Were the Germans all thumbs?

[ASL Veteran]

I have been reading “Ostfront” by Charles Winchester and he raised some points that took me by surprise. I felt this to be a relevant topic in light of the recent discussions about the various qualities of the (cough) so called “Aryan” male I will take a few slices from his relatively short but precise work and elicit comments from our esteemed readers here. “The Red Army’s greatest quantitative advantage lay in its vastly superior numbers of tanks, aircraft, and (above all) artillery. This was not because the USSR enjoyed greater economic resources, but because its war economy was far better managed. Despite conquering so much of Europe, Germany signally failed to exploit this industrial windfall for military production. In 1943 Germany produced about FOUR TIMES as much steel and THREE TIMES as much coal as the USSR. Nevertheless, the Russians built 33 percent more tanks, 50 per cent more aircraft and vastly more heavy artillery pieces.” He also points out that “By the time Hitler attacked Russia, HALF the German industrial workforce was working on military orders – a greater devotion to military production than achieved by the USA in World War II. By every indicator of economic strength, Germany should have out – produced its opponents, enabling the Wehrmacht to face not just the Red Army, but the Western Allies invasion of France with every confidence. (snip) Yet, until 1943, even the much smaller British economy was out – building Germany in aircraft and warships, and closely matching its production of guns and tanks.” He raised another interesting issue which is related to this one, but I will include that one in another post. I added the caps for emphasis.

[Guest machineman]

I don't think mass production had caught on in Germany by the 30's and early 40's (it had only just been invented by Henry Ford, after all), which slowed them down some. As well they had problems with the chronic german tendency to over-engineer things as well as the myriad of competing factions in the Nazi scheme of industrial control. Speer did rationalize this towards the end of the war, resulting in the tremendous increases in productivity in '44. And of course a major factor was that the Germans had no 'rich uncle Sam' to supply them with materials and finished product as the Soviets and the British did. Eg the USA supplying virtually all the Soviets transport trucks, as well as plenty of more mundane but essential things such as telephone wire, enabled the Soviets to concentrate on production of tanks and artillery.

[IntelWeenie]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by machineman:

As well they had problems with the chronic german tendency to over-engineer things <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

An excellent example of this would be the difference in the number of parts (and the difficulty of making those parts) between the MG-34 and MG-42 (IIRC, the -34 had nearly twice as many parts, many of them small and easily damaged or lost). Both filled the exact same role, used the same ammo, and with the exception of increased ROF on the -42, had very simlar performance. In no small part because of things like this, German war production really didn't peak untill the war was pretty much already lost.

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"Belly to belly and everything's better" - Russian proverb

[Fionn]

What you really want to do is read Albert Speer's "Inside the Third Reich" as an introduction to the economic aspects of the war.

It is only an introductory text for the economic aspects of the war though. In any good bookstore you should be able to find some good books covering the economic aspects of the war in more detail.

Basically though Germany didn't go onto what Britain or Russia would consider a "war fotting" at any point during the war. Women weren't drafted in to work in factories (although slave labour was imported but that had attendant sabotage side-effects etc).

There were umpteen exemptions from national service, people engaged in the production of frivolous consumer goods etc etc.

One other thing... Winchester has forgotten to account for the fact that Germany had a naval fleet to support. Russia really didn't and so the 4-fold superiority in steel production is illusory since, perhaps, only twice as much steel was available for the Wehrmacht. ( Between 1942 and 1945 the Germans devoted at LEAST 600,000 tons of steel JUST to the production of ONE TYPE of submarine . In that time they only devoted about 1/5th of that amount to the production of ALL Panthers.)

Winchester really isn't comparing like to like. Either it is an unfortunate oversight or he is twisting facts so as to support his own hypothesis ( unforgiveable IMO).

[Guest Mortiis]

lets not forget that germany was in short supply of petrol from the start of the war; and their homemade supply of fuel was inadequate. So even if they managed to crank out an abundance of tanks they would be nothing more than extremely heavy paperwieghts. I dont profess to be a grognard so if Im wrong feel free to correct me.

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<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it.

Winston Churchill<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

[DrD]

Hitler wouldn't allow women to work as it wasn't his "ideal" of German womanhood. No Rosie the Riveter for him.

