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

by Adam Tooze

At the same time as America was opening its gates to the Western Allies, Germany faced economic isolation. At the outset of World War II, thanks to French and British economic warfare, transport problems and its limited ability to pay, Germany found itself largely cut off from its overseas supplies of raw materials.30 The monthly figures for the volume of imported raw materials, circulated in confidential reports by the Reich Statistical Office, showed an astonishing collapse.31 Within months of the outbreak of war, Germany’s imports were reduced to a fraction of the level necessary to sustain a large-scale armaments effort. Ore supplies from Narvik were cut off.32 Imports of copper and oil fell virtually to zero. Germany in the first months of World War II was more isolated in economic terms than at any time before 1944–5. The trade agreement with the Soviet Union promised some relief. But the significance of Germany’s sudden exclusion from world markets cannot be overestimated. It overshadowed every aspect of German military strategy and economic policy in the first decisive months of the war.