hit the Heer the most when it saw its allocation cut back to levels not seen since 1937. 199 The Heer was, moreover, the service most vulnerable to a throttling back of steel quotas, as compared to the other armed services it was overwhelmingly dependent on steel for continued expansion. 200 Considering that the army had requested a steel allocation of no less than 4.5 million tons of steel for 1939, such a grievous cutback came as a complete shock. And the effects of this policy change in favour of exports were dramatic: 300 infantry battalions were still living under canvass by the end of 1939; the production of mortar shells and infantry rifles ceased altogether; instead of receiving 61,000 Model 34 machine guns by 1940 this order was reduced to 13,000 and orders for 10.5 centimetre field howitzers and even medium battle tanks were halved. 201 The policy deprived training and replacement units of weapons and markedly reduced the fighting power of 34 of Germany’s 105 wartime divisions. Once again, the Reich’s plans for an acceleration of rearmament had collided with the structural constraints of its economy. Furthermore, the Reich kept encountering these constraints precisely because there was simply no room for further peacetime expansion, at least not without destroying any semblance of normal civilian life within Germany. So, while the Reich’s authorities would stop short of something that drastic, they still certainly attempted to find ways to combat the economic problems that were crippling further expansion. With this aim in mind the authorities looked toward ameliorating the shortage of workers – full employment had already been reached by 1938 – that presented another persistent challenge
199 Tooze, p. 302. 200 Ibid. 201 Ibid, pp. 302-303.
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