Despite these efforts, however, the Jägerstab failed to narrow the gap between German and Allied production. Although Germany produced 39,807 aircraft in 1944, Allied production of 163,000 dwarfed this total, the United States alone churning out over 96,000 aircraft. Similarly, the Allies enjoyed almost a 2.5-to-1 advantage in the production of armored vehicles and artillery pieces. As Adam Tooze has stressed, despite their achievements, the Germans could not overcome the crushing logic of economics: in 1941, the combined GDP of Great Britain, the United States, and the Soviet Union exceeded that of Germany by 4.36 to 1, a disparity the Germans could never surmount. Speer’s efforts in 1943 and early 1944 to make better use of Germany’s “foreign capacity,” especially in France and Belgium, certainly paid dividends, and, without its occupied territories, Germany could likely not have continued in the war beyond 1943, but, in spite of their value, they still could not offset the overwhelming material superiority of Germany’s enemies. More to the point, the loss of key raw materials and productive facilities beginning in early 1944, especially Ukrainian ore and Rumanian oil, wrote the death warrant of the German economy. This was accentuated by the disruption produced, after the elimination of the distractions of the Normandy invasion, by the unprecedented intensity of the Allied bombing campaign. From June to October, the British and Americans dropped a greater tonnage of bombs on Germany than in the entire war to that point—and over the next six months equaled that effort. This massive destruction clearly contributed to a growing dislocation of German production as factories were obliterated, machinery buried in mountains of rubble, bridges destroyed, transportation of key parts and materials cut off, synthetic fuel plants crippled, power stations closed, and (not least) the lives of workers disrupted. Although the bombing campaign could not of itself bring the war economy to a standstill, it severely hindered its ability to produce even more material and imposed a time limit on German survival.35
Nor was the crisis merely one of production as German society was also eroding. By midsummer, economic officials worried that the nation would soon face an inflation just as severe as the one that had shaken the structure of the Weimar democracy in 1923. With the value of money eroding, economic actors large and small showed increasing disinclination to comply with the regime’s directives. Although black marketeering in the occupied areas—Germany’s flea market, as Götz Aly put it—had been not just sanctioned but encouraged, with the contraction of the Nazi Empire it became more difficult to acquire many staple consumer items. This proved especially the case with regard to food products since the two regions most important to Germany, Ukraine and France, had been lost to its exploitation by the late summer. Nor were the retreating troops able to loot and transfer sizable quantities of grains and foodstuffs back to the Reich. Moreover, rising demands from the Wehrmacht, which until now had been fed primarily from local supplies in the occupied territories, aggravated the loss of foodstuffs from these areas. In addition, by the autumn and winter, even before the mass post-war treks, millions of Germans had been uprooted, either as evacuees or as refugees, and were largely dependent on state welfare. Now completely reliant on domestic German agricultural production to supply larger numbers of people, Nazi officials were forced in the autumn drastically to reduce rations. Stepped-up Allied bombing of the transportation network, however, meant not only that distribution became more difficult but also that some food supplies never reached their destinations. Faced with a lack of consumer goods and increasing food shortages in stores, average Germans, as in World War I, turned increasingly to the black market—and, as in that earlier war, engaged in criminal activities in order to survive. The regime reacted with growing coercion and violence, but, sensitive as the Nazi leaders were to the example of the previous war, they remained reluctant to impose the full burdens of total war on the Volksgemeinschaft. Instead, they clung stubbornly to the promise made at the beginning of the war not to lower the living standard below a certain basic level. As compensation for scarce food items, the regime introduced ersatz products that supplied essential vitamins and protein and, as always, shifted the burden of shortages onto foreign forced laborers, who suffered the most from lower rations and the increasingly chaotic distribution system.36
Despite the Nazis’ best efforts, however, the shortage of consumer goods, reduction of rations, longer working hours, and devastating effects of aerial bombardment contributed to a significant decrease in the real standard of living of the German population. By now, in the fifth year of war, with little chance of victory or even of averting total disaster, a noticeable drop in morale set in as the public viewed the massive defeats at the front with “increasing concern.” Most alarming was the speed of the Russian advance, which produced an enormous “shock effect” since it not only threatened East Prussia with invasion but also undermined cherished notions of German superiority. Although public reaction to the bomb plot seemed to boost Hitler’s popularity temporarily, the effect did not last long. By late summer, SD reports admitted that “part of the population would have welcomed the success of the assassination attempt” in hope of a quick end to the war. Although Goebbels made effective use of the “reactionary clique” of “aristocratic German officers” involved in the anti-Hitler conspiracy to whip up populist anger and general sympathy for the introduction of total war among the working class, he could do little to alter the perception of impending defeat. Whether from a sense of resigned betrayal—that Germany had always been defeated through treachery—or as a result of disillusionment with the military leadership, the public voiced increasing worry and skepticism about the outcome of the war. More pointedly, many blamed the Führer directly for Germany’s impending destruction, the SD office in Stuttgart in November noting the not infrequent comment that Hitler had been sent by Providence as the executor of a divine will to destroy the German people.37
Although the inflated claims made about the miracle weapons again raised hopes for a way out, the late September decree proclaiming the call-up of young boys and elderly men for the Volkssturm (People’s Storm) was greeted with general dismay. When not ridiculed—grave diggers, went one popular witticism, were said to be searching for recruits for the Volkssturm—the draft was seen as militarily futile, as confirmation of Germany’s defeat. Since these men were obviously unsuited for combat, the call-up was not only deeply unpopular but also regarded as nothing less than an execution. Reports indicated the obvious reluctance with which these men arrived at the front as well as the absence of any ideological enthusiasm. The results were predictable; poorly trained and ill equipped, some 175,000 died in the senseless attempt to halt professional armies through a popular uprising. Although Goebbels proclaimed that a “people’s war like this one requires heavy sacrifices,” those who were to be the victims responded with little of the desired fanatic spirit. Similarly, Himmler promised the enemy in threatening tones that the conquest of German farms and cities would cost “streams of their blood,” but his avowal that it was proper for the younger generation to die in order to save the nation failed to produce an echo in the people. As a consequence, from the autumn of 1944, increasingly draconian edicts were issued by Hitler and Himmler threatening death to those who failed adequately to resist the enemy. With this threat carried out with shocking frequency in the last months of the war, the Nazi regime ensured that World War II would end with a bang, not a whimper.38