Fueling the Third Reich

Author(s): Arnold Krammer

Source: Technology and Culture , Jul., 1978, Vol. 19, No. 3 (Jul., 1978), pp. 394-422
Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press and the Society for the History of
Technology

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Fueling the Third Reich
ARNOLD KRAMMER

"The Kingdom of Heaven runs on righteou

Bevin during a heated argument in the Bri
distasteful decision in the Middle East, "but
runs on OIL!" If these words were a political re
they would have been embraced with religio
during the period of the Third Reich. Withou
lubricants which are produced from oil, every
transportation, heating, and military defense
in that position becomes utterly dependent u
its life's blood and, in effect, surrenders its so
between 1919 and 1945, the question of oil-its
tion, synthesization, stockpiling, allocatio
occupied a status which was second only to the
state. History proved that these priorities wer
for with the destruction of the fuel industry,
was virtually assured. Germany's preoccupatio
and its crucial relationship to the state, becam
the First World War.

Synthetic Fuels

Germany went into World War I poor in oil resources; this, in

addition to her calamitous military blunders, was one of the prime
causes of her defeat. While it would be useless to speculate on the
outcome of the war if Berlin had had sufficient fuel reserves, the
German military establishment resolved never again to be dependent
upon the outside world for petroleum and fuel. Germany may not
have had large oil deposits within her own boundries, but she did
have abundant reserves of soft brown coal (Braunkohle or lignite),
hard brown coal (Glanzkohle or anthracite), and noncoking coal
(Fettkohle or bituminous). The primary goal of German scientists at the

DR. KRAMMER is associate professor of history at Texas A&M University. He is the

author of numerous works on modern Germany and is a principal investigator of a
major project to reevaluate German technology on synthetic petrochemicals for poten-
tial current application.

? 1978 by the Society for the History of Technology. 0040-165X/78/1903-0003$02.25

394

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 Fueling the Third Reich 395
end of the war, therefore, was to find a way to convert this coal into
gasoline.1
The chemical groundwork had been started during the First World
War when the process of synthesizing ammonia was developed by two
German scientists, Haber and Bosch, of the Badische Anilin & Soda
Fabrik (which later merged into the chemical octopus known as I. G.
Farbenindustrie). This breakthrough in synthetic ammonia led to
three important developments in the search for synthetic petrochemi-
cals: it perfected the production methods to produce large quantities
of hydrogen from coal at low cost, it taught the Germans the tech-
nique of industrial operations at high pressures, and, perhaps most
important, it made them familiar with catalysis. As a result of this
earlier work, German postwar experiments on the production of
1There are astonishingly few publications dealing with the fuel situation in Germany
during the period from 1918 to 1945, despite the substantial technological ac-
complishments in the field of coal gasification and liquefaction. However, with the
recent energy crisis, precipitated by the 1973 Arab oil embargo, a host of investigations
was launched to study alternative fuels. One of the central avenues of investigation
concerns the conversion of lignite into petrochemicals, an area in which moder Ger-
many was particularly successful. This study, initiated by Texas A&M University's
Center for Energy and Mineral Resources, represents the first historical investigation
into an area which would have continued to remain untouched but for technology's
need to look to the past for answers. A vast source of information on the German oil
industry can be found in the superb collection of 208 (European Theater) reports
which form the United States Strategic Bombing Survey, mimeographed and printed
(Washington, D.C., 1945) (hereafter cited as USSBS). These reports are further sup-
ported by a large collection of documents and exhibits which comprise Record Group
243 in the Modern Military Records Division, National Archives, Washington, D.C. Of
equal importance are 2,720 separate reports, which were prepared by teams of indus-
trial and technical experts who were attached to the invading British and American
armies in 1945. From April 1945 toJune 1947, these teams investigated every facet of
German industry and produced their findings in reports known as BIOS (British Intel-
ligence Objectives Sub-Committee), its American counterpart FIAT (Field Information
Agency, Technical), and the combined Anglo-American Agency, CIOS (Combined
Intelligence Objectives Sub-Committee). These reports may be found in the Modern
Military Records Division, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; the Federal Docu-
ments Repository, Suitland, Maryland; the U.S. Bureau of Mines, Research and Devel-
opment Division, Pittsburgh, and in the Imperial War Museum, London. The raw data
from which these reports were drawn are contained in 306 reels of microfilm called the
Technical Oil Mission documents, the three known copies of which are held by the
Library of Congress, the Department of Energy Station in Morgantown, West Virginia,
and Texas A&M University. We have also recently located a collection of twenty-five
reels of Allied intelligence reports on German synthetic fuel, located at the Albert F.
Simpson Historical Research Center at Maxwell Air Force Base. A final source of
information on the development of synthetic oil production in the Third Reich is the
original records of the Reichsministeriumfiir Rustung und Kriegsproduktion (Reich Ministry
for Armament and War Production), which are on deposit in the Imperial War
Museum, London.

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396 Arnold Krammer

gasoline from coal moved forward rapidly, and within three s

years after the end of the war, in 1921, they had it. Friedrich Ber
who was to win the Nobel Prize in 1931, discovered the techn
known as hydrogenation. This process converts coals, tars, and ot
solid or liquid carbonaceous substances into high-grade liquid fue
adding huge quantities of hydrogen under 200-700 atmosph
pressure, and at high temperatures (between 400? and 600? C), in
presence of such catalysts as tin oxalate-ammonium chlorid
tungsten sulphide and nickel sulphide on activated Terrana cataly
The hydrogenation process was particularly suitable for the prod
tion of high-grade motor and, after some additional processing,
tion fuel as well. In order to produce aviation gasoline by this pro
German industry ran its hydrogenation plants to ordinary gasoli
with an Octane rating of 72, and subsequently treated it with
so-called DHD (Dehydrierung Hochdruck) process, or its variant H
(Hydroforming). Both the DHD and the H. F. processes produ
high-grade aviation base stock (A-3, 80 ON; B-4, 89 ON; and
950N) with a high aromatic content2 (see fig. 1).
Another variation of the hydrogenation process by which I. G. F
benindustrie, in particular, converted coal into motor fuel wa
methanol synthesis. In this process a mixture of carbon monoxide
hydrogen was made to react at high pressures (about 200-300 atm
spheres) and high temperatures (about 450?-500? C) over a catalys
produce methanol. Methanol itself was never a success as a motor f
component, but a variant of the process, the isobutyl process, bec
quite important. In this variant of the methanol process, an alka
catalyst was used to produce not only methanol but about 14 per
isobutyl alcohol. The isobutyl alcohol was in turn separated an
hydrated to isobutylene, from which the important aviation gas
blending agent, isooctane, was produced by polymerization and su
sequent simple hydrogenation.
A second process was discovered in 1923 by two German chemi
Franz Fischer and Hans Tropsch, in which the coal molecules

