ORIGINAL: TulliusDetritus
He is not repeating myths... He is saying what the SERIOUS history has been saying since many decades. Now you've just read a book that might prove this WAS a myth. Ok. That IS a great contribution. Believe me, I am going to BUY this book, therefore this thread bought Tooze a reader. YES [:)] But don't bash all of us who didn't know this Booze guy and honestly believe what the serious historians (as opposed to clowns: revisionists, etc.) have been saying for many decades. That Germany only fully mobilized her industry in 1943-44.
Toozes numbers are not better than those obtained in the 60s or 70s or 80s...Germany has not been the Soviet Union where archives where closed up.
He just arranges them differently and personally I think he measures things with how economy works nowadays but things have been different back then.
As well he insinuates that Germanys conquering of entire Europe was nothing more than a lucky break and that even England alone would have had to ability to overcome Germay which is a total nonsens as UK was practically beaten by summer 41 and posed no threat and without US convoys and lend-lease UK would have just faded away little by little. The man must be seriously plagued by national pride blindness. Another stunning thing is that Tooze states that trade between USSR and Germany has been small which is an epic fail cause Germany was totally depending on russian ressource deliverys since the France campaign.
I could provide hard info too but I dont have time to elaborate half a book just to convince somebody in a forum...Iam sort of busy with my own stuff and doin a bit of work on the german version of WiTE which is scheduled to be releaded shortly.
I study the entire WWI-WWII problematic for over 30 years now and when one thing has become very clear in all that time then its that Germany has gone thru different kind of economys during the course of the war and only the last stage (War-Industry introduced between summer 42 and taken effect little by little from summer 43 on) allowed it to fully focus its Industrial potential on war production but it was far to late anyway.
In that regard I mention
Alan S. Milward: "Die deutsche Kriegs Wirtschaft 1939 bis 1945"
which is out of printing since over 45 years...
For each Tooze or Overy statement that Germany inevitably had to loose the war I can qoute 5 saying the opposite (all reputable military historians too..)
As an interesting sidenote I may add that even Churchill regretted the outcome of WWII just 1 year after its end.
Churchill held an antisowjetic speech in the US american University City Fulton which he repeated on Sept. 9th 1946 in Zurich: "We have to be united to stop the Russians", Churchill asked the US and Western Europe to stand together against the red threat and regardig the beaten Germany he added: "Well, obviously we have butchered the wrong pig"
The full speech has been printed in the english newspapers.
ORIGINAL: Keke
Ok, I realize I was a bit of an asshole there. My apologies.
I warmly recommend the book for anyone interested in WWII economics. It's an eye-opener.
nevermind...accepted [:)]
however..iam not agreeing with Tooze cause I think he is biased a fair bit and manipulates the numbers for his purpose...on the other hand...he wants to sell a book and make money,perras,plata,bucks,weed,pulver,kohle,kniste...so he to come up with something new cause the stuff has been published a hundred times before. I dont wanna disregard the entire book but some of his key conclusions are coming out of the worng assumptions...and he hasnt been there...my family has.. and we know excactly when things started to become more straight...up to mid 42 the german population hardly noticed that it was wartime and life continued nearly normal (except a little bombing here and there but nothing big), then thing started to change and where focussed on mobilizing craftmanship, changing productions...consume goods and other stuff started dissapearing..fabrics started working in 3 shifts of 8 hours and have night production (never happend before end 42) etc etc...all those little things you notice around you and which tell you that something is going to change drastically...we had 4 men in the war...1 fell in Stalingrad..the second on the eastern front around Donetz-Bassin (never got recovered) and 2 survided in the west...my grandmas mother and 2 of her older sisters where working at night shifts in fabrics making shells ...
