The Battle of Britain Five Months That Changed History, May—October 1940 by James Holland (z-lib.org).epub

earliest available opportunity. Another whole winter might give Britain,
particularly, the edge in the arms race, which was why he had been so
determined to strike in the west in the autumn of 1939.
The winter, however, had, ironically, been more beneficial to Germany
than to either Britain or France. Large aircraft orders from the USA had not
reached them yet; nor had rearmament levels in Britain sufficiently
increased to threaten Germany’s head start. However, the winter had
enabled Germany to improve its cash flow and improve the critically low
production of ammunition. Hitler had demanded that all German resources
be channelled towards the one decisive blow and that meant the German
people had to shoulder that burden.
Although most Germans had been delighted by the end result in Poland,
the war was unpopular, not because of the loss of life that war brought but
mainly because of the downturn in the standard of living. Hitler’s urgent
need for cash had been resolved by reducing civilian consumption and
beefing up the amount of labour, raw materials and industrial capacity that
could be directed to the production of arms. By May 1940, the share of
national output devoted to military production went to a third, a big increase
on an already high proportion. This was why Else Wendel and William
Shirer when Christmas shopping found almost nothing to buy. The shops
were largely empty, while rationing became more strict. With nothing to
spend money on, household consumption dropped massively and the
surplus flowed into the German war economy instead. ‘We cannot win the
war against England,’ Hitler said, ‘with cookers and washing machines.’ He
believed that the German people would soon forget these hardships in the
flush of victory.
On top of that, supplies of raw materials were beginning to flow back
into the country, largely thanks to the large trade deal made with Russia as
part of the non-aggression pact. These benefits did not happen overnight but
by the beginning of 1940 were making themselves felt. Furthermore,
overall steel production in Germany was increased. It was a risk because it
meant Germany would increase the rate at which it exhausted its own
stocks of iron ore, but Hitler’s single throw of the dice was a gamble that
had to be applied to everything. It was do or die industrially as well as
militarily. If Germany won the decisive blow, she could rape the resources
of France and Britain and the rest of western Europe. If she lost, the fact
that her own resources would be critically depleted would be irrelevant.