2For technical information on these processes, see "The Fischer-Tropsch Pro

CIOS report, item 20, file VI-22, X-18 and 22, XV-5; "Medium Pressure Synthesis
Iron Fixed-Bed Catalyst: Interrogation of Dr. H. Kolbel," BIOS final report no.
item 12; "Gelsenberg Hydrogenation Plant," CIOS report, item 30, file XXX
"Synthetic Oil Production in Germany: Interrogation of Dr. Butefisch," BIOS
report no. 1697, item 30; and H. H. Storch, N. Golumbic, and R. B. Anderson
Fischer-Tropsch and Related Syntheses (New York, 1951); U.S. Bureau of Mines, Syn
Liquid Fuels Program, Report of Investigations No. 5506, 1944-1955 (Washington,
1956); Neal P. Cochran, "Oil and Gas from Coal," Scientific American 234, no. 5
1976): 24-29; and Warren F. Faragher, "Germans Made High Aromatic Av
Gasoline by Coal Hydrogenation," Refinery Management and Petroleum Chemical Tech
ogy 37, no. 45 (November 7, 1945): (R) 851-55.

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 Fueling the Third Reich 397

COAL - OIL

SUBSTITUTE
NATURAL GAS

HYOROGEN CHAR

FIG. 1-Direct hydrogenation. In this p

reactor where it reacts with hydroge
catalyst, such as cobalt molybdenum,
the liquid yielded by the reaction is
provide hydrogen for the operation. I
steam is the source of the hydrogen t
and gas. (From "Oil and Gas from Coa
Scientific American Inc. All rights re

broken up by steam and the r

and hydrogen was made to r
over a catalyst, and at well-con
produce a synthetic crude
Fischer-Tropsch process yiel
high-grade diesel oil, and
Ruhrchemie, the Fischer-Tro
portance for the liquid-fuel su
The final methods utilized in
involved by-products of Germ
400,000 metric tons of Benzol
used as motor fuel, an aviatio
material for explosives. Germ
about 1,750,000 metric tons
from 1938, which was used as a
distilled into diesel oil, low-gra
briquetting oils. The last such
bonization (LTC) tar (about 3
from 1938), which could be di

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 COAL
1,800 DEGREES

500 POUNDS

A GAS

. 500 POUNDS

I i SLAG

COAL OIL

SUBSTITUTE
NATURAL GAS

OXYGEN > CHAR

FIG. 2-Fischer-Tropsch process. Here coal goes into

the presence of oxygen and steam. The combustion g
carbon monoxide and hydrogen. In a cleanup-and-shi
passes over a catalyst, producing not only substitute
also a variety of liquid products. (From "Oil and G
Copyright ? May 1976 by Scientific American, Inc.

and low-grade diesel and fuel oil. Its norm

as an excellent feeder stock for hydrogen
these processes (hydrogenation, Fischer
products), Germany could now obtain gaso
more important politically, it could now o
of tanks, bombers, and fighter planes w
petroleum.
The next decade saw the development of
the Bergius-hydrogenation and Fischer-
ing upon the different qualities of local c
ture, ash, availability of water, etc.), and
ployed (nickel-thoria on kieselguhr, cobalt
molybdic oxide on Florida earth, etc.). N
Koppers, Lurgi-Drawe, Pintsch-Hillebran
and Schmalfeldt came to represent the m
these two synthetic methods.3
Regardless of the differences in these pr
thetic fuel required acres of pipes, oven
3USSBS, "Methods for Preparation of Synthesisga
243, file 110, document B 18.

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 Fueling the Third Reich 399
compressors capable of building from between 3,000 and 10,500 lbs
per square inch, laboratories, and storage facilities. This was no oper-
ation for small independent factories, since the initial capitalization
could easily run into the tens of millions of Reichsmarks. Such opera-
tions required the facilities of the major German chemical combines,
like Ruhrchemie which bought the patent rights to the basic Fischer-
Tropsch process and built the first commerical plant of this type in its
nitgrogen works at Holten. I. G. Farbenindustrie in turn bought the
Bergius patent and built the first hydrogenation plant at Leuna. Doz-
ens of lesser industrial giants-companies like Deutsche Erdol A.G.,
H. Koppers G.m.b.H., A. G. Sachsische Werke, Lurgi Gesellschaft fur
Warmetechnik and Krupp Treibstoffe Werke G.m.b.H.-bought or
developed variations of these synthetic processes.4 Each company
continued to pursue the variations of coal gasification and liquefac-
tion, while in the political arena the crumbling Weimar Republic
finally gave way to the cataclysm of the Nazis. The great industries
were gratified to learn that the new regime's interest in synthetic
petrochemicals surpassed even their own.
Oil and the Nazi Government

When the Nazis came to power in 1933 they were fully aware of
Germany's dependency on overseas imports for crude oil. "Our de-
pendence on foreign trade," declared Hitler in 1934, "would con-
demn us eternally to the position of a politically dependent nation."5
Although it later became clear that his solution involved not greater
industrialization but the conquest of eastern Europe, the new regime
began taking immediate steps toward autarchy in oil products by har-
nessing the great industries to the future goals of German militarism.
The coal and chemistry industries, no less than steel, textiles, ship-
ping, and construction, received massive government support-
though it was legislative rather than financial and not always welcome.
Armed with unlimited arbitrary powers, the Ministry of Economics
gradually agglomerated private corporations into industrial
monopolies, restructured the corporate system to create a rapid in-
crease in undistributed profits, forced corporate boards of directors
to accept new political "appointees," and all but disenfranchised the
stockholders. Moreover, the government offered numerous con-
cessions to those companies who complied with their benefactors, and
generally included access to inexpensive land, flexible railroad
4For a close investigation of these companies, see CIOS reports, item 30, file XXX-13;
item 30, file XXV-25; item 30, XXVII-69; item 30, file XXXII-91; item 30, file
XXVIII-23; and item 30, file XXXII-3.
5Quoted in Hermann Rauschning, Gespriche mit Hitler (Zurich, 1940), p. 116; see also
Arthur Schweitzer, Big Business in the Third Reich (Indiana, 1964), pp. 440-45.

