>>/29240/
Well the numbers show continuous increase. With the exception of vehicles and ships/submarines. So bombings weren't that much of problem, and other factors sure had to play a role in the fluctuation (like logistical: transporting units from one front to another could enjoy priorities over moving raw materials or parts).
> Civilian morale began its collapse in 1943
I don't think it's ever collapsed until Red Army soldiers showed up and started to liberate goods and women. Bombing is actually a counterproductive way of practicing psychological warfare since such hardships tend to strengthen determination (and it did) and not the cause of psychological breakdown as military theorist believed just after WWI. And this brings us back to the psychology of killing: not the danger of death brings the soldier to the brink but the need that he has to kill.
>>/29353/
> Germany's situation wouldn't be all that better with a conquered East
With the exception that the East distracted almost the whole Wehrmacht from the West. The only reason why the Western Allies could land in Africa, Sicily, Italy, Normandy and south France. The only reason why they couldn't mow Brits down in Egypt and further in the Middle East.
> The East offered more raw material inputs but not more industry.
Except that the SU was an industrial giant. It would have depended on the surviving factories and industrial equipment. Also not having to replace destroyed equipment in the east, just concentrating on fighter aircrafts would have meant much.
The Germs could have concentrate also on their new tech most notably ballistic missiles (maybe they could reach the US too, who knows), and jet fighters. Those nukes: they should had been to be taken over Germany somehow. They can't if their bombers get shot down.
> "Europe first" policy.
It was only first because there was men fighting Germany there: the Red Army. With noone on the continent what would have been the incentive?