New Minister of Armaments
The story of the war criminal of the Third Reich, who never received due retribution at the Nuremberg Tribunal, should start not with the youth and professional development of a Nazi, but with his immediate predecessor and boss, Friedrich Todt. This largely talented builder was a real lifesaver for Hitler. He managed in a short time to build the famous autobahn network, Siegfried's fortification line, military factories and railways. And, of course, he created the military-building Organization Todt, which for many years became a symbol of Germany's imperial ambitions. The calculating and pedantic Minister of Armaments and Ammunition Fritz Todt decided to visit the Eastern Front after the "Moscow catastrophe". What he saw shocked the high-ranking official so much that he even suggested that Hitler resolve the issue with the Soviet Union using exclusively political instruments. That is, before it is too late to come up with Stalin with the initiative of Germany's alienation of a part of Soviet territory and the conclusion of a beneficial peace treaty. But this option did not suit the possessed Fuhrer, and on February 8, 1942, Heinkel 111 with the Reich minister on board crashed.
Until now, it has not been officially recognized that the disaster was faked. The incident achieved two main goals. First, they eliminated one more "alarmist" who says that Germany has already economically lost the war with the USSR. Secondly, they made the successor much accommodating - now any indignation regarding the general course of the party was fraught with consequences. And the new Reich Minister unexpectedly became Hitler's personal architect - technocrat and hardened Nazi Albert Speer. He was so able to get into the confidence of the Fuhrer that he was even solemnly promised an order for the manufacture of a posthumous sarcophagus for the Nazi leader.
In the book by Adam Ace "The Price of Destruction", devoted to the economic side of the development and collapse of the Third Reich, Albert Speer is thought of as the second Goebbels in the structure of the military industry. Actually, it was with the arrival of Speer that stories about the intense work of the rear began to appear for the first time in German propaganda chronicles. And on May 20, 1942, a great joy happened in the life of the master of the Alkett tank factory Franz Hana - he was solemnly awarded the "Cross for Military Merit", although he had not spent a single day at the front. It was part of Speer's ambitious initiative to stimulate the morale of workers in the Nazi home front. The most productive worker in the arms industry was personally awarded by the hero Corporal Kron in the presence of the bosses: Goering, Speer, Milch (chief of the Ministry of Aviation), Keitel, Fromm and Leeb. In addition to this demonstration of attention to the workers of the rear, a thousand crosses for military merit of the second degree were awarded throughout Germany. Speer pursued this aim to avoid defeatist sentiments in the industry of the Third Reich. In his opinion, this was one of the reasons for the death of the Kaiser regime in 1917. He tried not to repeat mistakes of this kind. It can be said that the Reichsminister himself was clearly aware that the conclusions of his tragically deceased predecessor Todt regarding the state of the eastern front were correct and only a titanic tension of forces would allow, if not to avoid collapse, then at least to postpone it.
Jack of all trades
Here it is worth making a lyrical digression and touching on one of the common points of view on the specifics of the military industry of the Third Reich. The main distinguishing feature in those days was a high production culture based on high qualifications of workers and engineers. At the same time, many enterprises in Germany did not rise above the level of craft workshops, in which a separate unit was made by one or two craftsmen from start to finish. This, firstly, seriously slowed down the production process, and, secondly, made high demands on the level of skill of workers. Many of them reached the required qualifications only after 5-6 years of work! For comparison: in the USA, in-line production was distinguished by the distribution of the assembly operation among several operators, who could be hired almost from the street. Or compare them with those who often had to be taken to the legendary Tankograd for production - yesterday's schoolchildren and women who do not have special skills in working with equipment. And in Germany, workers in defense enterprises have worked there for generations - this class was the true "white bone" of the Nazi Reich. If you do not take into account the bombing of the British and Americans, then an important reason for the decline in production efficiency was the mass conscription of these most highly qualified specialists to the front in the second half of the war. And, as already mentioned, there was no one to replace the masters in the production - the process was tuned to "golden hands". Of course, the Germans successfully solved this problem with millions of slaves imported from the occupied eastern territories, but this success was true only in the extractive industry and where unskilled labor was required. The methodical knocking out of the craftsmen, whom the Nazis were so proud of, on the fronts at the end of the war led to a serious drop in both the quantity of production and its quality. Actually, with such a situation, generously flavored by the growing lack of resources, Albert Speer faced from the very beginning of his "reign". And the Reich Minister did not succeed in finding a way out of this situation.
Nevertheless, according to Speer himself, by 1943 he managed to modernize, optimize and improve the sphere under his control so that the production of ammunition in comparison with 1941 increased six times, and artillery four times. But with the tanks, there was a general miracle - an increase at once by 12, 5 times! But it's not for nothing that Speer was more Goebbels than Todt - he never mentioned that the comparison was made with the months of 1941, which were distinguished by low production rates. And also it is necessary to take into account the stories of the listeners of the Berlin Sports Palace (where he broadcast about his own successes) about the gigantic flow of weapons and ammunition from the allies, which has already fallen and will still fall on the country.
The best weapon will bring victory
According to the historian and economist Adam Tuz, the initial successes of Speer were primarily associated with the inertia of those transformations that took place under Todt. It was the reorganization and rationalization of production cycles, as well as the mobilization of all possible funds for the needs of the war economy. Some historians generally believe that the military machine of the Third Reich by 1943 was capable of producing only products for the army, navy and air force. Germany in the 1940s could not export civilian products, that is, establish trade ties - there was nothing to offer potential buyers. The increase in the number of manufactured equipment at the expense of quality also played into the hands of Speer.
One should not overestimate the degree of influence of the Reich Minister on the war industry in Germany. When Speer took over from the vanished Todt, he only had control over material supplies for the army, and only in the area of ammunition did he control the Wehrmacht, the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe. By the way, the Luftwaffe's arms control until the spring of 1944 had nothing to do with the figure of Albert Speer - it was headed by Goering's associate Erhard Milch (his predecessor in this post, Ernst Udet, also ended badly - he shot himself). And this was a pie in 40% of the entire arms industry of the Third Reich - the Germans made great bets on the effectiveness of their combat aircraft. It is estimated that only half of the total growth in the war industry from February 1942 to the summer of 1943 belongs to the departments under the control of Albert Speer. 40% comes from the aviation industry, and the rest comes from Kriegsmarine and chemistry. Thus, a certain aura of the Reichsminister's exclusiveness, which he attributed to himself in his memoirs, breaks down on dry statistical calculations. If he had been executed in 1946, then, I think, there would not have been any "weapon miracle of Speer". Moreover, there was a reason to hang him.