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400 Arnold Krammer

schedules, adequate labor, and the not-insignificant rem

reaucratic obstacles. All of which led to nearly unlimited i
expansion.
The regime moved decisively in three general areas to increase the
production of petroleum. First, in an effort to encourage domestic
production or to discourage Germany's continued dependence on
foreign fuel, a stiff tariff barrier was erected against imported
gasoline. The duty on gasoline with a specific gravity of less than
0.750, for instance, was increased yearly until, by December 1936, the
duty reached 270.90 Reichsmarks per ton or 30. 1 per U.S. gallon. At
the same time, motor fuel produced by foreign companies using
German raw materials was subjected to an excise duty (called In-
landsabgabe) of 60 Reichsmarks per ton or 6.7? per U.S. gallon.6
Second, the government encouraged its most enthusiastic industrial
partner and the largest chemical industry in the world, I. G. Far-
benindustrie, to increase the exploitation of its secret agreements with
Standard Oil of New Jersey. The curious history of this corporate
marriage goes back to 1927 when a formal agreement was signed
through a jointly owned company, International Hydro-Patents
Company, by which Farben agreed to supply Standard Oil with com-
plete details of the hydrogenation process in return for the construc-
tion of a complete hydrogenation plant plus $30 million worth of
Standard Oil stocks. By November of 1929, I. G. Farben and Stan-
dard Oil had completed four additional agreements which effectively
achieved price fixing through patent royalties, the division of markets
through International Hydro-Patents Company, and, finally, Farben's
agreement to stay out of the oil business while Standard deferred to
Farben in the chemical field. The next several years saw the creation
of a tangle of interlocking agreements and joint corporations, such as
the American I. G. Chemical Company, I. G. Chemie, and Jasco In-
corporated, in a relationship which continued long after the Nazis
came to power.7

6USSBS, "German Oil Industry, Ministerial Report" team 78, sec. 1.07, mimeo-
graphed (September 5, 1945), p. 18 (hereafter cited as "German Oil Industry").
7The largest German cartels were, of course, closely linked with many of America's
largest petroleum and chemical industries (see Gabriel Kolko's "American Business and
Germany, 1930-1941," Western Political Quarterly 15 [December 1962]: 713-28). The
fact that this technical cooperation continued to the very outbreak of the war was the
source of some bitter resentment in the United States (see "Standard Oil and I. G.
Farben," New Republic [August 4, 1941], pp. 147-49; Richard Sasuly, I. G. Farben [New
York, 1947]; and Howard Watson Ambruster, Treason's Peace [New York, 1947]). To
complicate matters, the documents reveal that much of this combined knowledge was
later passed to Germany's wartime ally, Japan (see "Technical Assistance on Synthetic
Oils Rendered the Japanese by the I. G. Farben-industrie A.G.," CIOS Report, item 30,
file XXX-34).

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 Fueling the Third Reich 401
As a result of the new regime's effort to make Germany self-
sufficient in petroleum products, however, I. G. Farben began to
exploit the relationship. For example, after Standard Oil assigned
Farben control of its steam process for ammonia synthesis-a
superior method for making explosives-in 1933, Farben refused to
issue licenses to American firms to utilize the identical process. A
similar exploitation concerned a host of lesser products, such as
acetylene, in which process both parties had previously shared. In
1938 the half-owned subsidiary of Standard Oil, Deutsche-
Amerikanische Petroleum A.G., built a 100-octane aviation-fuel plant
in Germany with a capacity of 150,000 metric tons per year, while at
the same time I. G. Farben refused to allow Standard Oil to produce
the identical aviation fuel for the United States Army.8 So successful
was this one-sided industrial relationship to Germany's fuel position
that, in 1944, I. G. Farben was able to boast that "since the beginning of
the war, we have been in a position to produce lead tetraethyl solely
because a short time before the outbreak of the war, the Americans
had established plants for us, ready for production, and supplied us
with all available experience."9
Even before the Nazis came to power, I. G. Farben had negotiated
with the Schleicher government for guarantees against losses in future
expansion of synthetic petroleum installations. These negotiations
culminated in the major Benzinvertrig agreement with the Nazis in
1934. In exchange for government-guaranteed prices and markets
for the duration of this ten-year contract, Farben agreed to increase
annual production of 350,000 metric tons by December 1935, Risks
removed, it seemed that I. G. Farben would profit handsomely,
despite a minor clause stipulating that substantial excess profits would
be returned to government coffers. It quickly learned, however, that
the rebate clause was meant to be enforced.10
The government's third major effort to stimulate domestic fuel
production saw the consolidation of petroleum-producing
monopolies under central control. In September 1934, the Ministry of
Economics moved swiftly to force all major brown-coal interests into a
semipublic compulsory combine, known as BRABAG (Braun-
kohlen-Benzin A.G.), to coordinate the construction and operation of
several new synthetic fuel plants, all costs for which were to be borne

8Kolko, pp. 722-23; and Wendell Berge, Cartels: Challenge to the Free World (Washing-
ton, D.C, 1944), p. 23.
9Kolko, p. 725; New York Times (October 19, 1945); Trials of War Criminals before the
Nuremberg Military Tribunal under Control Council Law No. 10 (Washington, D.C., 1951-
52), 8:1279.
'OWolfgang Birkenfeld, Der synthetische Treibstoff 1933-1945: Ein Beitrag zur national-
soziallstischen Wirtschafts- und Rustungspolitik (Gottingen, 1964), pp. 26-34.

