He concluded that, once differences in purchasing power were allowed for, Britain, France and the United States would outspend Germany and Italy by a margin of at least 2 billion Reichsmarks in the coming year. Even more strikingly, Thomas went on to compare the burden of rearmament in macroeconomic terms, by placing military spending in relation to national income. In this respect, the Axis disadvantage was even starker. Whereas Germany in 1939 was already planning to devote 23 per cent of its national income to the Wehrmacht, the figure for France was 17 per cent, 12 per cent for Britain and
...more
