Why the Allies Won

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Why the Allies Won Page 53

by Richard Overy


  97 Stoler, Politics of the Second Front, p. 158; Harriman, Special Envoy, p. 315.

  98 Ambrose, Eisenhower, p. 134; Bryant, Triumph in the West, p. 165.

  99 Butcher, Three Years with Eisenhower, p. 510.

  100 Eisenhower, Report by the Supreme Commander, p. 141.

  6 A Genius for Mass-Production

  ECONOMIES AT WAR

  1 A. Yakovlev, Notes of an Aircraft Designer (Moscow, 1961), pp. 144–9.

  2 A. Werth, Russia at War 1941–1945 (London, 1964), p. 216; Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union 1941–1945 (Moscow, 1970), pp. 77–80; M. Harrison, Soviet Planning in Peace and War 1938–1945 (Cambridge, 1985), pp. 72, 78.

  3 Harrison, Soviet Planning, pp. 77–9; L.V. Pozdeeva, ‘The Soviet Union: Phoenix’, in W. Kimball, D. Reynolds, A. O. Chubarian (eds), Allies at War: The Soviet, American and British Experience 1939–1945 (New York, 1994), pp. 150–2.

  4 Details in Harrison, Soviet Planning, pp. 81–5. The eastern zones possessed only 18.5 per cent of arms enterprises in 1941, but held 76 per cent by 1942. The east supplied only 39 per cent of the steel in 1941, but 83 per cent in 1942.

  5 Harrison, Soviet Planning, pp. 250, 253; R. Wagenführ, Die deutsche Industrie im Kriege (Berlin, 1963), p. 182.

  6 W. Moskoff, The Bread of Affliction: The food supply in the USSR during World War II (Cambridge, 1990), pp. 71–2.

  7 A. Nove, An Economic History of the USSR (London, 1989), p. 262.

  8 M. Harrison, ‘Resource Mobilization for World War II: The USA, UK, USSR and Germany, 1938–1945’, Economic History Review 41 (1988).

  9 D. Dallin, B. I. Nicolaevsky, Forced Labour in Soviet Russia (London, 1947), pp. 262–75. There is valuable material on the work ethic in the camps in D. Panin, The Notebooks of Sologdin (New York, 1976), esp. pp. 92–6.

  10 On Soviet planning see Harrison, Soviet Planning, pp. 14–19; E. Zaleski, Stalinist Planning for Economic Growth 1933–1952 (Chapel Hill, 1980); P. Sutela, Socialism, Planning and Optimality; A Study of Soviet Economic Thought (Helsinki, 1984), pp. 13–15.

  11 Harrison, Soviet Planning, pp. 174–5.

  12 Great Patriotic War, pp. 70–81, 140–3.

  13 Harrison, Soviet Planning, pp. 190–1,193–4.

  14 Werth, Russia at War, p. 223; S. J. Zaloga, J. Grandsen, Soviet Tanks and Combat Vehicles of World War II (London, 1984), pp. 125–37; Von Hardesty, Red Phoenix: The rise of Soviet air power 1941–1945 (London, 1982), pp. 250–1, appendix 8. The aircraft were the Il–2 fighter-bomber (36,000 produced), the Pe–2 bomber (11,500 produced), the Lagg–3 (6,500), the Yak–9 (16,700) and La–5 (10,000). These provided over two-thirds of all Soviet aircraft built.

  15 M. Hindus, Russia Fights on (London, 1942), pp. 65–6; M. Dobb, Soviet Economy and the War (London, 1941), pp. 50–1.

  16 W.L. White, Report on the Russians (New York, 1945), pp. 209–10, 212–13.

  17 J. Barber, M. Harrison, The Soviet Home Front 1941–1945 (London, 1991), p. 220.

  18 Nove, Economic History, p. 272. On the restructuring of Soviet industry, see Dobb, Soviet Economy, pp. 48–56; Werth, Russia at War, pp. 622–3.

  19 Barber, Harrison, Soviet Home Front, pp. 215–19.

  20 Ibid., pp. 163–9; Stalin’s appeal in J. Stalin, The Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union (New York, 1945), p. 34, speech in Moscow, 6 November 1941.

