two years before their production will reach its maximum yield. Only after 1940 can they begin to catch up […] If they produce only as much as we do … our proportional superiority will constantly diminish’. 210 The timeframe for when the Allies would catch up to and surpass Germany’s hard-won proportional superiority was, therefore, deteriorating much more quickly than had been hoped for at Hossbach in 1937. As such, it became increasingly necessary to somehow respond to the potential loss of this advantage. One way to forestall such a loss, make good on the orders for the increasingly overwhelmed armaments industry and escape the diplomatic reversals of 1938- 1939, was to go to war. Indeed, Hitler described this as his motivation when writing a letter to Mussolini in the spring of 1940. ‘In light of Britain’s intended armaments effort, as well as considering England’s intention of mobilizing all conceivable auxiliaries … it appeared to me after all to be right … to begin immediately with the counterattack, even at the risk of thereby precipitating the war intended by the Western powers two or three years earlier. After all Duce, what could have been the improvement in our armaments in two or three years? As far as the Wehrmacht was concerned, in light of England’s forced rearmament, a significant shift in the balance of forces in our favour was barely conceivable. And towards the east the situation could only deteriorate.’ 211 While this could have been an ex post facto justification for the outbreak of war in 1939, it would be a mistake to dismiss it as such. Within the available literature on Hitler in 1939 it is apparent that such 210 Albert Speer, Inside the Third Reich , (London, Phoenix, 1995), pp. 235- 236. 211 Tooze, p. 317.
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