As mentioned above German didn't go to a "total war" footing until 1943 (after Stalingrad) when Goebbels made his famous total war speech.

Also, I read recently (as usual I don't remember where) that in the US tanks were made by auto companies that already had experience with mass production whereas in Germany, at least intitially, tanks were made by agricultural equipment companies.

Finally, and perhaps most significantly, the Third Reich was contrary to popular belief very inefficiently organized. Hitler deliberately gave his subordinates loosely defined and overlapping areas of responsibility in an effort to make sure their political efforts were directed towards struggles with their equals rather than attempts to take power from Hitler. Also, Hitler himself often meddled with production, usually to the detriment of efficiency, as for example when he insisted that the new jets be built mostly as bombers rather than the fighters the German high command wanted.

I can not recommend highly enough albert Speer's "Inside the Third Reich." Not only is it a great portrait of Hitler and many of the other characters around him but will make you understand why the lost the war. The inefficiencies, petty squabbling, and Hitler's gross incompetence are simply mind-boggling.

[Fionn]

Correct in a sense BUT if they had had 10,000 or so more Panthers then, perhaps, the Germans wouldn't have lost the oilfields .

In war everything is inter-related... Sure more tanks are useless if you don';t have the fuel BUT if you have more tanks maybe you can hold the oilfields and then you WILL have the fuel you need .

Anyways, all war is decided by logistics. Strategy and tactics are just the means by which logistics act on the field of battle.

[ASL Veteran]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Fionn:

Winchester really isn't comparing like to like. Either it is an unfortunate oversight or he is twisting facts so as to support his own hypothesis ( unforgiveable IMO).<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Bear in mind that you are only reading a small slice of his discussion on this topic. I believe that it was his purpose to show that the raw materials were not being efficiently turned into war making machines in a general sense, not just in terms of tanks and artillery. He was pointing out that there was a bottleneck in the system. For instance, he detailed how the French aircraft industry could produce around 5000 aircraft per year before the occupation, but only produced 2500 aircraft during the whole of the occupation of France.

[Dittohead]

And lets not forget all the exotic V-1 and V-2, jets, rocket planes the germans cranked

out. Their homemade fuel plants also produced significant amounts of fuel.

don't forget that Hitlers no retreat orders in the East caused the loss of large quantities of men and material. If Hitler had given Manstien free reign of German forces in the East after Kharkov blow then the Germans probably would not have lost the oil fields either till the debut of the A-bomb.

Tony

[Fionn]

As for France..

Well that was part of Hitler's policy to de-industrialise France and other occupied territories. He didn't want any warlike factories being in occupied territories if he could help it.

Of course he later relented a bit but really his whole racial policies caused no end of trouble to the German military.

[dalem]

My favorite way of summing up the whole "why Germany waged war the way it did, and lost" topic is (I think) from the designer notes to one of the V for Victory games.

I can't remember the exact quote, but basically I agree with the statement that for Germany to have won a long war, Hitler would have had to have been a very different person, probably the kind of person who wouldn't start such a war in the first place.

Still a fascinating topic, though.

-dale

[Von Brizee]

Soviets produced more tanks also because they mass produced mainly just the T-34, which was relatively simple and cheap. Germans made a wide variety of tanks, many of them bigger and much more complicated and expensive.

[Mace]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Von Brizee:

Soviets produced more tanks also because they mass produced mainly just the T-34, which was relatively simple and cheap. Germans made a wide variety of tanks, many of them bigger and much more complicated and expensive.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I'd agree with that. The Germans did over engineer their equipment.

Also, I think Hitler's fascination with and support of the production of wonder weapons, and the allied bombing of infrastructure would have had a substantial impact on Germany's capacity to produce machinery of war as well.

That is,

i) it takes some considerable time for a factory to tool up to produce the new weapons, time better spent on producing proven equipment.

ii) The factories were undergoing disruption due to the allied bombing campaign, often forced to relocate to an safer environment, ie underground.

Mace

[This message has been edited by Mace (edited 07-30-2000).]

[Guest Michael emrys]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Mace:

ii) The factories were undergoing disruption due to the allied bombing campaign, often forced to relocate to an safer environment, ie underground.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Somewhat true, but for comparison recall that the Soviets had to relocate the greater part of their military production to the Urals when the Germans occupied the Ukraine and the Don Basin. Plus they had to do so in a matter of months while engaged in a desperate life-or-death struggle against a huge invading army, whereas the Germans had somewhat more leisure to perform their relocations. Whatever their failures, and they were many, the Soviets could pull off a miracle of organisation when they needed one.

