Bill Phillips wrote in message ...
More important you need to explain why war production went up. I have
already explained that my assessment is that the bombing angered the
population and caused them to give up their luxuries and free time and
worked hard to produce more weapons. In short production went up because of
the bombing.

I would recommend the works of Richard Overy, War and Economy in
the Third Reich for example. He advances the point of view the German
economy was much more mobilised early than the post war surveys
had thought and it was inefficiency that was a major cause of low
production, and armament worker efficiency went down in the early war
period. It seems the German statistics used post war, the Wagenfuehr
indexes, did not accurately record when a firm switched to war production.

As an example of the improvements,

The BMW801 aero engine in 1940 took 5,145 kg of raw materials and
2,400 hours of labour, in 1944 it was 2,790 kg of raw materials and
1,250 hours of labour. Henschel made a 64% saving when building
engines between 1939 and 1943, in 1942 Junkers improved Ju88
production efficiency by 30%. In May 1943 each ton of munitions
used less than half the iron and steel, a sixth of the aluminium and
half the copper compared with 1941. Early raw material allocations
were set on an industry wide basis, not product, controls were slack
enough that the Messerschmitt organisation made aluminium step
ladders for example, there were also lightweight shelters made
intended for the troops in the desert.

Pre war there were incentives to employ people, which continued into
the war, minimal rationalisation of supply, the same component could
cost twice as much from different suppliers, the continual interference
of the military demanding small changes, the deliberate cut backs in
1941, which makes the late 1942 increases look better than they should.
The fact in things like aircraft the switch to smaller, lighter aircraft
means the numbers look better but not if you go by airframe weight.
Early in the war if someone reported a better way of doing things they
simply found their quota raised, the state took all the benefit.

Speer helped remove the inefficiencies, aided by the obvious
necessity for more production. The economy's resilience was
helped by having more factory space and machine tools than
were needed, indeed Germany exported many machine tools
during the war. In any case there were the tools looted from
France etc., these mainly helped the allies, since when the
Germans tried to transfer production to the factories in occupied
areas many of the key tools were in storage in Germany.

There were examples of workers becoming more dedicated but it
appears the general result of the situation in Germany in 1943 and
beyond was an increase in general apathy and absenteeism, Ford
factories in the Rhur 4% in 1940 and 25% in 1944, foreign workers
could be held to 3% absenteeism but they were 50 to 80% as
productive as Germans. No revolt, just a get through the day attitude.
The general war situation enabled the Nazis to squeeze the civilians
harder. According to Overy the output per head for the arms industry
looked like, 1939 100, 1940 87.6, 1941 75.9 (provisional figure),
1942 99.6, 1943 131.6, 1944 160.0 (minimum).


Simply before mid 1944 the allies were not in a position to affect
a section of the German economy, the allies lacked the numbers,
the experience and the defences were too strong, and then there
was the need to support the Normandy invasion. In late 1944 the
allies could go after the German economy by destroying the transport
links, and the production decline set in, and there was almost no need
for strikes outside Germany anymore, the assault could be concentrated.
Even Bomber Command took until September 1944 to hit the half way
mark for total bombs on Germany for the war, for the 8th Air Force it was
around two months later.

The trouble is the allied advances in 1944 also cut off important
sources of German raw materials, on the other hand it appears
it took around 9 months for iron ore to become steel in some
weapon or machine. Also there was the extra mobilisation of
skilled workers into the military. Even so most of the economic
decline in 1944 and early 1945 is bomber induced, given the
rapid drop off in railway and canal traffic.

Geoffrey Sinclair
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