Suchergebnisse

This article sheds light on why there was, and why Nazi Germany pursued, only comparatively little economic cooperation between the two most important axis partners, Italy and Germany, during the Second World War. In particular, the article looks more closely at the two countries' cooperation in terms of raw materials, crucial to the war economy: why did Germany not deliver more raw materials to Italy and why did an underutilized Italian industry not export more manufactures to the Reich? Based on comparisons with other axis partners and occupied nations, the article argues that this was primarily the case because Italy could resist German economic pressure and, in contrast to many other countries in wartime Europe, maintained its sovereignty. Unlike Italy, these other countries readily (if not always voluntarily) financed larger bilateral German balance of payments deficits at favourable conditions and could not prevent Germany from implementing and monitoring a rigid raw material regime in their factories. Under these circumstances, greater economic cooperation with Italy seemed too costly to German officials and economic experts. Ironically, economic cooperation between the two Axis partners was so limited precisely because they were allies.

Vorspann
Moderne Kriege werden nicht nur auf dem Schlachtfeld, sondern auch in Fabriken und Bergwerken gewonnen. Diese Erfahrung machte die politische und militärische Führung des Deutschen Reichs zwischen 1914 und 1918, als die Seeblockade der britischen Marine Rohstoffimporte aus Übersee weitgehend unterband. Jonas Scherner geht am Beispiel der Beschaffung kriegswichtiger Metalle wie Kupfer und Zinn der Frage nach, wie Politiker, Ökonomen und Militärs im NS-Staat zwischen 1939 und 1945 mit diesem Problem umgingen, welche Lehren sie aus der Rohstoffbewirtschaftung im Ersten Weltkrieg zogen und was die "Metallmobilisierung" über Politik und Strategie im nationalsozialistischen Deutschland verrät.

Abstract
During World War II an increasing share of the industrial output of Germany and the Nazi-ruled European economies was converted for use in the German war effort. In order to steer this conversion, information gathering and processing were crucial. This paper examines the institutions and instruments of the German system of information gathering and processing and tries to identify its successes and failures. It will be shown that the origins of the system stemmed predominately from specific bottlenecks Germany faced during the pre-war period, which necessitated a more active role of the state given the aims of the Nazi regime. The ad-hoc character of some of the measures implemented in order to improve the information basis of the German economic administration produced a system which was ill-coordinated and incomplete. During the war, the information needs further increased and several reforms considerably improved the information basis of the state. Nevertheless, some fundamental problems stemming from the private-property based economic order in Germany and the specific industrial structure remained unresolved even after Speer had become armaments minister.

Today, most scholars agree that Nazi Germany did not follow a premeditated Blitzkrieg strategy in the late 1930s and at the beginning of the Second World War. However, the question of the extent to which Germany's economy had been prepared for a longer war is still debated because statistical information on Germany's investment pattern is fragmentary and data on the structure of prewar German military expenditure are not available. Relying on newly discovered sources, this article closes these gaps. The Nazi regime clearly shifted its investment towards preparation for war from the mid‐1930s on, and though armaments purchases stagnated during the period from 1937 to 1939, investment in munitions industries grew considerably. Consequently, during the late 1930s the Nazis pursued a 'sustainable' rearmament strategy necessary for fighting a longer war. Yet, despite massive capacity enlargements in the munitions industries, total German investment was not unusually high by today's definition because contemporary figures included a significant amount of armaments purchases.

In 1934, the Nazi regime decided to expand German staple fibre capacities significantly. The planned expansion expressed by the 'National Pulp Programme' was not only motivated by the balance of payments crisis at this time, but also by long‐term autarky considerations. However, private companies and the Nazi regime disagreed on the size of the cellulose fibre markets and on how risks were to be shared. Therefore the Nazi regime considered the foundation of privately owned but actually state controlled new suppliers as a way of influencing the private companies to comply with its demands. However, as far as the established companies' willingness to invest was concerned, this strategy did not prove particularly successful. These companies were disposed to invest but only according to their long‐term expectations regarding the potential staple fibre market given normal conditions; that is, with no import restrictions on natural fibres. Surprisingly, not only the big, established companies but also the private shareholders of the regional plants—often comparatively small textile companies—were not forced by the state to fulfil the requirements of the Nazi regime. Therefore these results suggest that the still‐prevailing command economy thesis is not supported by the evidence.

VorspannIm ersten Halbjahr 1944 erstellte das Planungsamt des Reichsministeriums für Rüstung und Kriegsproduktion unter der Federführung von Hans Kehrl den "Bericht zur deutschen Wirtschaftslage 1943/44". Dieses Dokument, ursprünglich nur als Grundlage für die zukünftige Planung gedacht, wurde auf Veranlassung Albert Speers nach einigen Änderungen im August 1944 an alle Minister, Reichs- und Gauleiter weitergeleitet. Der Bericht bietet einen knappen und dennoch umfassenden Überblick über die Entwicklung der deutschen Wirtschaft von Kriegsbeginn bis Mitte 1944 aus der Sicht der verantwortlichen Zeitgenossen. Der Bericht ist als eine Art kriegswirtschaftliches Programm des Speerministeriums zu verstehen und wirft angesichts mancher unbekannter Informationen neue Fragen auf.

In the 1920 and early 1930s, the German semi-synthetic fibre industry was dominated by a duopoly of two big players. The incumbent firms were not willing to expand their staple fibre capacities to the extent demanded by the new Nazi government, which prepared for autarky and war. Hence the government encouraged other private companies, especially spinning mills, to found eight regional staple fibre plants and protected them against the incumbents who were technologically superior. The Nazis' infant company protection policy enabled the ­newcomers to become competitive both in economic and technological terms within a few years. After the war and without protection, these firms flourished on the world market. While the big players left the market, two of the newcomers founded in the second half of the 1930s are today the last European producers of staple fibre. We analyse in detail why companies founded for protectionist reasons by a non-benign government became successful firms competing on the world market. ; publishedVersion