Armor miracle
The armor wonder thesis goes back to the index of the enormous increase in German arms production between the beginning of 1942, when Albert Speer Minister of Armaments was, and summer 1944. The Armor miracle falls into the phase of long shots War of the economy in the Third Reich .
After that, German armaments production tripled during this time, despite heavy Allied bombings to which German arms production was exposed during this time. The thesis of the "miracle" was supported by calculations by Rolf Wagenführ , former chief statistician of the Ministry of Armaments, according to which the increase in arms production came about through a significant increase in labor productivity with constant capital stock. Another indicator of a “miracle” was seen as the fact that the relationship between the goods produced and the raw materials used had increased considerably. The publication of the United States Strategic Bombing Survey (USSBS), which examined the effects of the Allied bombing on the German economy, also contributed significantly to preserving this myth . In their investigations, the scientists also referred to Wagenführ's numbers and came to the same conclusion.
The merit is attributed to Albert Speer after the military setbacks in Russia in 1941 and the declaration of war on the USA became apparent in a protracted military conflict that the German arms production had expanded enormously through suitable rationalization measures.
Alleged actions by Speer
Despite resistance from the Wehrmacht, he refrained from unnecessary work steps in production that would not increase the combat power of the weapon, e.g. B. by omitting the painting and polishing of aircraft. This is said to have resulted in considerable savings in production time.
In addition, the armaments companies were forced to systematically exchange their manufacturing know-how. For this purpose, rings and committees were set up in which the best companies should make their experience available to the less efficient companies.
In addition, there has been a reduction in the variety of types, which has enabled companies to take advantage of the advantages of mass production .
The "stabilization of production", i. H. The abandonment of constant program changes and minor modifications to the individual weapon types also led to the elimination of the retrofitting processes, which enabled considerable savings in adaptation costs.
By introducing fixed price contracts instead of cost contracts, the incentives to increase productivity and efficiency have been greatly increased. In the case of cost contracts, the producer was reimbursed for the production costs incurred, plus a percentage profit added to the costs. In such contracts, an entrepreneur therefore had no incentive to minimize his production costs, as this also meant a reduction in absolute profit. Instead, the entrepreneur had an incentive to produce as expensively as possible. In the case of fixed-price contracts, on the other hand, the entrepreneur and the state client negotiated a fixed price before the start of production, which was based on the expected costs. If the entrepreneur succeeded in falling below the expected production costs, he could reap the cost savings as a profit. This created a significant incentive for rationalization measures.
These measures allegedly led to the enormous increase in arms production and were credited to Albert Speer. The more recent literature, however, comes to new results, among other things through consultation of company archives from aircraft construction and ammunition production and the private estate of Rolf Wagenführ. Considerable objections can be raised against the informative value of the macroeconomic indicators armaments index and labor productivity as well as against the effectiveness of the rationalization measures.
backgrounds
Speer's constructed armaments index suppresses the fact that there had already been a considerable expansion in armaments production in 1940. In addition, at Speer's instigation, the index was based on the first two months of 1942, when arms production was exceptionally low.
The stagnation of the entire armament index in 1940 and 1941 is mainly explained by the massive throttling of ammunition production, which occurred because the ammunition consumption in the French campaign was much lower than had been expected (approx. 35%). The impact on the armaments index was significant, with ammunition production and air armament alone accounting for almost 70% of total armaments. The comparatively low armament production in 1940 and 1941 can therefore be traced back to conscious political decisions that resulted from the military situation and not from a lack of production efficiency.
The index was also artificially inflated or falsified through statistical tricks . For example, for July 1944, when the armaments index reached its highest level, the first week of August was also included in order to impress Hitler. In addition, the index used by the USSBS only recorded quantities, for example repairs to aircraft were also counted as new aircraft. The arms index cannot therefore be used as an exact measure of arms production.
Effectiveness of the rationalization measures
The alleged effectiveness of given by Albert Speer in order rationalization measures can be refuted, since the reform measures attributed to him in part much earlier, others very late and still others were not implemented consistently again.
An increase in armaments productivity can be ascertained in the areas to which Albert Speer was not even subject. Air force and army armament production, for example, rose at the same rate. However, the air armament came into Speer's area of responsibility only from early summer 1944, who had previously only been responsible for the army, so there was an increase in air armament even without Speer's intervention.
The exchange of experience between the companies already existed earlier, for example the operational exchange of experience in aircraft construction for the Junkers Ju-88 was already arranged at the end of the 1930s. Since 1939 it has generally been possible to submit applications for an exchange of experience to the Army Weapons Office.
Company files also show that fixed-price contracts had been the rule since the mid-1930s. It is not true that cost contracts generally dominated prior to 1942. In the 1930s, cost contracts were only concluded with companies whose production was still in the start-up phase and who did not yet have an overview of the costs they incurred. Fixed-price contracts had been the rule for air armaments since 1937.