  21 White, Report on the Russians, pp. 211–12.

  22 Moskoff, Bread of Affliction, pp. 138–9; Barber, Harrison, Soviet Home Front, p. 214.

  23 J. Erickson, ‘Soviet Women at War’, in J. and C. Garrard (eds), World War 2 and the Soviet People (London, 1993), pp. 55–6; Nove, Economic History, pp. 269–70.

  24 White, Report on the Russians, pp. 41–3; on the cult of over-achievement, see L.H. Siegelbaum, Stakhanovism and the Politics of Productivity in the USSR, 1935–1941 (Cambridge, 1988). By 1940 there were almost three million so-called ‘shock workers’ in Soviet industry, who were supposed to achieve much more than their stated quotas.

  25 Great Patriotic War, pp. 140–1.

  26 Barber, Harrison, Soviet Home Front, pp. 83–4, 171–3; White, Report on the Russians, pp. 51–4.

  27 White, Report on the Russians, p. 104.

  28 I. Ehrenburg, Men, Years – Life: The war years 1941–1945 (London, 1964), p. 123.

  29 Speech by Sir William Layton, 17 October 1940, to the Associated Industries of Massachusetts, in The American Speeches of Lord Lothian (Oxford, 1941), p. 128.

  30 W.F. Craven, J.L. Cate, The Army Air Forces in World War II (6 vols, Washington, 1948–1955, reissued 1983), I, p. 104.

  31 R.E. Smith, The Army and Economic Mobilization (Washington, 1958), p. 4. On the Victory Programme, R.M. Leighton, R.W. Coakley, Global Logistics and Strategy (2 vols, Washington, 1955–68), I, pp. 126–36.

  32 On American production, G. Simonson, ‘The Demand for Aircraft and the Aircraft Industry’, Journal of Economic History 20 (1960); Leighton, Coakley, Global Logistics, II, pp. 832–3.

  33 Calculated from Leighton, Coakley, Global Logistics, II, appendix B2, p. 829; Statistical Abstract of United States Historical Statistics (Washington, 1947); United States Strategic Bombing Survey (USSBS), Pacific Theatre, Report 46, ‘Japanese Naval Shipbuilding’ (Washington, 15 November 1946), p. 2.

  34 A. Clive, State of War: Michigan in World War II (Chicago, 1979), p. 25.

  35 T. A. Wilson, ‘The United States: Leviathan’, in Kimball et al, Allies at War, pp. 176–8.

  36 A.P. Sloan, My Years with General Motors (London, 1986), pp. 379, 381.

  37 F.C. Lane, Ships for Victory: A history of shipbuilding under the US Maritime Commission in World War II (Baltimore, 1951), p. 67; F. Walton, Miracle of World War II (New York, 1956), pp. 75–7.

  38 Lane, Ships for Victory, p. 224ff.

  39 Walton, Miracle of World War II, p. 79; P. Fearon, War, Prosperity and Depression: The US economy 1917–1945 (London, 1986), p. 274; Lane, Ships for Victory, pp. 53–4.

  40 Walton, Miracle of World War II, p. 559; Clive, State of War, p. 22.

  41 A. Nevins, F.E. Hill, Ford: Decline and rebirth 1933–1961 (New York, 1962), p. 226. Ford produced 277,896 jeeps, 93,217 trucks, 8,685 bombers, 57,851 aero-engines, 2,718 tanks, 12,500 armoured cars, 26,954 tank engines, and so on. Italy produced approximately 7,000 combat aircraft, 2,800 tanks and self-propelled guns, 46,600 light vehicles and approximately 90,000 heavy vehicles – details in Istituto centrale di statistica, Sommario di Statistiche Storiche Italiane 1861–1955 (Rome, 1958).

  42 J. Rae, Climb to Greatness: The story of the American aircraft industry (Cambridge, Mass., 1968), pp. 143–4, 157–61; Sloan, My Years with General Motors, pp. 377–81; Clive, State of War, pp. 27–8.

  43 Nevins, Ford, pp. 115, 186–7.

  44 Walton, Miracle of World War II, pp. 306–9; Nevins, Ford, pp. 187–9; Craven, Cate, Army Air Forces, VI, pp. 329–30.

  45 Clive, State of War, p. 30.

  46 On migration patterns, H.S. Shrycock, ‘Internal Migration in Peace and War’, American Sociological Review 12 (1947); wages and strikes in H. Vatter, The US Economy in World War II (New York, 1985), pp. 20–1; R. Polenberg, War and Society: The United States 1941–1945 (Philadelphia, 1972), pp. 159–72.

