The End of a Myth? Albert Speer and the so-called “Armament Miracle”

Abstract

Armament minister Albert Speer is usually credited with causing the boom in German armament production after 1941 by implementing several organizational reforms. We question the received view by showing that there was nothing like a clear-cut discontinuity in both real production and organization of the German armament industry after Speer was appointed armament minister. With respect to organizational reforms, Speer obviously failed to enforce the rationalization measures “type reduction” and “reduction of program changes”. Speer can also not be credited with pushing through fixed-price contracts which were the rule already before the year 1942. Revised macroeconomic data indicate that labour productivity displayed a rather u-shaped development during World War II, decreasing between 1939 and 1941 and increasing from 1941 onwards. In our opinion, the initial decrease in productivity was caused by start-up problems resulting from the astonishing growth of both the capital stock and the work force of traditional and newly founded armament firms. The increase in productivity after 1941 then resulted mainly from learning-by doing.