Chapter Three: The Military Superiority of the Reich in 1939
Despite the drastic failings of its chosen foreign and rearmament policy following the Sudeten crisis, and the subsequent occupation of Czechoslovakia, the Reich still had a strong military position in 1939 compared to that of its principle opponents. The Nazi leadership understood, however, that the proportional superiority of the Heer and the Luftwaffe was a declining asset in light of the increasingly rapid rearmament of its enemies. This fact had, moreover, been understood for some time. The Hossbach Conference of 5 November 1937 had underscored this long-term problem that the Reich would face in maintaining its superiority in the coming years. 208 Yet at Hossbach the decline had not been predicted to become severe until the period 1943-1945, which was understandable considering the level of German armament spending at this time compared to the only slowly rearming Allies. Within just over a year, this prediction as to when the proportional superiority of the Wehrmacht would diminish was proven to be wildly optimistic: following the Anschluss of Austria and the annexation of the Sudetenland the Allies began to rearm ever more quickly. 209 Thus the declining superiority of the Wehrmacht, and its concomitant superiority of the moment, increasingly became a significant concern for what Albert Speer dubbed the ‘war party’ within the Reich’s leadership; in August 1939 Speer described how this group believed that ‘They [the Allies] need at least one and a half to 208 Memorandum: Minutes of the Conference in the Reich Chancellery, Berlin, November 5, 1937, from 4:15 to 8:30 P.M., in Documents on German Foreign Policy, Series D , Vol. I, (London, His Majesty’s Stationary Office, 1949), pp. 29-39. 209 This is demonstrated by the jump in British defence expenditure in 1938- 1939 from 8 per cent to 17 per cent shown in Noakes and G. Pridham, (1984), p. 298.
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