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402 Arnold Krammer

by the brown-coal companies. The same year, a wide strata of chem

cal, coal, steel, and construction corporations were forced to under-
write yet another organization, this with the misleading name "Eco
nomic Research Association" (Wirtschaftliche Forschungsgesellschaf
commonly known as Wifo. From its inception, it was clear that Wifo,
completely government-controlled company, was merely a facade t
mask the war preparations of the Wehrmacht and the Luftwaff
Apart from the construction of several nitric acid and toluene plan
for use by the armed forces, the chief function of Wifo was to bu
underground storage space and to accumulate synthetic fuel a
military war reserve. By the start of the war, in fact, Wifo had und
its direct control more than 6 million barrels of storage space, thoug
it had succeeded in accumulating only 4 million barrels of fuel.11 T
major problem by 1936, however, was that there were altogether to
many independent and semi-independent agencies and produce
dealing with oil, with no real effective coordination. That, declared
number of Hitler's ambitious associates, was about to change.
In March 1936, after much interparty rivalry, Luftwaffe lead
Hermann Goring secured Hitler's support to become Germany
"Fuel Commissar" with broad powers to implement a massive Fou
Year Plan. With much fanfare, this new plan was announced as t
means by which Germany was to become "100% independent o
foreign sources" in fuel-totally self-sufficient-in the astonishingly
short time of eighteen months! With regard to synthetic fuels in pa
ticular, the plan called for a considerably greater expansion of hydro
genation plants rather than Fischer-Tropsch plants, for several rea-
sons. The principal reason was that hydrogenation could produ
large quantities of high-quality aviation gasoline (for Gorin
Luftwaffe), while the Fischer process produces none. Moreover, the
motor gasoline produced by hydrogenation is superior in quality to
that from the Fischer process, and the hydrogenation process is bett
adapted than the Fischer process to the utilization of the vast amoun
of brown coal. Finally, and of no small significance, the expansion
hydrogenation plants at the expense of Fischer-Tropsch plants w
strongly influenced by the powerful I. G. Farbenindustrie, whi
happened to be the owner of the hydrogenation process. In any cas
the Four-Year Plan launched the construction of ten hydrogenation
synthetic fuel plants at a total cost of 1,150 million Reichsmarks, an
Fuel Commissar Hermann Goring predicted a scheduled yearly i
crease in fuel production (synthetic as well as crude) from 1.4 milli
metric tons in 1936 to 4.3 million metric tons by 1940.
""Reich Ministry of Armaments and War Production," CIOS Report, item 28, f
XXVI-12; "German Oil Industry," sec. 1.07 and 1.08; Technical OilMission, reels 32 an
73.

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 Fueling the Third Reich 403
It quickly became evident that these goals were unrealistically op-
timistic. Bottlenecks in the plan appeared in the required supply of
steel, iron, and manpower, not to mention the increasingly unavailable
private capital (574 million Reichsmarks) which the plan demanded
from industry.12 Foreign imports, several times less expensive than
synthetic petroleum, continued to rise dramatically, and it became
necessary for the Government Office for Economic Expansion
(Reichsamt fur Wirtschaftsausbau), to revise downward the original
goals for the Four-Year Plan. Finally, in July 1938, it was decided to
introduce a new plan-the Karin Hall Plan-which readjusted the
original Four-Year Plan toward war production and which contained
a sensible 15 percent reduction in Goring's fuel expectations. By the
target date of 1940, even the reduced goal of the Karin Hall Plan of
1938 fell about 5 percent short of expectations.13
Yet, despite the difficulties, fuel production under the Nazis in-
creased substantially. From 1936 to 1939, in fact, synthetic oil produc-
tion nearly doubled, and when the war broke out on September 1,
1939, Germany had a total of fourteen hydrogenation and Fischer-
Tropsch plants operating at full capacity, with an additional six new
plants under construction. Although no new domestic oil fields had
been discovered, Germany's annexation of Austria in March 1938
provided access to additional producing areas, and the subsequent
discovery of the Prinzendorf field in the Vienna Basin enabled Aus-
tria to contribute crude at a rate of nearly 900,000 metric tons per
year. Thus on September 1, 1939, at the moment when the German
legions poured across the frontier into Poland, the fuel situation (in
metric tons per year) was as follows: (a) Synthetic fuel by hydrogena-
tion, 1,227,000, by Fischer-Tropsch, 240,000; (b) domestic crude plus

12The 574 million Reichsmarks are financed by private interests as follows:

Private Interest Million Reichsmarks %

Participating companies' own funds ........... 98 17.1

Bank credits ................................ 98 17.1
Issue of new capital stock .................... 155 27.0
Issue of bonds .............................. 211 36.7
Government credits ......................... 12 2.1
Total ..................................... 574 100

SOURCE.-"German Oil Industry," sec. 1.07, p. 23. See

nationalsozialistische Vierjahresplan (Stuttgart, 1968)

"3Berenice A. Carroll, Designfor Total War

Hague, 1968), pp. 123-37; and "Letter fr
April, 1937, Subject: The Four-Year Plan
United States Chief of Counsel for Prosec
EC-286, pp. 384-85.

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 404 Arnold Krammer

imports, 1,454,000; and (c) Austrian crude, 900,000; for a to

3,821,000.14 This petroleum, in turn, produced the following q
tities (in metric tons per year) of oil products: gasoline, 1,76
diesel oil, 781,000; heating oil, 728,000; and lubricants, 462,000;
total of 3,750,000.15 Moreover, Germany had accumulated ab
million additional metric tons of fuel, mostly imported petroleu
Wifo storage centers across the country. Germany's fuel situatio
resented an impressive leap forward from its status in 1933, tho
was substantially less than the military offensives required (see
and 4).
Germany's entire oil position, in fact, was wholly inadequate f
extended and mechanized war. In comparison, her future en
Great Britain, a country with a much smaller population, impor
million metric tons of fuel during that same year, and the
States and Russia produced 164 and 29 million tons per yea
spectively. On the basis of production versus consumption requir
sustain both the military and civilian economy, even the most op
tic German estimate showed that the available motor fuel would sus-
tain the nation for 5.2 months, and diesel fuel, only 3.2 months. The
German government, therefore, responded by moving in three areas
simultaneously. First, the entire German oil-producing combine was
brought under tight government control; second, resources of newly
conquered territories in eastern Europe were savagely exploited. Fi-
nally, civilian and military consumption was sharply curtailed by
means of rationing.