  47 Walton, Miracle of World War II, pp. 555–6.

  48 Polenberg, War and Society, p. 13.

  49 E. Ludendorff, Der totale Krieg (Munich, 1935). The expression first appeared in his war memoirs. See the general discussion of the concept in I. Beckett ‘Total War’, in C. McInnes, G. Sheffield, Warfare in the Twentieth Century (London, 1988), pp. 1–21.

  50 Details in R.J. Overy, ‘Hitler’s War Plans and the Economy’, in R. Boyce (ed.), Paths to War: New Essays on the Origins of the Second World War (London, 1990), pp. 96–127.

  51 L. Stoddard, Into the Darkness: Nazi Germany today (London, 1941), pp. 90–1. On the wartime rationing and shortages see R.J. Overy, War and Economy in the Third Reich (Oxford, 1994), pp. 274–86.

  52 Imp
erial War Museum (IWM), London, FD 3056/49, ‘Statistical Material on the German Manpower Position during the War Period 1939–1944’, 31 July 1945, table 7. The figures were based on the official statistics collected by German industry during the war.

  53 In general W.A. Boelcke, Die Kosten von Hitlers Krieg (Paderborn, 1988); W. Abelshauser, ‘Germany’ in M. Harrison (ed.), The Economics of World War II: Six great powers in international comparison (Cambridge, 1998).

  54 R.J. Overy, Goering: The ‘Iron Man’ (London, 1984), p. 193.

  55 H. Trevor-Roper (ed.), Hitler’s Table Talk 1941–1944 (London, 1973), p. 633.

  56 Office of Air Force History, Washington, microfilm collection, roll R5003, ‘German Air Force Policy during the 2nd World War’, a memorandum by engineers at the Rechlin Aircraft Experimental Station, 15 August 1944, p. 1.

  57 P. Kluke, ‘Hitler und das Volkswagenprojekt’, Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 8 (1960), pp. 349ff; K. Hopfinger, Beyond Expectation: The Volkswagen story (London, 1954), p. 70.

  58 USSBS, European Theatre, Report 88, ‘Volkswagen-Werke, Fallersleben’ (Washington, September 1945), pp. 3–8, and exhibit J; W. Nelson, Small Wonder: The amazing story of the Volkswagen (London, 1967), pp. 73–6; K.-J. Siegfried, Rüstungsproduktion und Zwangsarbeit im Volkswagenwerk 1939–1945 (Frankfurt, 1986), pp. 37, 43.

  59 Overy, Goering, pp. 99, 161, on Opel. On the industry as a whole, see USSBS, European Theatre, Report 77, ‘German Motor Vehicles Industry Report’ (Washington, 1947), pp. 5–11; British Intelligence Objectives Sub-Committee, Report 21, ‘The Motor Car Industry in Germany during the period 1939–1945’ (London, 1949), pp. 7–12.

  60 IWM, Cabinet Office collection of German documents, EDS Mi 14/433 file 2, Führer decree, 3 December 1941.

  61 IWM EDS Mi 14/133, Army High Command, ‘Studie Über Rüstung 1944’, 15 January 1944. On rationalisation in general, see Overy, War and Economy, pp. 356–66.

  62 A. Speer, Inside the Third Reich (London, 1970), p. 213; IWM Speer Collection, Box 368, Report 83, ‘Relationship between the Army Ordnance Board and the Speer Ministry’, p. 2.

  63 IWM Speer Collection, Box 368, Report 52, interrogation of G. von Heydekampf, 6 October 1945, p. 11.

  64 On forced labour, U. Herbert, Fremdarbeiter: Politik und Praxis des ‘Ausländer-Einsatzes’ in der Kriegswirtschaft des Dritten Reiches (Bonn, 1985), pp. 270–3; on social life under bombing, E. Beck, Under the Bombs: The German home front 1942–1945 (Lexington, Kentucky, 1986); on the SS, A. Speer, The Slave State: Heinrich Himmler’s master plan for SS supremacy (London, 1981), esp. chs 13–17.

  65 H. Gatzke, Germany and the United States (Cambridge, Mass., 1980), p. 113; F. Taylor (ed.), The Goebbels Diaries 1939–1941 (London, 1982), p. 414, entry for 14 June 1941.

