cherry blossom
Senior Airman
- 539
- Apr 23, 2007
There was in retrospect a very serious error made by Germany in preparing for Barbarossa, which was that they was assumed that victory was certain. Thus only sufficient arms were ordered for Barbarossa as were expected to be needed (Rüstungsprogramm B) and the building of factories and synthetic oil plants for a war with the Anglo-American powers in 1944 were given priority. There might seem to be some lack of logic in that as the conquest of the USSR would have given Germany access to significant oil production. However, the synthetic oil program was required for high octane aviation fuel.
If we are allowed massive hindsight, we could suggest stopping the construction of oil plants that would not be in production before 1943 and aiming for a small for qualitatively superior Luftwaffe by giving priority to jet aircraft, which only required kerosene which would be available from ex-Soviet oil fields.
That would free up a large quantity of steel and labour for a larger weapons programme over 1940-1 and possibly allow Germany's allies to receive better weapons. The Luftwaffe would obviously benefit from more bombers but perhaps transports were even more urgently required. Unfortunately there was a shortage of good transport designs ready for production in 1940 except for the old Ju-52. Perhaps, the Ju-90 which had flown with a loading ramp in 1939 might have been ordered into immediate production as one Ju-90 could reportedly carry as much as 7 Ju-52s and much further.
The issue of labour shortages, concentration camps and the terrible fate of the prisoners taken during Barbarossa may have been linked to Hitler's fear of food shortages such as those that damaged German morale in WW1. Certainly, every effort was made to ensure that Germany remained well fed during the early years of WW2. A more civilized Germany might have risked running down its stocks of food to gain and feed more workers.
A similar issue, not obviously relevant to aviation, is that decollectivizing Soviet agriculture might have made Germany some friends. However, the collective farms were a Soviet device for taking food from farmers to the cities and dissolving them might have made it harder for the Wehrmacht to obtain food.
If we are allowed massive hindsight, we could suggest stopping the construction of oil plants that would not be in production before 1943 and aiming for a small for qualitatively superior Luftwaffe by giving priority to jet aircraft, which only required kerosene which would be available from ex-Soviet oil fields.
That would free up a large quantity of steel and labour for a larger weapons programme over 1940-1 and possibly allow Germany's allies to receive better weapons. The Luftwaffe would obviously benefit from more bombers but perhaps transports were even more urgently required. Unfortunately there was a shortage of good transport designs ready for production in 1940 except for the old Ju-52. Perhaps, the Ju-90 which had flown with a loading ramp in 1939 might have been ordered into immediate production as one Ju-90 could reportedly carry as much as 7 Ju-52s and much further.
The issue of labour shortages, concentration camps and the terrible fate of the prisoners taken during Barbarossa may have been linked to Hitler's fear of food shortages such as those that damaged German morale in WW1. Certainly, every effort was made to ensure that Germany remained well fed during the early years of WW2. A more civilized Germany might have risked running down its stocks of food to gain and feed more workers.
A similar issue, not obviously relevant to aviation, is that decollectivizing Soviet agriculture might have made Germany some friends. However, the collective farms were a Soviet device for taking food from farmers to the cities and dissolving them might have made it harder for the Wehrmacht to obtain food.