German Economy in WWI

[aglooka]

I'm looking for sources on the German economy (military and civil) in World war I.

 

 

Many greetings,

 

Aglooka

[swerve]

For a start - by a couple of Warwick university professors:

“Economics of the Two World Wars”, in Durlauf, S. and Blume, L. (eds.), New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, Second Edition, Basingstoke: Palgrave, (2008), (Stephen Broadberry & Mark Harrison)

Postprint

 

The Economics of World War I. Editors Mark Harrison & Stephen Broadberry (Warwick). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hardback edition (xvi+345 pp.) 2005. Preview. Reviewed by Stanley L. Engerman for EH.net, January 2006, and Nathan N. Orgill for H-Net, July 2006. Paperback reprint 2009.

 

Forthcoming. Pourquoi les riches ont gagné: Mobilisation et développement économique dans les deux guerres mondiales. In La Mobilisation à l'ère de la guerre totale, 1914-1945, edited by Dominique Barjot. Paris: Presses de l'université de Paris-Sorbonne, 2009.

Preprint (in English)

 

The Economics of World War I: an Overview (with Stephen Broadberry). In The Economics of World War I, pp. 3-40. Edited by Stephen Broadberry and Mark Harrison. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Postprint

 

Harrison is something of a specialist in the economics of warfare & military mobilisation, but there are plenty of other authors out there. Try EH.net (as in Economic History). Google is also rather useful for this sort of thing.

 

I hope that helps.

Edited November 3, 2009 by swerve

[Archie Pellagio]

There was a very detailed thread on the subject on TN (lost me about 10 pages in) a while back in one of the mil history boards, might be worth trying to find that one.

[Ken Estes]

Try Gerald D. Feldman:

Army, Industry and Labour in Germany, 1914-1918

[ickysdad]

It does seem amazing that the German economy lasted 4 years especially with such high conscription levels. I was in a debate on another board whereupon some debaters in a hypothetical US versus UK & German scenario suggested that the US economy would collapse in 6 months . I tried to remind them of Germany holding out for as long as they did but to no avail. It lead me to look further into the matter and the Germans certainly managed to adapt up to a degree to being without rubber,using zinc instead of aluminum or tin as well as others. However the farms seemed to suffer from manpowewr call ups so the people ended suffering from the effects of starvation.

[swerve]

... However the farms seemed to suffer from manpowewr call ups so the people ended suffering from the effects of starvation.

If you read the analyses of German agricultural policy & production in WW1 you'll realise that they were in trouble from the start, & made it worse through poor policy. Somewhat counter-intuitively, a large low-productivity agricultural workforce is not very good at feeding a country engaged in total war. It's hard for the remaining workers, many of them women & old men, to make up for the conscripted young men without machinery - and there isn't much of that. They also have little incentive to work harder to produce a surplus, as the war economy provides them with little return for whatever they produce in excess of their own needs.

 

A relatively industrialised agricultural sector can react more productively. There's already a significant amount of agricultural machinery, & manufacturers set up to provide more. It's easier to train under-employed women to operate it (& factory machinery, of course) than to make them able to do as much physical labour as young men. When you have relatively small numbers of farm workers, it's easier to exempt enough from conscription to make a difference to production, without a serious impact on military manpower. When agricultural labourers are waged, not peasant producers, they can't stop working when they've grown enough to eat, & rewarding or threatening relatively few commercial farmers is more practical than trying to extort a surplus from masses of peasants, when your industrial sector is fully committed to the war.

 

Mark Harrison explains it much better than that, but I think you'll get the gist. And before you say "What about Russia?", the answer is yes: it was even worse there. France got away with it because it had colonies, access to food imported from the USA, Argentina, etc., & Britain as an ally. It would otherwise have been as hungry as Germany by 1917.

Edited November 6, 2009 by swerve

[Yama]

If you read the analyses of German agricultural policy & production in WW1 you'll realise that they were in trouble from the start, & made it worse through poor policy. Somewhat counter-intuitively, a large low-productivity agricultural workforce is not very good at feeding a country engaged in total war.

 

...as Finland sorely found out in WW2. In 1942, much of the Army actually had to be demobilised, otherwise the country would have starved to death (even then, it was tough and Finland was dependent from German grain).

 

All of which came to haunt us big way in 1944.

[aglooka]

Wasn't Italy in WWII also heaviily dependant on coal, oil and grain supplied by Germany ?

 

Many greetings,

 

Aglooka

[swerve]

Wasn't Italy in WWII also heaviily dependant on coal, oil and grain supplied by Germany ?

 

Many greetings,

 

Aglooka

 

Here's a reading list for you. The references in those articles will lead you to many other authors & works. And look at EH.net. You'll find analyses of the Italian economy in both world wars.

 

http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economic...harrison/public

http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economic...arrison/papers/

Edited November 7, 2009 by swerve

[aglooka]

Here's a reading list for you. The references in those articles will lead you to many other authors & works. And look at EH.net. You'll find analyses of the Italian economy in both world wars.

 

http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economic...harrison/public

http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economic...arrison/papers/

 

 

Thank you !

