The Mirage of the German Armament Miracle in World War II

Jonas Scherner () and Jochen Streb ()
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Jonas Scherner: Norwegian University of Science and Technology
Jochen Streb: Universität Mannheim

A chapter in Economic History of Warfare and State Formation, 2016, pp 243-258 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract Based on a revision of output and labor productivity series of the German armament industry during the World War II we show that the so-called German armament miracle was only a statistical construct produced by the manipulation of Albert Speer and his statisticians. In particular, we find no structural break in the year 1942 when Speer became armament minister. In a period of continuous expansion, only the year 1941 stands out, when both domestic armament production and labor productivity decreased. We suggest that this temporary slump was caused by the short-term effects of outsourcing activities and capital deepening.

Keywords: Albert Speer; Armament miracle; Germany; Labor productivity; Occupied countries; Outsourcing; Second World War (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:stechp:978-981-10-1605-9_10

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DOI: 10.1007/978-981-10-1605-9_10

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