The output of coal lagged well behind the growth of overall industrial output and the output of steel hardly increased at an exuberant rate. Nor would it be difficult to supply a rationale for this sluggishness. Ever since the early 1920s, the managers of the Ruhr had been struggling to cope with chronic over-capacity, the legacy of ‘over-investment’ during World War I and the hyperinflation that followed.88 Faced with the armaments boom of the 1930s, they were not about to repeat their mistake. The aggregate figures, however, tell only part of the story. Though fears about over-capacity may
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