War Factories | Episode 2: Krupp | Free Documentary History

the untold story of war production all wars are about competition and production the side that can produce more is always going to triumph over the other side hitler knows he needs industry if he wants to build a war machine this is a war between the factories the real story of how the second world war was fought and won [Music] the united states is about to launch the single greatest program of armament production in human history they swamped the other side with a tide of mass production the secret war of the factories that would decide the fate of the whole world gotta get back to work [Music] essen the great industrial city of the roar here is germany's coal and so here is the home of industrial giants like tyson group it was from industrial centers like essen that the nazis fought and lost the war of the factories germany 1926 when it surrendered at the end of the great war germany was forced to agree not to rebuild its war machine so instead of building tanks in the massive crook factory engineers are working on the design of a giant tractor at least that's the official line in fact this is a forerunner for a new kind of tank which will spread terror and destruction across europe they will become known as panzers defeat in war has not dented the ambitions of germany's powerful military bureaucratic elite certain elements of the german hierarchy don't appear to have learned anything from world war one they want a british empire but they're fixated on the part where you go out and conquer and not on the part that comes afterwards which is essentially his trade almost as soon as the great war is over despite all the chaos despite all the hyperinflation the german ruling class is firing up its war factories again now most ordinary germans don't want war but germany's militaristic elite think of little else firms like crook work to find ways around the ban on german arms manufacturing in 1921 krupp buys the swedish arms manufacturer bofors as a front company the following year they established sidarius aeg in the netherlands as a front company to build warships and submarines to keep its engineers skills up to scratch crook hires them out to numerous eastern european war factories including those of the soviet union the germans need to test their new weapons well away from the prying eyes of allied inspectors preferably outside germany [Music] one country in particular has vast unpopulated areas perfect for the job russia and the russians will allow the germans to create military bases deep into russia where they can test tanks where they can practice with aircraft they will set up a tank school practicing with real tanks and they're working together with the russians on tank maneuvers for once uh we have something that's not solely the nazi's fault um when they came to power in 1933 they they ramped up rearmament but it was already there it had already been happening for 10 years the national socialists disapprove of capitalism which they see as jewish and american but to win an empire they need its help even though the nazis of course despised jewish capitalism as they call it hitler knows he needs industry if he wants to build a war machine the nazi view of american business which they saw was a jewish product really was that it promoted the wrong kind of social values and that it also promoted cheap tact mass production they did not like the whole process of modernization at all the idea was far better for people to remain as peasants where they could not only produce organic food but also produce lots of children who would go on to be big burly soldiers and fight efficiently in the army then move to towns and cities where they would become as they saw it consumption obsessed producers [Music] hitler demands enormous numbers of war machines germany's war factories deliver these numbers and more he calls for 21 000 military planes to be built in the end his war factories will produce almost 140 000 hitler says he wants 4 000 tanks but his war factories will eventually produce almost 50 000 and to fight war at sea german shipyards will build over 1 100 u-boats much of germany's heavy industry was based here in the rua valley here were among the largest coal fields in the world and big factories sought to be close to their main source of energy under the nazis the rose factories shift their focus from trains and tracks to tanks and guns and they will be rewarded with vast amounts of taxpayers cash of which large amounts go back to the nazis in bribes all the big industrialists of germany contribute lots of money in the expectation the hitler will work for them they ended up working for hitler of course hitler was actually in some ways a rather pragmatic politician and he very rapidly made a series of deals with large german firms companies such as bmw krupp it's a cozy relationship between the two sides between large firms on the one side and the central state on the other in the six years after the nazis come to power the major industrial companies involved in rearmament will see their incomes rise by 50 percent if you own a company like crop and you make armaments you you just want to cuddle hitler because he's going to give you endless amounts of money he's going to make you very rich and you're going to want to be his best friend and in crux case his son joins the ss you make him your best mate and you're set for life so croup in particular embraces the nazis and hitler calls croup the fuhrer of industry by 1934 krupp's giant works at essen are openly producing panzer tanks and at krupska manievert in kiev construction of u-boats begins german re-armament plans are breathtaking in their ambition and german war factories gear up production many years before the allies are alive to the threat german war factories appear to have