Failure of German industry
Failure of German industry
what were the causes of the failure of the German industry in providing for its soldiers enough material for the war? Was it that they did not go to total war standing from the beginning? Also, the supposed rearming effort was in fact very mild in that very few tanks were being produced up until the beginning to the war and up to Speer became the head of industry. Are there any books i can read on this subject?
- Eden Zhang
- Member
- Posts: 1196
- Joined: 28 Dec 2003, 10:54
- Location: XXX
I remember this being discussed a while ago...
Its generally accepted that the reason German industry didn't do so well was because of bad management. Aircraft plants were all given a set amount of aluminium, which meant plants making bombers would always be short of material whereas plants making fighters would always have surplus.
Also, Hitler didn't like the idea of women working in factories thus a huge pool of potential labour was untapped until it was too late.
Its generally accepted that the reason German industry didn't do so well was because of bad management. Aircraft plants were all given a set amount of aluminium, which meant plants making bombers would always be short of material whereas plants making fighters would always have surplus.
Also, Hitler didn't like the idea of women working in factories thus a huge pool of potential labour was untapped until it was too late.
Re: Failure of German industry
First of all: Hitler took on the whole world and hestg 44 wrote: <snip>
Are there any books i can read on this subject?
let the German soldiers down - No one else.
Look for Overy he has written atleast two books on the subject,
War and economy in the third reich - The book, and
Why the allies won , this one not specific German side but more popular in aproach.
Cheers
/John T
- Jeremy Chan
- Member
- Posts: 1410
- Joined: 25 Aug 2003, 11:32
- Location: Melbourne, Australia
All a matter of bad management on the fronts. Throughout the war, the German home front was going all out to the war effort, giving its 110%. But Hitler was a bad strategist. Instead of tackling each enemy belligerent at a time, he made two very stupid mistakes: take on the Soviet Union and the USA at the same time, with England still intact. Take on two industrial giants which were near-superpowers. Add to the fact that he put too much reliance on his allies, most of whom were either too weak or too far-flung (Japan).As many say, the Allies won because they had much more resources, the whole world nearly, and could knock off Germany's allies at their leisure. Same as for Russia. The Allies hardly needed to depend on military strategy by itself. They could just toss armour, artillery, bombs, aircraft, equipment, ammo into the front lines while keeping the economy and war effort back home very healthy without much fear of being bombed -- especially in the latter years. the axis just lost factory after factory, and went bankrupt. So how you can fight without weapons, ammo, gas, etc? That was the logic in the Allied strategies. Knock out the resources, then you have the enemy on its knees.
German Industry
The question comes to mind that even if the germans could have harnassed the entire industrial might of western europe, where would they have obtained sufficient trained men to operate the weapons?? Germany was fighting a loosing war becauseshe was hugely outnumbered by her enemies. Even if she could have built the tanks, guns, planes etc., she would not have been able to produce enough trained bodies to use them.
Probably also for interior political reasons.
The german Population was told that it would be a short war, so why switch to total war economy, which brings great hardships to the population and could make the governemnt in turn unpopular.
In the prewartime I think Germany simply did not have the money to bring them to a serious level of armament. By 1939 they were almost broke.
The german Population was told that it would be a short war, so why switch to total war economy, which brings great hardships to the population and could make the governemnt in turn unpopular.
In the prewartime I think Germany simply did not have the money to bring them to a serious level of armament. By 1939 they were almost broke.
There was absolutely no problem with production. The image of total Allies air superiority smashing industry is just a popular image, it really did a very small damage percentage for the industry. What happened was the roads and railroads were so knocked out and mangled things just kept piling up but the factories kept making them.
-
- Member
- Posts: 1583
- Joined: 01 Aug 2002, 04:11
- Location: ITALY
Failure of German industry?
The failure of the whole system was due to the collapse of whole Nazi society not to German industry only. How do you explain the fast renaissance of industrial power in West Germany after the ETO? Easy: by changing the society the industry fred all its own incredible potential without facing enemies. The same industrial "burst-out" happened in fred Italy. Poors but busy!stg 44 wrote:..failure of the German industry...
The German economy did not get into a full war-footing until 1942/3, but at that stage the Soviet Union had out-produced it already.Jeremy Chan wrote:All a matter of bad management on the fronts. Throughout the war, the German home front was going all out to the war effort, giving its 110%.
Additional labour participation of women was non-existent. No 'Rosy the Riveter' in Germany.
Just two examples of the home-front not going all out.
The Majority of Germany was semi-rural small towns. Women ran the farms and fed the kids. As far as Industry the majority of women were working in office and food and textile processing industries. A lot of german industry was devoted to consumer goods production. German women may not have riveted but I've heard german soldiers liked to have socks and underwear... In addition many women were employed as Flak Gunners, Intelligence Assistants, Medical Aid Workers, etc..
A breakdown of german Women Shows :
40,694,116 Were in Germany
3,618,068 were over 65 and were probly working farms.
3,983,258 were girls under 6 years old.
4,636,761 were girls 7-14 who went to school and participated in the German Youth Auxiliaries
155,782 were participating in Higher Education programs.
13,613,937 didnt work. with a birthrate of about 1.2 million a year I can tell you why some didnt.
the other 11 million had to care for approx 20, million Children 14 and under.
14,686,310 women were employed as opposed to 24,728,286 males as of may 17, 1939
as the war progressed the proportions rse of course.
A breakdown of german Women Shows :
40,694,116 Were in Germany
3,618,068 were over 65 and were probly working farms.
3,983,258 were girls under 6 years old.
4,636,761 were girls 7-14 who went to school and participated in the German Youth Auxiliaries
155,782 were participating in Higher Education programs.
