Early war strategy
Germany’s leadership now had to answer three questions: how much space the internal civilian market would have, how the remainder of production would be distributed and how an increase in armaments output would be carried out.
Gauleiters and Walther Funk of the RWM wanted to balance civilian and military needs. They immediately lost the argument. Contrary to claims that few demands were made on the population early on or that the short war strategy sought to spare civilians, the consensus reached in Berlin was to sacrifice the availability of consumer goods in order to win the war.
The already high level of mobilization was pushed even further; throughout the war Germany had a greater mobilization than Britain and was second only to the Soviet Union.
The share of national income going to the military rose from a fifth to a third. More raw materials were allocated to the Wehrmacht. Private consumption and investment were curtailed and the funds redirected to the war effort.
The real choice was between a long and a short war. The military-economic staffs of OKW (with Thomas as an important figure), the RWM and the RNS did not want a repeat of 1914, when Germany hedged all of its bets on an immediate victory that never came and was defeated in the lengthy struggle that followed. Thus they wanted to safeguard the long-term viability of the war effort. Arms production would have to share priority with exports and food. The Wehrmacht would assume a defensive posture to spare resources.
The conclusions of this line of thought, however, were defeatist: with no offensives for a long time there was no prospect of victory and the Allies could bring their economic superiority to bear.
On the other side, Hitler with Keitel, Goering and Todt as his mouthpieces had an all or nothing approach. Since Allied strength would grow faster than the Reich’s, the only way to achieve victory was to spend all resources in one big push. The war effort’s long-term survival would be put in question: exports would lose priority, productive capacity would be exploited to the maximum at the cost of running down stocks of raw materials, more of the workforce would be drafted and an offensive would be launched soon.
Soon, for Hitler, meant the 12th of November. Against the wishes of his generals he demanded an attack on France right after Poland was done. Bad weather prevented it from taking place, which was a saving grace. The cancelled attack would not have been the brilliant campaign of May 1940 but at most a draw .The plan was not an elegant encirclement maneuver but a brute force slog to the Channel followed by an aerial bombardment of Britain, with no prospect of how this could translate to immediate victory. Public opinion was reluctant and officers disloyal. The army needed time to refit. Third-rate units had proven unreliable and needed more training. The brief fighting in Poland overburdened the war industry’s provision of supplies.