a number of other advantages over the allies and the first is the quality of their engineers germany had industrialized in the second half of the 19th century and had drawn on the engineering skills of the british but germany had a much bigger population than britain and was rich in coal and by the end of the century firms like crook siemens and aeg had turned germany into europe's industrial giant german engineering was now focused on perfecting hitler's war machines well this is a panzer mark iii one of a family of german tanks and of course they change the nature of warfare the gun is good the protection levels are excellent the running gear it was always seen as an extremely well designed tank it's a good looking tank and it did take the world by storm german engineering is revered the world over german engineers have served long apprenticeships they're highly skilled highly trained in their craft compared to factories in america german war factories are organized along more traditional lines placing greater value on craft skills to qualify as master engineers workers have to serve long apprenticeships this is further encouraged by the nazis who revive the old german craft guilds in footage of german tank factories the tanks are seen not on a production line but static in different stations surrounded by engineers for people today who are interested in tank design it's of course those german tanks that are the most fascinating there are so many types of german tank and each model's got so many variations and so many clever little things about them all those little engineering flourishes that makes them unique there is another key difference between german and american war production the nazis have a different attitude towards free market competition instead they grant monopoly privileges to favored war manufacturers by 1937 70 percent of production in germany is carried out by state-sanctioned monopolies [Music] if you're a certain type of politician there are obviously going to be advantages in a totalitarian system now if the state has got total power and you want something done you don't have to ask someone or persuade someone or even compromise you just get on and do it and overseeing these state-funded monopolies is germany's famously efficient civil service which the nazis greatly expand between 1935 and 1939 the number of government officials grows by two million under the nazis civil servants see their budgets rise tenfold 20-fold even 30-fold germans love bureaucracy and under the nazis it gets a completely new lease of life so before the first world war prussian civil service was the biggest employer in the world and now with with all of the rearmament that the nazis are doing they they're employing legions of them to fix prices take quotes uh set contracts all kinds of things so yeah any anyone who with a poncho for signing things and uh trying to look smart while doing it is well employed in nazi germany government spending rockets under the nazis and it's going mainly on arms in the five years leading to the war america is spending 300 million dollars on munitions britain which is gearing up for war is spending 500 million this is dwarfed by the soviet union which is spending more than one and a half billion but far in the lead is nazi germany spending almost two and a half billion a year on munitions alone and hitler is not finished in the following year german expenditure on munitions will be more than double the total for the previous four years [Music] in the late 1930s the german economy is to all intents and purposes on a war footing the workforce in groups factories and shipyards has tripled from 35 000 to 112 000 [Music] this is the german baltic coast it is where you'll find tusson coupe marine systems which can trace its lineage back over 200 years even today they still manufacture cutting-edge ships and submarines in 1939 alone at croup's shipyard in keele and 15 others along the german coast 60 new u-boats are launched with many more under construction and on the order books by now the nazis have at their disposal no fewer than 3 000 panzer tanks 4 000 warplanes and a giant stockpile of armaments what's more is that these war machines have been beautifully crafted by german engineers according to the very latest designs so the oldest tank in the german inventory is just seven years old and the u-boats are brand new but if you look at the royal navy some of britain's submarines date back to the first world war they're a lot older german war factories have equipped the nazis with the most formidable armed force the world has ever known just in terms of production german factories had done something incredibly impressive and at the same time utterly terrifying the cost of building this war machine is vast now somehow they have to make this monster war machine pay for itself hitler thinks that winning an empire will cover the cost so that's what he sets out to do [Music] on the 1st of september 1939 the german army invades poland when hitler enters poland it actually looks really easy because he unleashes this huge newly constructed army and air force and of course the world is left absolutely stunned two days later you've got britain and france declaring war when germany turns west and invades france victory is no less decisive and swift now he sends out his u-boat wolf packs to devastate allied shipping lanes in the atlantic in the newsreels and from the point of view of the allies poland and france look like relatively easy victories but the polish and french armies are huge and though the wehrmacht have won it's come at a cost many tanks many planes many lives hitler is delighted but the wehrmacht know they've been in a fight in the first four weeks of the war um they they've marched into poland and it's a seemingly a walk over they've conquered poland um but they've