Michael

[ncounio]

Speaking of french war industry under german occupation, there was also very little enthusiasm from the workers in these factories to produce for Germany when

1/ Your own country is under foreign rule

2/ A lot of young men were held in Germany in so called "Mandatory Work Service" program

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Nicolas

"Deux intellectuels assis vont moins loin qu'une brute qui marche"

Un Taxi Pour Tobrouk

[fd ski]

From the plane freak viewpoint here...

German Air Force screwed up well before the war started. They never designed or implemented a good heavy bomber. Their overconfidence in Me 110 bit them in the ass as well.

The stupid insistance that EVERY bomber ( including level bomber ) should be capable of DIVE BOMBING basically destroyed every good heavy-long-range bomber program they migth have had.

Case in point - Battle of Britain - lost because of lack of range of fighters/lack of heavy bombers and apparent lack of interest by Hitler.

Had they taken UK, things would have been much different.

Imagine if Luftwaffe was able to field sizable heavy bombardment group in late 1942.. Those Russian factories in Ural would not be so safe. Russian Airforce did not develop any high-altitude interceptors until late 1944... ( probably anticipating following confict with US )

In 1942 - Luftwaffe heavy bombers could have bombed Russia into olivion... but some idiot with divebomber obsesion ( imagine B17 divebombing ) destroyed any such possibility.

[JOCHEN PEIPER]

It all boils down to one thing...

Hitler banning all new weapon developments in the 30's and early 40's...Instead opting for mass production of the already existing weapons...

BIG MISTAKE...

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Quote.

If you see a white plane it's American, if you see a black plane it's the RAF. If you see no planes at all it's the Luftwaffe." ---German soldier on the Western Front, 1944.

[tss]

fd ski wrote:

Had they taken UK, things would have been much different.

Then again, even if Luftwaffe had won the Battle of Britain, there still would have been the Royal Navy left. The Germans would have been able to bring only one wave of troops across the Channel before all of their shipping would have been in the bottom of the sea. If even one British destroyed had got through Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine escort rings, it could have sunk most of the invasion fleet and the British had a plenty of those.

Russian Airforce did not develop any high-altitude interceptors until late 1944...

I'm not an expert on Soviet planes but wasn't MiG-3 a pretty good high-altitude interceptor? IIRC, it went into service in 1941.

In 1942 - Luftwaffe heavy bombers could have bombed Russia into olivion...

Remember that it took until mid-late '44 before Western bombing campaign begun to have a serious impact on German war production and Western allies committed a lot more resources on that campaign than would have been available for German strategic bombing.

- Tommi

[Guest Michael emrys]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by fd ski:

The stupid insistance that EVERY bomber ( including level bomber ) should be capable of DIVE BOMBING basically destroyed every good heavy-long-range bomber program they migth have had.

Case in point - Battle of Britain - lost because of lack of range of fighters/lack of heavy bombers and apparent lack of interest by Hitler.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

The Luftwaffe lost the BoB not because of lack of a heavy bomber, but because they shifted targets to bombing of cities just when they were on the brink of defeating fighter command.

One shouldn't swallow the version of history written by the strategic airpower advocates without having a large grain of salt handy.

It made great sense for the Luftwaffe to be a tactical air arm, at least for the first three years of the war. Why? Because for a continental power like Germany, the arm of decision was the army. Therefore, the best contribution the air force toward winning the war is to support the army. The planes they had were reasonably adequate to perform that task.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Imagine if Luftwaffe was able to field sizable heavy bombardment group in late 1942.. Those Russian factories in Ural would not be so safe.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I consider you on somewhat firmer ground here. An ability to carry the war to Soviet centers of production would have been nice to have. But they would need more than just a bomber, they would have needed a long range escort fighter too, as the Americans discovered.

Whether Germany had the industrial capacity to produce such aircraft in the numbers that were required *in addition* to the tactical aircraft which they also needed in numbers that were beyond their capacity to produce, is another question. And we still haven't addressed the problem of how to train the necessary aircrew, and find the fuel to keep it all aloft...