  66 J. Colville, The Fringes of Power: 10 Downing Street diaries 1939–1955 (London, 1985), p. 346, entry for 26 January 1941; Foreign Relations of the United States, 1941, Vol. I (Washington, 1959), p. 840; E. Roosevelt (ed.), The Roosevelt Letters: Vol. III, 1928–1945 (London, 1952), p. 385, letter from Roosevelt to Stimson, 30 August 1941.

  67 White, Report on the Russians, preface.

  68 Speer, Inside the Third Reich, p. 213.

  7 A War of Engines

  TECHNOLOGY AND MILITARY POWER

  1 H. Ritgen, Die Geschichte der Panzer-Lehr Division im Westen 1944–1945 (Stuttgart, 1979), pp. 164–6; W.F. Craven, J.L. Cate, The Army Air Forces in World War II (6 vols, Washington, 1948–55, reissued 1983), III, pp. 231–4.

  2 R. Hallion, Strike from the Sky: The history of battlefield air attack 1911–1945 (Washington, 1989), pp. 212–13; M. Blumenson, Breakout and Pursuit (Washington, 1961), pp. 240–6, 251.

  3 Ritgen, Panzer-Lehr, p. 187, appendix 5: ‘Personnel, strength and losses’. From June to August 1944 the division suffered 8,525 casualties, but received only 3,357 replacements. On German losses of motorised equipment, see J. Piekalkiewicz, Tank War 1939–1945 (New York, 1986), pp. 239, 287–91.

  4 R. Steiger, Armour Tactics in the Second World War: Panzer army campaigns of 1939–41 in German war diaries (Oxford, 1991), p. 10.

  5 J.Stalin, The Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union (New York, 1945), speech on the 24th anniversary of the October revolution, 6 November 1941, pp. 25–6.

  6 M. and S. Harries, Soldiers of the Sun: The rise and fall of the Imperial Japanese Army 1868–1945 (London, 1991), p. 296.

  7 General H. von Manteuffel, ‘Fast, Mobile and Armoured Troops’, in D. Detweiler (ed.), World War II German Military Studies (24 vols, New York, 1979), VI, MS B-036, pp. 5–7; on radios, see M. Messerschmidt, ‘The Political and Strategic Significance of Advances in Armament Technology: Developments in Germany and the “Strategy of Blitzkrieg”’, in R. Ahmann, A.M. Birke, M. Howard (eds), The Quest for Stability: Problems of West European security 1918–1957 (Oxford, 1993), pp. 258–9.

  8 S.J. Zaloga, J. Grandsen, Soviet Tanks and Combat Vehicles of World War II (London, 1984), pp. 126–7; Von Hardesty, Red Phoenix: The rise of Soviet air power 1941–1945 (London, 1982), pp. 13–15.

  9 Zaloga, Grandsen, Soviet Tanks, pp. 146–9, 160–2; R.M. Ogorkiewicz, Armoured Forces: A history of armoured forces and their vehicles (London, 1970), pp. 123–4.

  10 Main Front: Soviet leaders look back on World War II (London, 1987), pp. 109, 121.

  11 Von Hardesty, ‘Roles and Missions: Soviet tactical air power in the second period of the Great Patriotic War’, in C. Reddel (ed.), Transformations in Russian and Soviet Military History (Office of Air Force History, Washington, 1990), pp. 154–5; A. Boyd, The Soviet Air Force since 1918 (London, 1977), pp. 109–11.

  12 Von Hardesty, Red Phoenix, pp. 83–8; Von Hardesty, ‘Roles and Missions’, pp. 155–7.

  13 R.J. Overy, The Air War 1939–1945 (London, 1980), pp. 52–6.

  14 Von Hardesty, ‘Roles and Missions’, pp. 161–7; K. Uebe, Russian Reactions to German Air Power in World War II (New York, 1964), pp. 29–42; The Soviet Air Force in World War II (Soviet official history, ed. R. Wagner, London, 1974), pp. 54–5, 127–8, 145–6.

  15 Zaloga, Grandsen, Soviet Tanks, p. 206. Britain and America supplied an additional 20,900 armoured vehicles, including 12,365 tanks.

  16 H.P. van Tuyll, Feeding the Bear; American aid to the Soviet Union 1941–1945 (New York, 1989), pp. 156–7; J. Beaumont, Comrades in Arms: British aid to Russia 1941–1945 (London, 1980), pp. 210–12. British aid included 247,000 telephones and one million miles of field telephone wire.