lost 25 of their tanks already and it's taken them six years to build up that tank force and they've lost a quarter of it in four weeks with the greatest respect to poland against an adversary that is nowhere near the toughest that they're gonna face hitler orders his war factories to go into overdrive when he'd invaded poland he hadn't expected the british and french to declare war now he has a much bigger fight on his hands and hitler knows it will get even bigger when he invades russia but the nazi state controls all economic life so it's able to put all the country's resources at the service of war production the german people will be taxed to the limit and must do without the ordinary comforts of life output from german war factories begins to rise as germany has gained more territory so more factories and resources have come under its control already german expansion into austria and czechoslovakia has won the nazis coal mines and steel mills as well as the highly prized skoda works a rival to croup in terms of size and output just one of skoda's factory complexes employs more than 35 000 when hitler invades russia in the summer of 1941 he is able to send in the largest invasion force ever assembled in human history three and a half thousand tanks backed up with seven thousand armored vehicles and more than 2 700 warplanes the speed with which the nazis move into russia is absolutely breathtaking and stalin can only do one thing he's got to relocate his factories to the east to stop them being captured it seems that hitler and the nazis are riding high but the reality is somewhat different in fact as early as 1941 it is becoming apparent to some in germany that the nazis cannot win the battle of britain was hitler's first setback between may and december 1940 the luftwaffe had lost nearly 4 000 aircraft a 71 loss of their strength and soon losses quickly start to mount on the eastern front the nazi invasion force that is unleashed on soviet russia is monstrous in size but um nobody had read a history book and learnt anything from napoleon and it losses were correspondingly enormous by the end of 1941 hitler has lost almost 3 000 tanks the mighty fourth panzer division is reduced to just 38 vehicles what's more the communists have access to a seemingly endless supply of manpower and resources by the end of 1941 its tank factories are out producing germany's by two to one a figure that will increase to five to one by the following year to make matters worse from a slow start british and american war factories are gaining momentum allied war factories are now overtaking those of germany in 1941 between them allied war factories produced 15 000 tanks in the same year nazi war factories produced just 2 400 fewer than they're losing in battle so many of what the nazis had imagined to be the advantages of german war production were turning out to be the very opposite the use of skilled craftsmen has become a terrible hindrance the logic of american mass production was to divide up the complex tasks of skilled workers into many simpler tasks which can be carried out much more quickly and repetitively by lesser skilled workers or machines skilled craftsmen take longer they have to spend time changing tools wandering around the factory floor looking for parts and switching mentally and physically from one task to another apprenticeships meant that it took several years to train more craftsmen and just at a time when german factories needed more skilled labor existing skilled workers were being called up to fight in the army [Music] the interference of the military meanwhile was causing huge delays to production vermont generals were constantly interrupting production demanding changes to the designs of tanks and other equipment in america a firm like general motors concentrates on tanks like the sherman that have been specifically designed with mass production in mind and then they're able to produce them in these really big numbers but the germans have got the opposite problem they've got these far more technically complex tanks which are just impossible to mass produce well the tiger one has is built around a superb gun the 88 millimeter gun it has excellent armor good protection levels but it is over engineered the tiger was simply too complex too heavy and too expensive they were produced at a time when germany was short of fuel and these were very very thirsty tanks and so as often or not they ran out of fuel as broke down compared to the tiger one the sherman could not be more different this was virtually hand produced like a bentley this was mass produced like a ford and it has straight welding cast turrets it was the ultimate mass-produced tank of world war [Music] [Music] ii as the second world war intensifies so does the battle between the factories in america firms are forced to become more efficient because they must compete with each other for war contracts in germany the state has awarded monopolies to favored companies what's more these companies are heavily regulated working under the supervision of large numbers of civil servants in germany quite unlike the united states and britain the economy is entirely controlled so you've got these legions of government officials and bureaucrats controlling every aspect of production every transaction from hiring workers sourcing parts machine tools and raw materials they all have to have official state approval so if a tank or an airplane factory needs copper or steel or drills or lathes they need to apply for a permit this of course doesn't encourage efficiency at all what it does it hampers it in fact this huge bureaucracy actually causes chaos and there's something else crippling production in germany's war factories one of the biggest problems nazi germany faced once it started the war was getting raw materials huge huge problem and