1942 to the end of the war
With America in the war the much anticipated world coalition was now arrayed against Hitler. Its material superiority would soon fall on the skies and frontlines. Germany still had to secure resources for the long war, deliver a killing blow against the Red Army, now in the Caucasus, from where it would also threaten Britain’s position in the Middle East together with the Afrika Korps. The time horizon for this was short. But there was one good news: Japan’s rampage against the Western powers distracted them from the European theater, giving Germany some breathing space.
The production priority at this time was ammunition. Little had been produced after large stocks were built for the Battle of France and followed by brief fighting, but now with the prospect of long-lasting attrition warfare it came back to fore.
The topic of the nuclear program briefly came to Fromm and Speer’s attention but was dropped as it’d take years to bear any fruit.

Rommel’s offensive effort ended inconclusively in September. Immediately afterwards American tanks began to arrive through the Suez canal. This was the watershed in the arms race: the Allies had finally brought their economic superiority to the battlefield. By the 23rd of October Rommel’s 123 up-to-date tanks faced nearly 1,000 Allied counterparts. Outnumbered and outgunned, the African foothold came to its inevitable defeat by May 1943 with the surrender of 290,000 troops.
In the East, the pattern of the previous year’s offensive and counteroffensive were repeated but this time the enemy was better armed and organized, achieving a catastrophic counterblow over the winter. The Heer was pushed back to its original positions and the front only stabilized by Von Manstein in March 1943.
The reasons for defeat in Africa are clear, but in the East they’re more elusive. By now the Soviet Union displayed remarkable staying power, absorbing brutal military and territorial losses and coming out stronger than before and a threat to the Reich’s position. As this is a book about Germany, not the USSR, there isn’t an in-depth discussion but three points are mentioned:
-Lend-Lease is considered decisive only after 1943, when it kept the Soviet economy afloat and gave the Red Army mobility in its great offensives.
-The new Soviet industrial complex existing beyond the frontline and the economies of scale it achieved by concentrating production in massive factories. Yet that alone couldn’t outcompete German industry.
-Most critical was the Soviet Union’s mobilization. With its pharaonic powers the Soviet state could move an unbelievably high share of the economy towards the war effort. Even the farms had too much of their manpower taken by the army, causing hundreds of thousands or millions of deaths by starvation. This was unsustainable and had to be toned down by 1944, but it allowed superior armaments production over the decisive 1942-3 period.
(Harrison’s book shows the USSR mobilized a % of their economy equal, not higher to Germany’s, but their year-by-year mobilization was much faster and the peak achieved earlier).
Russia’s industrialization is, along with America’s rise to superpower status, one of the two great developments of the 20th century which formed the backdrop to Germany’s history.