The type reduction also took place very late - if at all only in the summer of 1944 - when the peak of arms production had already been reached. In addition, the type simplification initially often caused cost increases due to the changes and scrapping.
The "stabilization of production" only came about to a limited extent; at least this is the result of an internal study by the planning office. The reason for the study was the chronic labor shortage in the German armaments industry. Hans Kehrl , head of the planning office, complained in a memorandum in 1944 that there was still great potential for increasing efficiency. In half of the 300 arms manufacturers, labor was wasted. According to Kehrl's estimate, arms production had not improved in efficiency since 1942. 15% of the employees, i.e. 750,000 workers, produced scrap. The report does not suggest that there has been any significant improvement since Speer's inauguration.
Explanation for the increase
The enormous increase in production and efficiency that has been observed since Speer began, can primarily be attributed to the increased learning effect. Many productions started in 1939/40. When production began, the costs were initially highest, then they fell due to learning effects and increased productivity. The managers and employees in the newly founded arms factories initially needed some time to overcome the initial difficulties and to gain production experience. Since the realization of learning effects takes time and the number of employees increased by about 150% between 1939 and 1941, labor productivity fell by about 30%. The decline in work efficiency observed in the first years of the war is also due to the expansion of new armaments companies and the increased use of unskilled labor. A U-shaped course of the average labor productivity can therefore be expected. After overcoming the start-up difficulties in the new companies, labor productivity began to rise again in mid-1941. The learning effects mainly took place in management (the fluctuation was too high among workers), which tried to simplify the production steps. The high point of the learning effects began in 1942. The period before 1942 was therefore mainly characterized by the expansion of production. From 1942 onwards, the full efficiency could be siphoned off.
An example of the learning effect in the years before Speer is the production of the Junkers 88 bomber between August 1939 and August 1941. Here, through learning processes, there was a massive increase in labor productivity. The number of hours worked to manufacture a machine decreased from 50,000 to 15,000 hours.
Conclusion
The “armament miracle” was therefore the result of a development that had started long before. The myth of the armaments miracle goes back to a wrong interpretation of the underlying macroeconomic data, namely the armaments index and labor productivity according to Wagenführ, or to wrong numbers, which ultimately distorted the historical reality in favor of Albert Speer. The development of German arms production was far less volatile than the figures suggest. Speer's rationalization measures had no influence on the increases in production, since a closer look at the respective point in time at which the rationalization measures were actually introduced reveals that a large part of the measures taken were introduced much earlier or much later than they were Could have had an influence. The decisive factor was the climax of the learning effect that set in in armaments production in 1942 and thus led to an increase in production. Accordingly, even without Albert Speer, the observed increase in output in arms production would have come about.
The questioning of the alleged armaments miracle is not a recent development within historical science. Willi A. Boelcke had already raised criticism of Speer's numbers on a scientific basis in 1969. Adam Tooze also opposes a division into crazy ideologues on the one hand and “non-political” entrepreneurs and technocrats on the other - based on Albert Speer.
literature
- Jonas Scherner, Jochen Streb: The end of a myth? Albert Speer and the so-called armaments miracle. in: Vierteljahrschrift für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte , No. 93, 2006, pp. 172–196, ISSN 0340-8728 .
- J. Adam Tooze : Economy of Destruction, The history of the economy in National Socialism , Original title: The Wages of Tyranny. The Making and Braking of the Nazi Economy , Siedler, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-88680-857-1 .
- Willi A. Boelcke (Ed.): Germany's armament in World War II - Hitler's conferences with Albert Speer 1942-1945 . Academic Publishing Company Athenaion, Frankfurt am Main 1969 DNB 456445579 .
Web links
- Wilhelm Treue: Playing with wrong numbers: An “armament miracle” is exposed: Speer's conference protocols , in Die Zeit , No. 44, of October 31, 1969.
Individual evidence
- ↑ "Speer was a PR genius" . Interview by Jan Feddersen, Stefan Reinecke and Christian Semler with J. Adam Tooze; taz. on the weekend of June 23, 2007, accessed on August 22, 2017.
- ↑ Willi A. Boelcke (Ed.): Germany's Armaments in World War II - Hitler's Conferences with Albert Speer 1942-1945 . Akademische Verlagsgesellschaft Athenaion, Frankfurt am Main 1969, DNB 456445579 , passim, in particular pp. 8 and 25.
- ^ J. Adam Tooze: Economy of Destruction, The history of the economy in National Socialism , original title: The Wages of Tyranny. The Making and Braking of the Nazi Economy , Siedler, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-88680-857-1 , pp. 634-635.