it was one of hitler's biggest worries and headaches this was a problem entirely of the nazi's own making to the national socialists global free trade was jewish and capitalistic they yearn for national economic self-sufficiency and they will require raw materials from abroad not through jewish trade but by germanic conquest there's a quite deliberate policy to reorient german trade away from global trade networks the idea they have is that being dependent upon foreign trade makes you vulnerable the problem they faced was that a lot of the raw materials they needed things like nickel for example could not be found except in either the soviet union or the british empire so if you aren't going to connect with the rest of the world by trade the only way you can get those vital raw materials is by conquering the territory or having them controlled by puppet states but as hitler discovers although the territory he conquers is rich in resources and industrial prowess conquered peoples prove remarkably uncooperative and unproductive by contrast allied war factories are simply buying what they need quickly and easily from the world market the british economy of the interwar years was the largest importing economy in the world by far it imported some very very important raw materials even if hitler had now suddenly embraced global free trade the construction of his vast war machine has crippled much of the rest of the economy germany has little other than guns and tanks to sell so even the nazis were prepared to pay for supplies from abroad which they really weren't the devotion to war production means they have barely any other goods to trade by autumn 1942 the inadequacy of german war factories is beyond doubt and contributes to a major defeat for hitler in north africa montgomery's eighth army attacks rommel with 1 000 tanks at least half of them american of comparable panzer tanks rommel is defending with just 123 but german war factories now face a new problem even resources like coal of which germany has huge reserves appear to be running short the problem is transport germany was an early pioneer of the railways not only does it have a rail network that many countries can only dream of german companies manufacture locomotives rolling stock and track used on railways around the world but in their eagerness to build tanks and planes the nazis have starved the railways of money with catastrophic knock-on effects for german industry at any given time about a third of any rail freight is coal but the german railway network is in such poor condition but it's actually become an international joke and there are these constant major bottlenecks trapping thousands of freight cars and as a result coal is starting to stockpile up at the mines and they in turn have to cut production just at the moment when demand for coals increasing goebbels describes this as the problem of the german war economy by 1940 the coal shortage is starting to bite no coal means no steel at a time when croup and other german factories desperately need more steel to build tanks guns and ammunition just to keep up with the losses let alone catch up with allied production steel production is less than half what it was at the start of the war german war factories are short of coal steel and every other raw material but the military setbacks in russia and in africa present them with another problem in north africa the nazis lost 75 000 troops in russia 60 000 german soldiers are dying every month to replace them the nazis are taking skilled workers out of the war factories you have the armed forces and industry often competing for the same personnel who are moving around as germany has different military advances or reverses you have personnel being taken into the armed forces then being reclaimed by industry in order to keep things going hitler is pillaging occupied europe he has commandeered factories he has confiscated raw materials now he will abduct humans to replace workers in their war factories the nazis resort to using slaves very few of the 42 000 incarceration sites established by the nazis throughout europe still remain but those that do serve as a chilling reminder of just how far the nazi regime was prepared to go to keep their factories running places like this natsville strutof camp in france became an integral part of the nazi war effort yes [Music] slave laborers were put to work in every factory and every type of production from lufthansa to hugo boss they worked in creation of armaments of all types u-boats airplanes guns tanks everything everything you can think of so important was slave labor to german production the camps are built near factories and some factories were built near camps it is estimated that group factories alone exploited the labor of 100 000 slaves but as a study at crooks factory in essen reveals unwilling starving slave laborers are far less productive than the workers they replace overworked a half-starved slave laborers don't do a very efficient job german war factories have now descended into barbarism inefficient immoral and unproductive in an effort to transform them hitler will turn to one of his closest friends albert speer as early as spring 1940 hitler is growing dismayed at the poor performance of nazi war factories germany actually had a great head start against the allies the nazis continued to divert a far greater proportion of their national income to armament spending but the allied war factories are starting to out-produce germany by a huge margin an army and a war economy do not just need tanks and guns and planes they need thousands of other goods to function and high on the list are trucks today modern germany is renowned for its state-of-the-art automotive industry their cars are amongst the most popular in the world and produced in vast numbers but under the nazis the