The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy

by Adam Tooze

By the end of 1937 Germany was to have a standing army of 21 divisions, or 300,000 men, which in wartime could be inflated to 63 divisions. This would be enough, it was hoped, to mount an effective defence against a combined attack by Poland and France. Offensive striking capacity was to be added in the next four-year phase stretching from 1938 to 1941. The army programme of December 1933 is crucial because it pre-programmed the subsequent escalation of Hitler’s foreign policy. To meet the army’s new objective of creating a 300,000-man force, conscription would have to be introduced within the next two years, a fundamental breach of the Treaty of Versailles. Furthermore, the issue of the Rhineland had to be resolved. Under the provisions of the Treaty, the zone west of the Rhine had remained demilitarized. This meant that the Ruhr, the heavy industrial heartland of Germany, could not be defended. But without the industrial resources of the Ruhr, no realistic war-planning was possible. The Rhineland would therefore have to be brought fully under German control, at the latest by the end of 1937. From December 1933 onwards, the clock was ticking towards confrontation with France.