All I see is you scoffing at things. The number seem to tell the story. See for instance:ljadw wrote:I expected you to be the last man to fall for the Speer myth:half of the German economy beying devoted to civilian production in 1942LWD wrote: Then there are factors you have failed to account for such as; if one looks at the details more of the Soviet industry was devoted to military expenditures especially in the early parts of the war. From what I recall in 41 or 42 almost half the German economy was still devoted to civilian production. Then there were the German capacity that was devoted to essentially worthless items (I suspect some existed for the Soviets as well but will admit that I'm not aware of sepcific ones).
http://www.millersville.edu/holocon/fil ... conomy.pdf
andGermany's Total Available Output and War Output, 1939-1942
(Billions of RM, 1939 prices)
1939 1940 1941 1942
Total output available 126 138 146 156
War Expenditures 30 53 71 91
...
War expenditures as % of output 24 38 49 58
http://www.feldgrau.com/econo.html
It is worth noteing that on the charts below the US never got to 50% of it's economy devoted to war production and neither Germany nor the Soviets ever got much over 60%For example, in FY 1942, Germany produced 30 million tons of steel - but only 8 million tons of that was directed towards military production efforts (airplanes, guns, munitions, supplies, tanks, etc.). The following chart highlights German steel production allocations for the fourth quarter of 1939:
Heer - 3.060.000 tons
Marine - 1.250.000 tons
Luftwaffe - 2.220.000 tons
Military construction - 2.060.000 tons
Total military - 8.590.000 tons
Civilian sector - 7.320.000 tons
Export - 1.730.000 tons
Total civilian - 9.050.000 tons
Total steel - 17.640.000 tons
??? There are many possible answers to this the question is which is the right one? Look for instance at the US Civil war. The Confederacy never came close economically to the Union but did well in the first couple of years. And of course in the case of WWII Germany wasn't just fighting the USSR was it? Indeed by 1942 it's economy was woefully weaker than that of it's opponents.... How could a country in peace stop a country at war,unless it was stronger economically .
In regards to the original question some more numbers:
http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/econo ... ew1998.pdf
Only on the eastern front did the Allies not possess the advantage.
The Soviet Union had more than twice Germany’s population and many
times its territory, but, with 1938 per capita income at 40 per cent of
the German level, was roughly the same size in GDP terms. Because the
German economy grew under the stimulus of increasing mobilization,
while the Soviet economy collapsed under the weight of German attack,
by 1942 rough parity had been transformed into a substantial German
advantage. Still relatively untroubled by Allied bombing and the threat
of a second front in the west, Germany was able to devote nearly all of
its military resources to the war in Russia. The war in eastern Europe
was therefore much more closely fought than in other theatres where
the Allies always held the upper hand economically speaking.With
recovery in 1943 the Soviet economy was able to reestablish a narrow
advantage, but it remained a finely balanced thing until 1945.
...
Table 1-3.Wartime GDP of the great powers, 1939-45, in internationaldollars and 1990 prices (billions)
1938 1939 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945
...
USSR to
Germany 1.0 1.0 1.1 0.9 0.7 0.7 0.8 1.1
...
Table 1-8. The military burden, 1939-44 (military outlays, per cent of
national income)
1939 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944
At current prices:
Allied powers
USA 1% 2% 11% 31% 42% 42%
UK 15% 44% 53% 52% 55% 53%
USSR .. .. .. .. .. ..
Axis powers
Germany 23% 40% 52% 64% 70% ..
Italy 8% 12% 23% 22% 21% ..
Japan 22% 22% 27% 33% 43% 76%
At constant prices:
Allied powers
USA 1% 2% 11% 32% 43% 45%
UK .. .. .. .. .. ..
USSR .. 17% 28% 61% 61% 53%
Axis powers
Germany 23% 40% 52% 63% 70% ..
:5.4 million (WM::2.5)