German Armament Research Articles

Swedish iron ore exports to Germany, 1933–44

Abstract In Vol. XV (1967) of this journal, Alan S. Milward and Jorg-Johannes Jager published criticisms of my article on Swedish iron are exports to Nazi Germany.1 Turning first to Milward's contribution, this is based on the assumption that the German economy was a ‘blitzkrieg war economy’ in the period preceding the attack upon the Soviet Union. This view, which has been expressed before by B. H. Klein, undoubtedly brings a number of valuable refinements into the hitherto exaggerated estimates of the level of German armaments at the outbreak of the Second World War.2 But when he goes on to say that ‘in such a war economy all considerations of potential armaments-producing capacity were rejected in favour of present armaments-producing capacity’,3 Milward palpably oversimplifies a complex problem. In fact, the demand for an armaments programme ‘in depth’, to quote General Thomas, did make itself heard long before the autumn of 1941.

German and British Naval Armaments as a Product of Historical Development and of Maritime Strategy

German and British Naval Armaments as a Product of Historical Development and of Maritime Strategy