World War II was in many ways a fight over inputs. Most of us have at least an inkling of the strategic competitions that took place for agricultural land and oil, but battles over industrial materials were just as front and center. France had iron ore while Germany had coal. Both materials were necessary to forge steel. You can see the problem. Germany’s May 1940 invasion of France resolved the issue. For Berlin at least. Postwar, the French spearheaded the formation of the European Coal and Steel Community in an attempt to resolve the same iron-ore-here, coal-there problem with diplomacy
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