With the attack postponed military production was the central theme in the first months. The navy was relegated to last priority and its surface ships scrapped in favor of submarines. The Luftwaffe successfully lobbied to guarantee a large share of resources and focused on bombers. Though a tank production drive took place, the bulk of land production would go to a massive expansion of ammunition stocks, particularly for the artillery; this decision was taken by Hitler against the army’s complaints that it would squeeze production of other items.
Though priorities were clear the figures for armaments output in the first months of the war are disappointing. This has been construed as complacency, but the Reich was fighting to maximize the numbers. What explains it, then?
-Mobilization caused temporary disorganization and permanent shrinkage of the workforce.
-Already depreciated railways were overburdened by the movement of dozens of divisions, triggering a logistical crisis.
-It took months for increased raw materials assignments to cross the industrial metabolism and translate into higher production numbers. This is an important point in the book: there’s always a delay between reforms/increased resources and their effects, and this repeatedly gave false impressions of merit to administrators who assumed in the interim.
-Blockaded by the Royal Navy, imports plunged to a level comparable to the late war. Soviet raw materials would make up for the end of overseas trade but this took time to establish.

Goering’s and the RLM’s political clout shielded the Luftwaffe from the war economy’s disappointing results. The Heer was not as lucky. Managing the acquisition of its weapons was its procurement office, part of the army’s own bureaucracy headed by General Becker. Placed under pressure, it did try as hard as it could to raise production, stockpiling empty shells so the chemical industry could provide explosives later and ruthlessly mobilizing resources. By February this had the desired effect and a steep increase in output followed until the summer.
But it was too late: by then the procurement office had already become the scapegoat for stagnant production and the target of Nazi ideologues. In March a Ministry of Ammunition was created and Todt, the “miracle man” of the autobahnen and Westwall, appointed to it. Uncompromising civilian National Socialist leadership, it was now thought, would do what the army’s bureaucrats couldn’t.
Todt created new hierarchies and, most importantly, gave a greater role to industrialists in the arms economy, which greatly benefitted their class. They were a third party to this and are commonly described as having led the confrontation against the army’s bureaucrats, but there were industrialists on both sides and most didn’t bother. However even prior to Todt the army was already experimenting with a closer relationship with industry.
Now armaments output was rapidly increasing. Todt gained all the merit and was praised for this “miracle” when in fact most of the work had already been done to him by his reviled predecessors.