 

Found already what i wanted i think and they have it in the local uni library !

 

Many greetings,

 

Aglooka

Edited November 7, 2009 by aglooka

[ickysdad]

If you read the analyses of German agricultural policy & production in WW1 you'll realise that they were in trouble from the start, & made it worse through poor policy. Somewhat counter-intuitively, a large low-productivity agricultural workforce is not very good at feeding a country engaged in total war. It's hard for the remaining workers, many of them women & old men, to make up for the conscripted young men without machinery - and there isn't much of that. They also have little incentive to work harder to produce a surplus, as the war economy provides them with little return for whatever they produce in excess of their own needs.

 

A relatively industrialised agricultural sector can react more productively. There's already a significant amount of agricultural machinery, & manufacturers set up to provide more. It's easier to train under-employed women to operate it (& factory machinery, of course) than to make them able to do as much physical labour as young men. When you have relatively small numbers of farm workers, it's easier to exempt enough from conscription to make a difference to production, without a serious impact on military manpower. When agricultural labourers are waged, not peasant producers, they can't stop working when they've grown enough to eat, & rewarding or threatening relatively few commercial farmers is more practical than trying to extort a surplus from masses of peasants, when your industrial sector is fully committed to the war.

 

Mark Harrison explains it much better than that, but I think you'll get the gist. And before you say "What about Russia?", the answer is yes: it was even worse there. France got away with it because it had colonies, access to food imported from the USA, Argentina, etc., & Britain as an ally. It would otherwise have been as hungry as Germany by 1917.

 

 

I read some era publications like "The Strategy of Minerals" , "The Coal Trade" amongst others along with the USGS website and in all of that to me it was amazing that the US produced so little Potash, Magnesite, Tin,Chromite ,Sulfur,Manganese,Tungsten,Graphite,Arsenic,Antimony, and on and on before the war but during the war became almost self-sufficent in so many items it used to import. As I understand it shipping was so hard to come by that it made low grade ores profitable. In Nickel the deposits around Riddle,Oregon could have been developed but for the easy access to Canadian deposits in Scudburry,Ontario. In the 1950's the Riddle deposits were finally developed with government subsidies they were seriously looked at in 1914-1918 but weren't needed. However I think it shows how a country can adapt if cutoff from certain supplies. IMHO the US was almost operating against a blockade of sorts during WW1 just because of problems finding availiable shipping. In another thread in another forum(involving the US versus the UK & Germany) I was told that France couldn't get involved in helping the US because of dependence on imported coal BUT during 1915-1918 France produced 23,000,000 to 26,000,000 tons of coal per year while importing 15,000,000 to 16,500,000 tons per year during those years mainly from the UK but From "The Coal Trade" France was producing around 40,000,000 tons per year 1913 and before. So just going from that I fail to see just how coal imports or lack of would keep France out of a war against both the UK & Germany(especially if they can count on US help and probably Russia's) but food could be a totally different matter. Anyways I'm getting way off subject here however some of these absurd scenarios invole having to re-write history for about 40-50 years before they happen.

I'll try and get Harrison's book though.

[Ariete!]

In reponse to the poster who was arguing with others about the sustainability of US economy in a 'blockade'. I think even a cursory knowledge of the US economy at the time would suggest that if there is one country that could have survived and even thrived very well under a blockade, that is the US.

 

In the specific case of Germany, in both wars the degree and quality of economic planning was pretty poor and certainly contributed to the eventual downfall.

 

Someone was askign about italy. In WW2 Italy, which was heavily dependent on imports for food and raw materials, went in really, really badly unrpepared partly because it had been at th receiving end of trade sanctions for eyars before the war broke out (as a result of its invasion of Ethiopia). The principal logistics planners at the war minsitry, reading their stuff written at the time, basically thought the war was lost from the start.

Edited November 21, 2009 by Ariete!

[ickysdad]

In reponse to the poster who was arguing with others about the sustainability of US economy in a 'blockade'. I think even a cursory knowledge of the US economy at the time would suggest that if there is one country that could have survived and even thrived very well under a blockade, that is the US.

 

In the specific case of Germany, in both wars the degree and quality of economic planning was pretty poor and certainly contributed to the eventual downfall.

 

Someone was askign about italy. In WW2 Italy, which was heavily dependent on imports for food and raw materials, went in really, really badly unrpepared partly because it had been at th receiving end of trade sanctions for eyars before the war broke out (as a result of its invasion of Ethiopia). The principal logistics planners at the war minsitry, reading their stuff written at the time, basically thought the war was lost from the start.

 

 

Well that would have been me. It was also argued that US economy would go down the tubes for lack of rubber and it did absolutely no good reminding them that Germany fought for 4 years without rubber imports. Furthermore that's if you can keep the US from importing,albiet at high cost, since bloackading the US isn't like blockading just the English Channel & North Sea plus having bases all up and down the English Coast along with your main naval base sitting right astride the main entry in & out of the North Sea.

[Junior FO]

...

Edited September 23, 2024 by Junior FO