by building a chocolate altar.
Indexes: Start with what was the output in Q4/1941 1941, the graph posted notes a dip in February 1942, then a sharp rise in March, was January/February 1942 part of a winter decline, January an outlier, well above 1941, or February an outlier well below trend? We know the Me210 program cost significant aircraft output in 1941, then comes switching factories to new types like the Fw190. What we do know is the best two possible end points were used to calculate production rises, as the monthly tank production figures show, picking end points can show forwards, sideways or backwards movements as required.
The British Bombing Survey Unit gives graphs of the composite index and various sub indexes, along with quarterly index numbers, for 1942
Composite 110, 138, 154, 168
Aircraft, 117, 133, 142, 141 by weight
Aircraft 117, 140, 150, 161 by numbers
Tanks 92.3, 134.3, 129, 163
Half tracks 106.33, 128.33, 110.33, 144
Motor Vehicles 115, 144, 151, 151
Warships 103, 147, 144, 174
Weapons 103, 132.3, 144, 166.66
Ammunition 103, 147, 193, 220
Powder 103.66, 117.66, 142, 150.66
Explosives 108, 138, 130, 150
What the survey calls potential output for the composite index was 98 in the final quarter of 1941 compared with 142 for all of 1942.
Idle background music during the composing of this message was Always look on the bright side of German life, not quite yet ready for Springtime for Hitler, anyway Germany is currently headed into the opposite season.
Announcements, the Hurricane and Spitfire web sites decided to stop paying for certification, they are read only sites.
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yulzari
Tech Sergeant
Moderators will doubtless be monitoring the current Willy waving but I would just like to remind the more enthusiastic practitioners that an academic argument is not a bar fight. No-one has to win.
One should hear the other side, present verifiable counters if one is not convinced and the same for the other side. Hopefully you have convinced the other side to change their mind. It is not a matter of shame nor an admission of inferiority to make a change. It is evidence of wisdom and maturity. Nor yet is it a matter of shame and weakness to have failed to convince them. If one has failed to convince the other side of all or some of their opinions then both should gracefully agree to disagree as gentlemen should.
This is rather better than trying to end the argument with a metaphorical ambulance taking away the bloodied body of your opponent whilst you dance in your opponents blood spatter.
Never let it be said of you that "Her's not brunged up proper and bain't fit to court maid".
One should hear the other side, present verifiable counters if one is not convinced and the same for the other side. Hopefully you have convinced the other side to change their mind. It is not a matter of shame nor an admission of inferiority to make a change. It is evidence of wisdom and maturity. Nor yet is it a matter of shame and weakness to have failed to convince them. If one has failed to convince the other side of all or some of their opinions then both should gracefully agree to disagree as gentlemen should.
This is rather better than trying to end the argument with a metaphorical ambulance taking away the bloodied body of your opponent whilst you dance in your opponents blood spatter.
Never let it be said of you that "Her's not brunged up proper and bain't fit to court maid".
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