2.3.6

War Economy 2

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Impact of Allied Bombings

During the Second World War the Allies bombed cities in Germany. They targeted industrial cities. This damaged Germany's economy.

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Breaking civilian morale

  • Cities were the main targets 1939 and 1943.
  • This was because the Allies believed if civilian morale broke, the regime could not survive.
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Targeting industrial cities

  • Allied bombing increased from 1942 and became ‘area bombing’.
  • Incendiary bombs targeted large industrial cities, without differentiating targets.
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German response

  • Speer set up a task force to repair bombed factories.
  • German economic output continued to rise until mid-1944 by which time Allied bombing was focused more on economic targets e.g. dams, bridges, railways, factories.
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Impact of the Allied bombings

  • Between July 1944 and January 1945 an average of 13,536 people were killed every month.
  • By March 1944 Berlin had 1.5 million people without homes.

Mobilisation of the Labour Force During World War Two

To sustain the war effort, Germany needed workers. However, many workers were needed to fight in the war. To solve this labour shortage the Nazis used forced labour.

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The problem of conscription

  • By 1942 Germany was conscripting once protected workers e.g. in munitions. It had a shortage of skilled labour as well.
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Prisoners of war

  • Germany used prisoners-of-war and forced labour from the occupied territories.
  • Generalplan-Ost: set up work camps for foreign labour.
  • By 1943, approximately 6.5 million Jews, Poles and Soviet prisoners of wars provided the Nazis with forced labour.
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Workers from occupied territories

  • The Nazis also drafted in French, Belgian and Dutch workers.
  • In 1944 there were about 7.8 million foreign workers in Germany. 20% of farm labour was foreign.
  • Foreign workers were treated badly, and also according to where they came from. Jews, Poles and Russians fared worse than western Europeans.
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Living conditions

  • Malnutrition, disease and harsh punishments meant forced labour productivity was low.
  • Thousands died – yet output in German factories rose.

Jump to other topics

1The Weimar Republic 1918-1933

2Nazi Germany 1933-1945

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