Tightening Government Control

Government control over the coal, crude oil, and synthetic petro-
leum industries had been growing stronger and stronger through the
1930s. Within the loose traditional confederation of industry repre-
sentatives, originally called the Reichskohlenrat (Reich Coal Council),
and replaced in 1939 by the Reichsvereinigung Kohle (Reich Coal
Union) and Reichsstelle fur Kohle (Reich Coal Board), a new series of
wartime controls were brought to bear. The industry as a whole was
divided into four industry associations called Arbeitsgemeinschaften,
each of which was responsible for the production and allocation of the
products under its control. These associations were: (a) Ar-
beitsgemeinschaft Erdolgewinnung und Verarbeitung (AEV) (Associ-
ation for Crude Oil Production and Refining), (b) Ar-
14Table in USSBS, Oil Division Report, p. 18, fig. 5 (hereafter cited as Oil Division
Report).
15Table in Burton H. Klein, Germany's Economic Preparations for War (Cambridge,
Mass., 1959), p. 40.

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 u P o
I ,u
0 Q- _ -'
IMPORTS INDIGENOUS
< u uo

1936 ti __ 4. 2
1377 ftAIA 0. fi O n a~

nPlI .
4.

1940

1943

ANNUAL
- 1 ewn
1.71V
1i -

RATE-FIRST
FOUR MONTH!

I"
1944

2112

3.702 .- 1 .4
PLAN
FOR 194

mi 4.n772 0o02 1.46

FIG. 3-German liquid fuel position (figures in millions of metric Augu

tons). (From USSBS, 'Oil Division Final Report" [Washington, D.C.,

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406 Arnold Krammer

Ultimate Capacity
Capac-
ity as Capac- Plants
of Sep- ity as Designed
tember, of May, Prior All
1939 1940 to War Plants

Western Germany
Hydrogenation 246 386 1,014 1,065
Fischer-Tropsch 144 270 365 365
TOTAL 390 656 1,379 1,430

Central Germany
Hydrogenation 981 1,018 1,488 1,491
Fischer-Tropsch 96 138 182 182
TOTAL 1,077 1,156 1,670 1,673

Eastern Germany
Hydrogenation - 36 640 1,495
Fischer-Tropsch - 6 40 40
TOTAL - 42 680 1,535

Total

Hydrogenation 1,227 1,440 3,142 4,051

Fischer-Tropsch 240 414 587 587
TOTAL 1,467 1,854 3,729 4,638

FIG. 4-German synthetic oil capacity in operation or under

of war (thousands of metric tons per year). (From USSBS, "
[Washington, D.C., August 25, 1945], table 5, p. 18.)

beitsgemeinschaft Hydrierung, Synthese und

(Association for Hydrogenation, Synthesis an
Carbonization), (c) Arbeitsgemeinschaft deutsc
(ARBO) (Association of German Benzol Producers), and (d) Ar-
beitsgemeinschaft Verteilung deutscher Steinkohlenteererzeugnisse
(AVS) (Association for Allocation of German Bituminous Coal Tar
Products). These four associations of producers were harnessed up-
ward in turn to an association of distributors. Acting under a direct
charge from the German government in September 1939, all the
companies concerned with handling petroleum products-taking in
seventeen large concerns and over 300 jobbers-were banded into an
"Association of Mineral Oil Distributors" (Arbeitsgemeinschaft
Mineralolverteilung or AMV). Direct government control over the
association was exerted through a subsidiary of the AMV, called the
Zentralbiiro fur Mineralol G.m.b.H. (Central Bureau for Mineral Oil,
Ltd., or ZB). All dealings with the government, then, were handled by
the ZB, which was charged with the procurement and distribution of

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 Fueling the Third Reich 407
all motor gasoline and diesel fuel produced in the Greater Third
Reich (i.e., Germany, Austria, Alsace-Lorraine, Luxemburg, and part
of Poland).16 Within the government itself, a number of agencies were
created to bring the petroleum-producing industries under further
control. The Ministry of Economics (Reichs Wirtschaftsministerium)
was in overall control, although, like every other agency dealing with
Germany's industries during the war, it too was totally responsible to
Albert Speer's Reich Ministry of Armaments and War Production
(Reichsministerium fur Riistung und Kriegsproduktion), and ulti-
mately to the German High Command (Oberkommando
Wehrmacht).17 From the Ministry of Economics downward, the key-
stone in the structure of governmental control over the German oil
economy was the Reichsstelle fur Mineralol (Reich Board for Mineral
Oil). Further down, government power passed to the Rohstoffamt
Amtsgruppe Mineralol (Office of Raw Material Oil), which, in turn,
passed control to its subdivision Wirtschaftsgruppe Kraftstoffindus-
trie (Economic Group for Liquid Fuels). It was at this point that the
agencies of the government met the agencies of the petroleum in-
dustry.
A general picture of this wartime circuit, then, saw (a) producing
plants (refineries of crude oil and synthetic plants) under tight gov-
ernmental control manufacturing basic fuel stock at an un-
precedented rate for the war effort. These plants had inadequate stor-
age facilities, and as the fuel was produced it was shipped almost
immediately to (b) one of a number of ZB centers across Germany.
The main ZB depots acted as blending stations, tailoring the fuel for
its intended function, and, when necessary, adding tetraethyl lead to
the gasoline. The finished products were then shipped in bulk by tank
car or tank truck to (c) the depots of the armed forces, or Wifo.
Additional blending would also be made at these depots. Throughout
the war, all aviation fuel destined for the Luftwaffe, as well as drums
and jerricans of motor fuel destined for the Wehrmacht, was pro-
cessed at Wifo depots. The finished products were then shipped in
bulk to the specified depots of the armed forces, to other Wifo depots,
or to jobbers for use by the civilian economy.

16"German Oil Industry," sec. 1.07, p. 19.