13,613,937 didnt work. with a birthrate of about 1.2 million a year I can tell you why some didnt.
the other 11 million had to care for approx 20, million Children 14 and under.
14,686,310 women were employed as opposed to 24,728,286 males as of may 17, 1939
as the war progressed the proportions rse of course.
industry
>>>take on the Soviet Union and the USA at the same time, with England still intact. Take on two industrial giants which were near-superpowers<<<
I think you are mistaken Chang. The Soviets were not a production superpower by a long shot. Mismanagement was rampant.
Had it not been for the lend and lease act, and the massive supplies from the U.S.A. (Roosevelt never met a Commie he did not like) , they would have fallen flat on their face.
The only thing they had in seemingly unlimited numbers were men, which they sacrificed like corkwood.
When the war was over, Soviet soldiers were VERY surprised to see that the American had COPIED THEIR JEEPS.
Similarly with the Zimmer Bofors anti aorcraft batteries. etc. etc.
HN
I think you are mistaken Chang. The Soviets were not a production superpower by a long shot. Mismanagement was rampant.
Had it not been for the lend and lease act, and the massive supplies from the U.S.A. (Roosevelt never met a Commie he did not like) , they would have fallen flat on their face.
The only thing they had in seemingly unlimited numbers were men, which they sacrificed like corkwood.
When the war was over, Soviet soldiers were VERY surprised to see that the American had COPIED THEIR JEEPS.
Similarly with the Zimmer Bofors anti aorcraft batteries. etc. etc.
HN
Sorry Gothard, but I don't agree with this. First of all 13.6 - 1.2 = 12.4, not 11. A lot of the 13.6m who did not work could have worked, in my opinion. You do not need them to stay home full-time at a rate of one woman to 1.6 children. Children from 5 or 6 years old are first in school, then in after-school activities (such as Hitler Youth or BDM). So that leaves ca. 7.7m (working on the assumption that the 4m girls under 6 are 52% of all children under 6) under 6 years old who need looking after - you don't need 12.4m women to do that. This can be pooled, or be done by grandmothers, and when they are home older children can look after younger ones (my mother in the 1950s looked after her younger siblings from the age of 10). There is a lot of potential there. Regarding 1.2m births - you can go back to work after giving birth within say 3 months quite easily. In Japan women go back after two weeks in some cases. So this would only count for 400,000 full-time equivalent (or 70k if you use the Japanese approach). Of course it is nicer to stay at home longer and look after 1.6 children most of whom are not at home anyway, but that way you do not contribute to the war effort a lot. But at least you are conforming to the Nazi ideology.Gothard wrote:The Majority of Germany was semi-rural small towns. Women ran the farms and fed the kids. As far as Industry the majority of women were working in office and food and textile processing industries. A lot of german industry was devoted to consumer goods production. German women may not have riveted but I've heard german soldiers liked to have socks and underwear... In addition many women were employed as Flak Gunners, Intelligence Assistants, Medical Aid Workers, etc..
A breakdown of german Women Shows :
40,694,116 Were in Germany
3,618,068 were over 65 and were probly working farms.
3,983,258 were girls under 6 years old.
4,636,761 were girls 7-14 who went to school and participated in the German Youth Auxiliaries
155,782 were participating in Higher Education programs.
13,613,937 didnt work. with a birthrate of about 1.2 million a year I can tell you why some didnt.
the other 11 million had to care for approx 20, million Children 14 and under.
14,686,310 women were employed as opposed to 24,728,286 males as of may 17, 1939
as the war progressed the proportions rse of course.
Female farm and low-skilled workers could have been replaced by forced labour, instead of using that forced labour in industrial jobs. This would quite likely have brought about a motivational and skill gain (the latter over time). Consumer goods production could have been converted to war-effort production anyway.
Finally, a few points on numbers - are you sure that there is no double-counting between elderly women and those in work? I.e. would the 14.7m in work include women over 65 who are working? Regarding those who worked in military occupation, how many were there? Many is a good start, but since the number in 1945 seems to have been just short of 600k from what I could find, that really still leaves a lot of potential. And how did the proportions change as war progressed - as far as I know they did not until 1942? How did the birth-rate change during the war? My guess is that it would drop, but that may well be wrong.
I've read that domestics were quite common to have in the German middle classes even well into the war. That might explain some women being overall part of the economy but not contributing to the war effort in any way. There were also tax benefits for women with many children, and soldier's wives received such generous allowances that the incentive to work was not very great for women.
From early 1943 an effort was made to mobilize women for the war effort, but characteristically women with children still attending school, or with two children aged 14 or younger were exempt from registering for work. Additionally local authorites were instructed to exercise largesse if there were good reasons why a woman should not be registered for work. The net result of this registration was that about a million women were found useful to the German industry, a disappointingly low number especially when you consider that half of this million women were only deemed useful for part time work.
Reasons why only a million women were found when the Germans finally made the effort could be that German women already were employed to a larger degree than eg. British women pre-war (37% as opposed to 26%), but I wonder how many of these women were domestics etc. and perhaps also that the German population overall was somewhat older than the British, American and especially Soviet populations.
From early 1943 an effort was made to mobilize women for the war effort, but characteristically women with children still attending school, or with two children aged 14 or younger were exempt from registering for work. Additionally local authorites were instructed to exercise largesse if there were good reasons why a woman should not be registered for work. The net result of this registration was that about a million women were found useful to the German industry, a disappointingly low number especially when you consider that half of this million women were only deemed useful for part time work.
Reasons why only a million women were found when the Germans finally made the effort could be that German women already were employed to a larger degree than eg. British women pre-war (37% as opposed to 26%), but I wonder how many of these women were domestics etc. and perhaps also that the German population overall was somewhat older than the British, American and especially Soviet populations.