production of trucks and jeeps like so much else was dwarfed by vehicle production in america and britain true to form hitler of course doesn't blame himself or even this bureaucratic and parasitic system of nazism uh actually in early 1940 he decides to put the blame on the head of army procurement that's a man called general carl becker now he's the senior nazi who oversees germany's war factories on the 8th of april 1940 allegedly in the presence of the gestapo general becker commits suicide he is replaced by fritz todd the construction engineer behind hitler's autobahns when the nazis come to invade russia it's tote who's put in charge of rebuilding the infrastructure destroyed by the retreating russians now tote of course understands industry his father owned a factory and he himself is a qualified construction engineer so he's the man for the job todd can see what the german war factories are doing but he also understands the allies production methods he can do the maths germany is going to lose the mistake he makes is to tell hitler at hitler's wharf lair bunker which todd himself had built he tells hitler that germany's war factories are too feeble to supply the eastern army with everything it needs and that the war in the east should be called off hitler is claimed to have been furious germany is the master race the best soldiers in the world the best engineers in the world by extension they must have the best war factories in the world the next day tote actually meets with what is seen as a rather convenient accident when the plane he's flying on back to berlin mysteriously crashes who steps into his role that's hitler's close friend albert spare and what do you know he was actually supposed to be on the same plane and he had rung that morning to say that he had been delayed or missed the flight and shortly afterwards of course he then becomes ahead of war production now some people see this as a kind of conspiracy i don't necessarily think that's true but this is going to have a big impact on the way that the german war machine is going to go into production speer is an ambitious architect who had joined the nazi party in 1931 and was rewarded with the task of designing hitler's gigantic state buildings whilst he is complicit in many things including the exploitation of slave labor he does not share the nazis disdain for american capitalism although hitler of course has a very low opinion of what he calls jewish capitalist america spare can see the united states and the american system of mass production is vastly out producing germany so spear sets about copying america he attempts to strip back state control he reintroduces competition between firms he stops nazi officials from confiscating the profits of companies in short he embraces the very capitalism the national socialists despise and to a degree it works between may 1940 and june 1941 german tank strength doubles but this temporary increase in tank production comes at a cost in order to increase the production of tanks spear has to divert huge amounts of steel from the production of all sorts of other things [Music] the temporary increase spear achieves in tank production is hard to replicate elsewhere u-boat production has reached crisis levels in 1939 hitler ordered the construction of 658 new u-boats by the end of 1942 but by june 1940 crooks and germany's other shipyards had built just 20. by contrast british shipyards were producing a million tonnes of shipping a year by the summer of 1940 only 25 u-boats were operating in the atlantic speer decides to apply american mass production methods to u-boat production and to that end appoints the vehicle maker otto merker otto merker has no experience of building ships now he comes from an automotive background and he's come to the attention of hitler because of his exemplary work building fire engines merck has splits production of u-boats into stages just as the americans do with their mass-produced liberty ships the hull is divided into eight sections parts to be built by multiple suppliers with these american style techniques merka promises to bring production time of each boat down to 175 days a single mark 21 u-boat the first mass-produced u-boat is unveiled in danzig to great fanfare on hitler's birthday this weapon would win the war it is hailed as an armaments miracle by spear himself but behind the scenes the attempted mass production of u-boats is a disaster [Music] so the prefabrication of a ship potentially if you've got everybody cooperating if you've got uniformity of aim and uniformity about the specifications and the design particularly for a relatively crude and inverted comma ship like a merchant ship potentially quite a good result the more exacting the requirements the ship as you move up through higher quality warships larger and more complicated warships it becomes more difficult to apply that model certainly in this era and once you're applying it to effectively the most complicated environment of all the submarine environment that's when you're really really pushing the envelope in terms of challenge american industry has mastered the art of bringing high precision engineering to the production line german war factories however simply aren't used to the demands of mass production when it comes to the assembly of u-boats the different sections are out of alignment by as much as three centimeters even a relatively minor manufacturing floor operating floor in a submarine can lead to total loss of the vessel so you've got these u-boats now they take 175 days to build but it's taking almost that length again to repair them before they even leave the boat yards the boat unveiled on hitler's birthday it turns out is a roughly assembled mock-up which leaks so badly it is taken immediately back into dry dock by the end of 1944 of the 18 type 22 u-boats produced by