I have not yet read Tooze's book, I don't think it would make sense for me to engage in an argument against points that I have not properly researched.
I think you will probably enjoy reading it, once you get around to it.
In particular, it is worthy to note that he briefly touches on the aborted 1938 officer's putsch against Hitler, and this should be a reminder that in fact this discussion in many ways is a retroactive reprise of the policy debate happening at the highest levels of the German elite prior to the war. Indeed, the debate about the long term strategic view, is central to that debate, wherein Halder is essentially arguing that Germany is not properly prepared to go to war, and wont have the capacity for it until the middle of the 1940's. This is set against Hitler's view that the strategic initiative should be taken early, and that this will compensate for any lack of preparedness.
Early success seems to vindicate Hitler, historically, while it seems the implications of Tooze's view as summarized here vindicates Halder, as do the actual production stats. It seems pertinent to point out that the essentials of this debate were had in detail, and that the German military command did not go in blind, and a decision was made, based on a fairly accurate appraisal of Germany's war making potential.
If I recall correctly, Herman Goering's position is somewhere in between the two views. However, given the way the war worked out, I find it very hard for me to dispute Galbraith's contention that 1939 was Germany's best window of opportunity.
Tooze doesn't actually dispute that either. Not that he really makes any argument as to when Germany
should go to war, but he does note the strong factors that supported it. By early 1939 German rearmament had hit a threshold due to raw material and financial constraints that prevented it from accelerating further, while her future enemies were increasing the pace of their buildup. Hence, Germany had to reckon with a deterioration in her relative position.
The chapter then goes on to describe how the effort to cut back on capital investment, and redirect labour to production was undermined by one means or another, and then asserts that this was a direct cause of the need to start staffing new factories with imported labour of one kind of another. How much of his conclusion about how the decision to import labour came to be taken is anyone's guess, but I see no reason to dispute Speer's claim that capital was chronically underutilized.
and Takata
What made the limitation of steel output was the cumulation of several factors: a) losses of highly skilled manpower drafted; b
Which moves us towards one of those "a-ha" experiences that really brings home just how much of a handicap manpower shortages was to the German war effort. My involvement with industrial shortages is only tangential, I study the problem primarily from the point of view of the army in the east. And what is striking is that there you have a mirror image of the same problem. Just like Speer, OKH is always struggling with the problem of manpower shortages as a key limitation - arguably
the key limitation. Just like in the economy, this resulted in an under-utilisation of capacity. In the sense that it condemned a large part of the Ostheer's formation to operate at strength levels that were wasteful, in that the actual capacities of formations degraded assymetrically as a result of almost all the understrength being in its combat elements. And just like Speer was tearing his hair over how the army took away the manpower he needed to do his job, the army was tearing its hair over the impossibility of securing the men it desperately needed from the economy, at least to the extent required. This, by the way, was not quite outside Speer's sphere of control - in several cases, he managed to successfully oppose, pare back or sabotage the Wehrmacht's manpower demands. The Wehrmacht couldn't simply request what it needed and then receive it, it was always a political struggle and they rarely if ever seem to have gotten everything they wanted.
I always find it instructive to quote (BdE, Head of Ersatzheer) Fromm's remarks from February 1941. Fromm stressed the point that Germany is already in the position where manpower resources are overstretched, and that consequently the available resources must be prioritised. How did this come to pass, after less than 18 months of war in which no very serious losses had been incurred? Between the reintroduction of conscription and the outbrek of war, it had only been possible to train two year classes of reservists. This was not sufficient as a numerical basis for the Wehrmacht. There was no other choice than to make use of the roughly 1.2 million men with WWI service experience who were still available. The great mass of JG01-13 had not been trained at the outbreak of war. After the quick victory in Poland, the focus shifted to mobilising the economy for war, which also entailed the release of men from the armed forces to industry. These were attempted replaced with men less useful to the economy, but these had for the most part first to be trained. Fromm here uses the word “Völkerwanderung” to describe the two-way flow of personnell between the polish and Western campaigns, before devoting considerable space to a perhaps not fully objective description of the protracted manpower tug-of-war with industry during that period.
By the time this meeting took place (sadly it is not possible to quote the figures Fromm speak about, as this documentation has evidently not survived), the number of UK-gestellte was almost as large as the strength of the WH. At that time, EH had 150,000 men JG00-07 available, and around 100,000 from 08-21. JG22, a very strong year group, were to have their call-up deferred for as long as possible – possibly until autumn. Additionally, there were some 90,000 trained men in the pools of the Wehrersatzdienststellen. Summation: "Die Darstellung zeigt, dass die Ersatzlage sehr angespannt ist und für das Kampfjahr 1941 noch nur sehr geringe verfügbare Reserven vorhanden sind“. The „white year groups“ of 1900-1912 were already largely expended. As a result, EH was discussing a wide range of emergency measures, as well as calls for more men from the economy.
It is worth underlining that this was seven months after the end of the Western campaign, and 4 months before the beginning of Barbarossa, which was expected to be over in a few months. How things stood at the end of 1941, after 800,000 casualties in the East and with the prospect of continuing heavy fighting for the foreseeable future, you can well imagine.
What the study of the Ostheer's manpower situation has however also taught me is that the existence of such inescapable constraints doesn't neccessarily mean that the best possible use was made of the resources they
did get. In the case of the army, many of the worst consequences were in fact self-inflicted, and stemmed from the hopeless policy of raising a far too large number of new divisions while refusing to disband existing ones. This caused a steadily increasing number of formations in an army of basically stagnant strength, which again made it impossible to keep formations up to strength. The net result of that was scores of divisions with largely intact support services but minimal combat capabilities.