  17 British Air Ministry, The Rise and Fall of the German Air Force (reissued London, 1983), pp. 357–9; Zaloga, Grandsen, Soviet Tanks, p. 223.

  18 M. Cooper, The German Army 1933–1945 (London, 1978), pp. 485–90; Ogorkiewicz, Armoured Forces, pp. 74–9.

  19 M. van Creveld, Supplying War: Logistics from Wallenstein to Patton (Cambridge, 1977), pp. 150–3; R.L. Di Nardo, Mechanized Juggernaut or Military Anachronism: Horses and the German Army in World War II (London, 1991), pp. 37–40; von Manteuffel, ‘Fast, Mobile and Armoured troops’, p. 5: ‘When in 1939 the war began, the motorization of the great mass of the army not belonging to the fast mobile formations had consciously been neglected.’ (Italics in original.)

  20 R. Stolfi, Hitler’s Panzers East: World War II reinterpreted (Norman, Oklahoma, 1991), pp. 157–9.

  21 Di Nardo, Mechanized Juggernaut, pp. 49–50; Steiger, Armour Tactics, pp. 95–105.

  22 Di Nardo, Mechanized Juggernaut, pp. 50–6; United States Strategic Bombing Survey (USSBS), European Theatre, Report 77, ‘German Motor Vehicle Industry Report’ (Washington, 1947), p. 9.

  23 Steiger, Armour Tactics, p. 127; van Creveld, Supplying War, pp. 150–1.

  24 World War II German Military Studies, XXIII, ‘German Tank Maintenance in World War II’, pp. 2–4, 23–4; A. Speer, Inside the Third Reich (London, 1971), p. 234.

  25 Speer, Inside the Third Reich, pp. 233–4, 241.

  26 World War II German Military Studies, XXIII, p. 25.

  27 Ibid.
, p. 26.

  28 Di Nardo, Mechanized Juggernaut, pp. 92–7; Cooper, German Army, pp. 487–8; Piekalkiewicz, Tank War, p. 246. By the end of 1943 the German tank arm had been reduced temporarily from 3,000 tanks in the east to 300. On the process of ‘de-modernisation’, see O. Bartov, Hitler’s Army: Soldiers, Nazis and war in the Third Reich (Oxford, 1991), ch. 2.

  29 A. van Ishoven, The Fall of an Eagle: The life of fighter ace Ernst Udet (London, 1977), pp. 143–58.

  30 R.J. Overy, ‘From “Uralbomber” to “Amerikabomber”: The Luftwaffe and strategic bombing’, Journal of Strategic Studies 1 (1978), pp. 167–71.

  31 British Air Ministry, Rise and Fall of the German Air Force, pp. 212–18.

  32 W. Murray, Luftwaffe (London, 1985), p. 148; British Air Ministry, Rise and Fall of the German Air Force, pp. 222–3. On the Udet/Milch crisis, D. Irving, The Rise and Fall of the Luftwaffe: The life of Erhard Milch (London, 1973), pp. 124–49.

  33 J.J. Sweet, Iron Arm: The mechanization of Mussolini’s army 1920–1940 (Westport, Conn., 1980), pp. 3–15, 175–86.

  34 USSBS, Pacific Theatre, Report 47, ‘Japanese Motor Vehicle Industry’ (Washington, November 1946), p. 2; J. Cohen, Japan’s Economy in War and Reconstruction (Minneapolis, 1949), p. 237; Harries, Soldiers of the Sun, pp. 300–1.

  35 USSBS, Report 47, ‘Japanese Motor Vehicle Industry’, pp. 1–5.

  36 Harries, Soldiers of the Sun, pp. 297–302; J. Scofield, ‘The Japanese Soldier’s Arms and Weapons’, in How the Jap Army Fights (London, 1943), pp. 24–31; P. Warner, Firepower: From slings to Star Wars (London, 1988), pp. 145–6.

  37 H. Doud, ‘Peace-time Preparation: Six months with the Japanese infantry’, in How the Jap Army Fights, pp. 34–46.

  38 USSBS, Pacific Theatre, Report 46, ‘Japanese Naval Shipbuilding’ (Washington, November 1946), pp. 2–3; USSBS, Pacific Theatre, Report 72, ‘Interrogation of Japanese Officials’, vol. II (Washington, 1946), p. 86.

 

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