17"Reich Ministry of Armaments and War Production," CIOS report, item 28, file
XXVI-12; Petzina, p. 60. For a fascinating examination of Speer's bureaucracy, see
Ethan A. Singer and Leland M. Wooton, "The Triumph and Failure of Albert Speer's
Administrative Genius: Implications for Current Management Theory and Practice,"
Journal ofApplied Behavioral Science 12, no. 1 (1976): 79-103. A more detailed investiga-
tion may be found in Wolfgang Becker, "The Basis of the German War Economy under
Albert Speer, 1942-1944" (Doctoral diss., Stanford University, 1971).

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408 Arnold Krammer

Expansian through Conquest

The German government's second remedy to their decision to en
the war with only a few months' supply of fuel was to drain the
conquered territories of Poland, Rumania, and southern Russia. W
the conquest of Poland in 1939 came the crude production and re
ing capacity of Galicia: 320,000 metric tons of paraffins, 60,000 m
tons of asphaltic crude oil, and a refining capacity of 390,000 m
tons per year.'8 In addition, Germany captured new modern p
still under construction at Jaslo and Drogobych with the capacit
process all the crude oil produced in that area. It was a substa
amount of petroleum and almost immediately replaced the o
serves which Germany had expended to take Poland.
The following year, in 1940, Germany's lightning sweep i
France and the Low Countries provided dividends of a different
The invading Wehrmacht took control of several large and up-to
oil refineries, but since Germany lacked the crude oil to begin w
she was never able to utilize these refineries to full advantage. La
the war, these installations were cannibalized for special equipm
needed by the German plant at Lobau and to repair Rumanian
German refineries damaged by Allied air raids. One prize o
French campaign was particularly valuable to the German wa
chine: the oils fields of Pechelbronn, in Alsace, which, from July
on, contributed 60,000-65,000 metric tons of crude oil per year to
Third Reich.19
The most important acquisitions of raw materials and refining
facilities, however, came through "alliances" with Rumania and Hun-
gary. Although prior to its alliance with Germany in November 1940
Hungary's crude oil production was hardly sufficient to meet its own
domestic needs, German demands and expertise quickly changed
that. In 1936, for example, four years before Hungary threw its lot in
with Germany, Hungarian crude oil production was a scanty 450
metric tons; by 1940 it had reached 231,000 tons and under German
control had soared to 809,000 metric tons by 1944.20 The real prize,
however, was Rumania. As early as 1938 the Office of Economic Ex-
pansion (Reichsstelle fir Wirtschaftsausbau) had counted on Ruma-

'8Robert L. Baker, Oil, Blood and Sand (New York, 1942), pp. 16-22; "German Oil
Industry," sec. 2.05; and Technical Oil Mission, reels 24, 48, 50, and 97.
19"German Oil Industry," sec. 2.06; "Synthetic Lubrication Oil Production in
France," CIOS report, item 30, file XVIII-5; "Chemical Industries in Belgium and
France during German Occupation," CIOS report, items 2 and 22, file V-30 and XII-
18.
20"German Oil Industry," sec. 2.06; and Technical Oil Mission, reel 10.

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 Fueling the Third Reich 409
nian oil for Germany's military machine, and, in fact, Berlin had been
importing Rumanian crude oil for years to augment its own reserves.
But after Rumania joined the Axis in November 1940, exports were
considerably increased, and the massive Ploesti oil fields of Rumania
contributed approximately 3 million metric tons of refined petroleum
products to Germany each year.21
An unexpected dividend came in the conquest of Estonia in 1941.
The Estonians had developed a modest but relatively sophisticated
shale oil industry, which had yearly produced 120,000 metric tons of
crude shale oil until the retreating Russian forces had largely de-
stroyed their refineries. The incoming Germans swiftly repaired the
damaged industry, and by 1943 production had reached 107,000
metric tons.22
In 1941, the total oil production of Axis Europe was approximately
12 million metric tons. Of this amount the Germans produced 4.1
million metric tons of synthetic oil products and 1.6 million metric
tons of crude oil. Rumania contributed 5.5 million metric tons of
crude oil, and Hungary, Poland, Estonia, and even Albania, together,
contributed an additional 0.9 million metric tons. Without question,
6.6 million tons of crude and refined petroleum would easily hav
satisfied any and all domestic projects upon which the Third Reic
might choose to embark, were she only able to curb her obsession fo
additional conquest. This she was unable to do, and onJune 22, 1941,
Germany declared war on the Soviet Union. The very success of the
Russian campaign hinged on the availability of a vast supply of addi-
tional petroleum, since it was required to fuel the continuation of the
campaign, and the massive oil resources of the Caucasus became
Germany's major goal. The Baku oil fields, in particular, produce
fully two-thirds of Russia's crude oil supply and two and a half time
as much as all of Axis Europe. With the Wehrmacht's colossal defeat
before Stalingrad, the Nazis' only hope of obtaining adequate oil re-
sources to sustain this new campaign, and therefore the entire war,
was shattered. The Maikop fields, with only a tenth of the output of
Baku, were captured by the Germans in August 1942, but were re
taken by Soviet forces before any substantial output was obtained. It
was the beginning of the end, although that end was still several year
in the future.

21Mineralol Sicherungsplan: Stand 15, 9, 1944 [Fuel Situation as of September 15,

1944]; Reichsministerium fur Riistung und Kriegsproduktion, F.I. 3043/49, Sc. 367,
folder 1, p. 10, Imperial War Museum; Frederick Phillip Hellin, "Russia's Oil and
Hitler's Need," Atlantic Monthly (June 1942), pp. 675-82.
22Technical Oil Mission, reels 65, 70, and 86; "German Oil Industry," sec. 2.05, no. 4, p.
45.