Actually, I think the only way for Germany to have won the war is to never have started it.

Michael

[Guest Michael emrys]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by JOCHEN PEIPER:

It all boils down to one thing...

Hitler banning all new weapon developments in the 30's and early 40's...Instead opting for mass production of the already existing weapons...

BIG MISTAKE...

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Oh, I don't know. I rather like the way things turned out. So, by the way, do most Germans I've discussed the matter with.

Michael

[DrBrydon]

Oops. Edited and wound up posting twice. See next one.

[This message has been edited by DrBrydon (edited 08-03-2000).]

[DrBrydon]

The best book I've read dealing with the German War Economy is called "Strategy for Defeat" by Williamson Murray (it has also been published as "Luftwaffe").

Murray's basic thesis is that, because Hitler thought he would be able to win the war quickly, he didn't mobilize the German economy (or Armed Forces for that matter) for a sustained effort. Hence the failure to integrate the economies of the occuppied countries with the German ecomony or to establish mass-production techniques earlier.

Murray gives lots of good examples of the inefficiencies of the German ecomony that existed when Speer took over. I can't quote from memory, but I believe that 20-30% of aluminum used in aircraft production was wasted. Even Spper apparently couldn't get aircraft manufacturers to stop hand-making leather pilot's seats.

Although his book is primarily about the GAF, much of his discussion pertains to the German economy as a whole, and I think his thesis is valid. Again, from memory, it wasn't until 1941 or 42 that most plants went to more than one shift. Apparently in 1940 the German's were actually preparing to de-mobilize some divisions. The thing to remember is that in 1935 Hitler did not think he would be fighting the rest of the world in 1942. He thought the Western powers wouldn't fight, and that he could everything as he was to do the Saar, Austria, and Czechoslovakia.

The only arm that had a plan for expansion was the Kriegsmarine, and Hilter had told them there would be no war before 1942.

I think Dale brings up a good point. Hitler, and his cronies, did quite a bit to disrupt the functioning of the economy, and so led to their own downfall, but if they hadn't started the war, it wouldn't have been a problem.

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Will

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"The truly great thing is not to lose your nerve." --Unknown.

[patboivin]

Nicolas, j'aime ta citation!

I love his quote, it basically says that two intellectuals who are sitting down and talking won't go as far as a brute marching forward.

I'm an intellectual so now you know why my life is such a mess.

[guachi]

In Keegan's book on WWII he makes a point in one chapter that, not only did the US have more people, but its economy was vastly more productive than Germany and especially Japan.

I just finished reading 'Achtung - Panzer!' written in 1937 by Guderain. He has a chapter at the end entitled 'Warfare at the Present Day'. One section is about supplying adequate transport for all the mechanized forces that will accompany the panzer forces. He has a table where he lists production of motor vehicles by country:

1936

US........77.2%

Britain...7.8%

Germany...4.8%

France....3.5%

Canada....3.4%

Italy.....0.9%

Others....2.4%

Is it any wonder that Germany wasn't able to adequately mechanize its army? It is also rather apparent why the Axis was hesitant to involve the US in the war with a productive capacity that dwarfed the rest of the world.

Notice that Russia doesn't even appear on this chart, which is probably why they needed so many of their transportation vehicles from the US.

Jason

[Simon Fox]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>The Luftwaffe lost the BoB not because of lack of a heavy bomber, but because they shifted targets to bombing of cities just when they were on the brink of defeating fighter command.

One shouldn't swallow the version of history written by the strategic airpower advocates without having a large grain of salt handy.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

One shouldn't swallow the version of history written by apologists for the basic and fundamental failings of the Luftwaffe and it's aircraft without having a large grain of salt handy.

The only reason the BoB was a relatively close run thing was that the Air Ministry almost matched the Luftwaffe for planning incompetence. Thankfully the operational planning and management of Fighter Command was much superior.

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"More German prisoners were now arriving. There were well over 150 of them, with a lot more yet to be brought in. I watched them sitting in the dust, knowing they must have been in a state of shock. This was something that had never happened before. They couldn't bring themselves to admit that this was their first defeat of the war. Not only that, but it was suffered at the hands of Australian infantrymen, who were vastly outnumbered and fighting their first battle of the war."