the nazis only four are fit for action only two launched and neither manages to sink a single allied ship in march 1943 of the 17 major convoys crossing the atlantic u-boats are able to intercept just three by may 1943 the germans are losing u-boats at a rate of one a day spares attempt to introduce this american style mass production into u-boat shipyards is a monumental failure spear can find no solution to the problem of german war production he cannot solve the shortage of labour in the first half of 1942 alone the wehrmacht called up 200 000 men from their armaments factories germany's skilled craftsmen are being put into uniform and slaughtered in the east replacing them are slave laborers among them girls as young as 12. by late 1944 more than a third of war factory workers are foreign forced laborers even german workers are now going hungry the slaves are dropping with starvation nor can spear despite his power liberate industry from the dead hand of the nazi civil service spares attempts to reign in nazi state bureaucracy are doomed to fail because even under him there are well over 200 committees and subcommittees overseeing german war production and spear can do nothing to overcome nazi germany's alienation and isolation from the rest of the world the nazis spurned the global market and now they are paying the price as their war factories run out of supplies of all the raw materials in short supply the most critical is fuel fuel has been running short since early in the war you only have to look at what happens in november 1941 because then you've got germany's largest truck factory that's the opel factory brandenburg which is actually forced to shut down why because it doesn't even have enough fuel to check the fuel pumps of all the vehicles being produced it's hopeless by autumn of 1941 lack of fuel means the german navy can't even leave port food in france confiscated and earmarked for consumption in germany is rotting where it sits because there is too little fuel and too few trucks to transport it to germany by 1943 american and british war production is going through the roof germany's is falling through the floor in the first quarter of 1943 german steel production falls by 200 000 tons but if the nazis think this is bad it's about to get a whole lot worse in march 1943 the battle of the roar begins britain's raf drops 34 000 tons of bombs crippling germany's steel production dams are destroyed cutting the water supply to steel plants and factories smaller factories too are destroyed factories that supply all kinds of parks and machine tools to the bigger wall factories this is the beginning of the end for german war production [Music] by now allied bombers have better fighter cover better bomb sites better electronic guidance systems but more than anything allied war factories have produced many more bombers and many more bombs they unleashed this this destructive chain reaction whereby the german economy collapses from within the allies target anything that could possibly be utilized by the germans to aid their war production and that's not just by bombing a factory that's taking out the water supply the coal supply is taking out in particular railway lines that would move stuff around after it's been produced over the course of the war the allies will drop one and a half million tons of bombs on the crook factory in essen which is more than the total weight of steel produced by the factory the raids of german cities are also rendering factory workers homeless further disrupting what little production is taking place the hamburg firestorm destroys 250 000 homes rendering almost a million people homeless the castle raid displaces 62 percent of the population setting back the production of tiger tanks and 88 millimeter gun production by months and things only get worse in what would become known as big week for six consecutive days in february 1944 american bombers attack every major factory in germany in that one month alone the luftwaffe lose one third of their remaining fighter planes so with no power no components or no means to get goods from the factories to the battlefront wartime production effectively ceases to exist it grinds to a halt the end of the war when it finally comes leaves germany little more than a smoldering heap of rubble national socialism had picked a fight with industrial capitalism in this war of the factories the outcome from the very beginning was inevitable ultimately all wars and the second world war is the greatest example of this are about competition in production the side that can produce more is always going to ultimately triumph over the other side even if the other side has better soldiers braver soldiers more skillful soldiers despite the incredible sums spent by the nazis despite germany's inherited industrial might german war factories were comprehensively out produced by the allies after the war ludwig erhard takes charge of the west german economy a sworn opponent of the nazis and everything they stood for he scraps government regulations reintroduces competition and free markets and slashes taxes the period of astonishing growth that follows becomes known as the german economic miracle [Music] you

Channel: Free Documentary - History

Views: 1,099,193

Keywords: Free Documentary, Documentaries, Full Documentary, documentary - topic, documentary (tv genre), History, History Documentaries, Free Documentary History, War Factories, Secret History of World War 2, World War II, WWII, WW 2, Second World War, War Production, War Industry, History of World War 2, Great War, Krupp, Krupp Family, German Weapons of WW2, Panzer I, Panzer, U Boat, U Boot, German U Boat, Submarine, German Submarine, German Tanks, German Tanks WW2, Krupp Factory

Id: o-4TqhjgQu4

Length: 44min 8sec (2648 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 16 2021