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410 Arnold Krammer

Reducing Wartime Consumption

The third and final effort by the German government to adju
Germany's initial fuel situation, complicated by her unexpected
sion to begin the war nearly a year before all projections de
reasonable, was the government's attempt to reduce fuel consum
by both military and civilian sectors. The most vital consumer du
wartime, of course, was the military, and its consumption v
widely with the course of the war. The opening attack of th
against Poland in 1939, resulted in a relatively small drain on
many's fuel reserves. But the assault on France and the Low Coun
(and the bombing of Britain) the following year saw the use of
rise sharply to an average of 100,000 metric tons per month.
came Russia. When the German legions crossed into Russia on
22, 1941, no fewer than 800,000 Wehrmacht vehicles were consu
petroleum products. In fact, the all-time high of German mi
consumption was reached in the first month of the invasion of R
(June 1941), consumption reaching an astonishing 268,000 m
tons of motor gasoline alone. The consumption of diesel fuel, du
the same month, peaked at 86,000 metric tons, and by the sprin
1943 the Luftwaffe was projecting the awesome drain of u
250,000 tons of aviation fuel per month.23 When consumption fin
did begin to drop during the end of 1943 and the early weeks of
the massive Allied bombing raids on the centers of German indu
coupled with the Normandy invasion in June, spelled the end.
To curtail this enormous consumption of fuel, the Wehrm
High Command initiated a series of economy measures. Horses w
utilized whenever possible, and tens of thousands were shipped t
eastern front to replace fuel-driven vehicles. In cases where h
were not applicable, and yet the need for petroleum fuel not ma
tory, the army turned to wood and coal-burning generators. So
pressed was the government by the potential savings offered by
generators that at the end of 1944 the German government, thr
the Rustungskontor (Armament Office), bought a 50 per
partnership in the private company, Generator A.G., which man
tured these devices.
The most common type of vehicle generator, called the Imber
down-draught model (see fig. 5), consisted of a heavy metal cylinde
with a fuel hopper above and a fire grate in the lower portion. The

23"German Oil Industry," sec. 5.03; Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, Zusammenstellung

uiber die personnelle und materielle Riistungslage der Wehrmacht, Oberkommand
der Wehrmacht [OKW; Army High Command], Abteilung Landesverteidigung, March
1943.

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 V -
>o

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412 A mold Krammer

resulting producer gas was then fed into an expansion box or cen
trifugal dust separator to prevent solid particles from entering the
engine, then through a simple cooling unit, and finally through
scrubber or filtering device, usually a container filled with dry o
water-moistened coke, wood wool, or cork. The unit only required an
additional throttle device on the car's engine, piping, and a fan t
induce air flow for starting or when the vehicle was stationary. The
engine itself required a minimum of conversion-little more than th
planing of metal from the cylinder heads to increase the compressio
ratio. The Imbert model was modified and produced by a number of
automobile manufacturers, notably Auto-Union A.G. and Daimler
Benz A.G., at weights of 35 and 70 kg, respectively, and it consumed
wood at the rate of about 1.5 lb per mile. Charcoal was also use
effectively, as was anthracite.24 Despite the obvious disadvantages of
such generators (i.e., bulky fuel requirements, decreased auto ef
ficiency, and the presence, in producer gas, of up to 30 percent car-
bon monoxide) Germany's fuel shortage necessitated their utilization
for more than three years after the end of the war.
In noncombative areas, especially in the occupied territories of
France and the Low Countries, strict instructions were issued that,
with the exception of the "Technische Truppe," all military and,
possible, civilian, vehicles were to be equipped with generators. B
1944, at least fifty Tiger Tanks were generator driven.25 The severity
of these fuel cutbacks, combined with the lack of military-offensiv
activity during the spring of 1943, did indeed lead to a substanti
recovery. Consumption had been greatly reduced, and even Ger
many's reserves were making an amazing recovery. At the end o
1941, for example, Germany's reserves had dropped dangerousl
low, below 800,000 metric tons of fuel, representing less than two-
months' supply at the average consumption rate of 1941. By Apr
1944, German stocks of aviation and motor gasoline and diesel fu
had skyrocketed to 1,372,000 tons. The accomplishment of this rather
spectacular recovery, however, was less a tribute to the restrictions
24Committee of Operations Analysis, British War Cabinet Technical Sub-Committee
on Axis Oils, "A Review of the Substitute Fuel Position in Continental Europe,"
L21 1a//Z (January 6, 1944), pp. 1-28. Roll A-1004, reference 118,04Q-10. Albert F
Simpson Historical Research Center, Maxwell Air Force Base. A complete descriptio
of the gas generator, including blueprints and experimental data, may be found in th
Wehrmacht pamphlets "Kraftfahrzeuge verschiedener Typen mit Gaserzeuger Im
bert," D696/2 (October 13, 1943); and "Gaserzeugeramlage Imbert in verschiedene
LKW," D696/35 (December 18, 1944), Record Group 242/1032, Modern Military Rec
ords Division, National Archives, Washington, D.C.
25"German Oil Industry" sec. 5.04, p. 73; "Oil Division Report," p. 27.

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 Fueling the Third Reich 413

placed on the military than to the enormous sacrifices made by the

civilian sector.
From the very beginning in January 1933, the National Socialist
regime was caught in a conflict of interests. On one hand, the gov-
ernment was deeply concerned with the conservation and stockpiling
of fuel, and on the other, it was Germany's policy, since the advent of
the Nazis, to build up a large automobile industry and to provide a
steady flow of consumer goods. Thus, the purchase of automobiles
and motorcycles was encouraged by advertisements and tax re-
ductions, and any such item purchased after March 25, 1933, became
exempt from any registration and license taxes. Again, during the
summer of 1936, only months after the inauguration of the great
Four-Year Plan, the government issued a decree allowing a 33'/3 per-
cent tax reduction on the purchase of new trucks, provided they met
specifications such as: 31/2-liter engines of 66 h.p.; five speeds; 190 x
20-cm tires; and so on. Two years later, as the Karin Hall Plan was
being introduced to reduce the goals of the original Four-Year Plan,
the Nazi government trumpeted the opening of the Volkswagen plant
with its consumer-oriented installment payment plan. Prior to 1939,
therefore, the average German citizen may have found himself re-
stricted in his consumption of numerous commodities and foodstuffs,
but petroleum was not among them.26
Thus when the war began, German civilians were consuming about
200,000 metric tons of motor gasoline a month. In fact, prior to 1939,
German civilians had been the fourth largest consumers of oil prod-
ucts in the world, a status which was simply not compatible with a
massive two-front war. In a tug-of-war between the proverbial guns
and butter,27 there was little doubt as to the outcome. Civilians were
informed within four months of the beginning of the war that drastic
reductions in civilian consumption of fuel and petroleum products
were to be expected. By the spring of 1940 those expected limitations
had arrived, and Germany patriotically endured a drastic cut to
71,000 metric tons a month, followed quickly by still greater cuts. The
26Richard Grunberger, The 12-Year Reich: A Social History of Nazi Germany (New York,
1971), pp. 222-39.
27Even butter was eventually synthesized as well. During the war years, a synthetic
butter was manufactured by Deutsche Fettsaure Werke in Witten. The process involved
the manufacture of straight chain aliphatic acids of Cli and C12 and their esterification
with glycerin. The resulting ester mixture was refined and purified and sold largely to
hospitals and the German army. Production averaged 11,000 lb. per day, was competi-
tive with margarine, and could have been sold with profit at 60 percent of the price of
natural butter (see CIOS report 22/459, item 22, file XXXI-79; and Technical Oil Mis-
sion, reel 199).

