to the Reich’s rearmament. The problem was that by February 1939 the economy was already suffering a shortage of 1 million workers, and the Wehrmacht’s Army Ordinance Office estimated that for all the armaments programmes to be carried out they would require a staggering 870 per cent increase in the number of workers available to them. 202 It was clear that something must be done. Yet the only options to escape these constraints was to import foreign labour or to conscript workers from non-essential industries. Thus, by June 1939 the regime had already brought in 40,000 foreign workers from recently occupied Czechoslovakia, while Poles were being encouraged to come to Germany as voluntary workers. 203 Even with the addition of fresh workers from outside Germany it was still not enough to cover the shortage. In addition to the importation of foreign workers, the regime also attempted to introduce labour conscription for German workers, starting in June 1938, which by the end of 1939 had resulted in 1.3 million workers being temporarily moved to different industries. 204 While this number seems impressive, the system of labour rationing functioned poorly. Noakes and Pridham note that ‘there were limits on the extent to which the German labour force could be mobilized – at any rate in peacetime – because of the shortages of housing in industrial areas and the unpopularity of labour conscription.’ 205 Ultimately though, the fact that the Reich had to introduce labour conscription at all was telling. It demonstrated that the economy was overcooking and had reached a level at which, save for increased efficiency savings, there was little that could be done to further expand
202 Noakes and G. Pridham, (1988), pp. 121-122. 203 Ibid. 204 Tooze, p. 261. 205 Noakes and G. Pridham, (1988), p. 122.
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