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414 Arnold Krammer

civilian consumption of motor gasoline rapidly decreased fr

53,300 metric tons per month through 1941, to 28,750 tons
month in 1942, to 24,800 metric tons during 1943, and finally, t
bare 23,750 metric tons during the months of 1944.28 These trem
dous cuts were in large measure compensated by the replacement
wood-burning generators similar to those being issued to Ge
vehicles in occupied France. Inexpensive generators were man
tured by the government-controlled Generator A.G. and sold by
hundreds of thousands.
By early summer of 1944 the number of vehicles in Germany which
had been converted to generator use was estimated to be about
86,000, 70 percent of which ran on wood or peat.
Even more significant as a substitute for standard motor gasoline
was the adaptation of bottled gas. A mixture of liquefied butane and
propane, which the Germans called Treibgas, this fuel was used to
some extent before the war but came into its own as the first substitute
for motor gasoline to appear in appreciable amounts after 1939. Ac-
tually, Treibgas was not a substitute fuel in the true sense of the word,
since it was produced as a by-product of the manufacture of aviation
and motor gasolines and was produced mainly in the hydrogenation
plants. Nonetheless, the production of Treibgas reached a peak of
388,000 metric tons in 1943, constituting about 30 percent of the total
substitute automotive fuel used by civilians.29 With the devastating
Allied bombing raids in 1944, however, the production of Treibgas
slipped rapidly to only 210,000 metric tons during that year, since
hydrogenation plants were among the main Allied targets. In addi-
tion to Treibgas, German civilians were offered several other fuel sub-
stitutes. A type of compressed gas called Permagas was sold to fuel-
starved civilians at an equivalent gasoline tonnage of 30,000 metric
tons in 1944, while the sale of an additional methane gas substitute
skyrocketed to 12,050 metric tons in the same year. In the final
analysis, slightly more than 50 percent of the fuel used by German
civilians during the war consisted of such substitutes as Treibgas, Per-
magas, and bottled methane.
Diesel fuel was another story. Since diesel oil was used largely in
agriculture, transportation, and other essential work, civilian usage
could not be arbitrarily tampered with. Civilian consumption of this
fuel was cut drastically, to be sure, but each reduction of allocation
was weighed at the highest level as to its possible effects on the domes-
tic war effort. Nevertheless, civilian consumption of diesel oil declined

28"German Oil Industry," sec. 5.03, pp. 70-72.

29Birkenfeld, ubersicht 5, 6, pp. 219-22.

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 Fueling the Third Reich 415
from a prewar average of 130,000 metric tons per month to an aver-
age of 80,000 tons per month in 1941, and continued to decline.30 In
1942 and 1943, between 40 and 50 percent of all diesel fuel went to
the military, chiefly the navy; over 20 percent was inexplicably ex-
ported; and the remainder-about one third-went to agriculture
and the civilian economy. By 1944, the "essential" sectors of the civil-
ian economy were allowed to consume no more than 33,750 tons of
diesel oil per month, approximately one-fourth of the monthly pre-
war consumption. In short, Germany's fuel position by the spring of
1944 was tenuous indeed. Tanks were being converted to wood-
burning generators, the Wehrmacht's motor gasoline and diesel oil
needs were met only by ruthlessly stripping the civilian economy, even
the pampered Luftwaffe was not getting enough aviation fuel to meet
its minimum needs, and Germany's fuel reserves contained no more
than approximately three months' supply. In retrospect, it was a trib-
ute to the German organization of its production and consumption of
fuel that the economy had not yet buckled under the pressures of
military reversals and severe domestic shortages, especially in light of
the fact that one level of the government was utilizing desperately
needed transportation for the ruthless relocation and eventual ex-
termination of whole segments of the population.
Labor

As if the already-critical fuel situation needed complication, the

greatest problems appeared in two areas Germany had failed to
foresee. The first area concerned the question of the manpower re-
quired to produce a sufficient supply of petroleum products. The
Third Reich was caught in a basic manpower crunch, not unique to
the Axis. Since the armed forces had priority in conscripting the most
able-bodied men, domestic industry, equally hard-pressed for labor,
had to settle for the best it could get. Moreover, protracted warfare
demands more and more men as the fighting continues, and these
new recruits can be taken from only one place: the labor force. The
German oil industry began to feel the pinch almost immediately after
the start of the war, and instead of the nearly 100,000 men required,
the actual number of workers dropped from 71,000 in the summer of
1941 to 65,000 in the fall. Berlin decided to relieve the strain by the
use of foreign workers, prisoners of war, Jewish civilians, and eventu-
ally slave labor. The original idea was to lure "voluntary" foreign
workers who would be brought to Germany by offering seemingly
attractive terms to induce them to sign up for long periods of time.

30Mineralolplanung Sicherungsplan: Stand 14, 8, 1944, F.D. 3042/49, Sc. 367, folder 1.

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416 Arnold Krammer

Berlin soon learned, however, that even with the many press
none very subtle-brought to bear on these foreign workers, i
difficult to keep them on the job, and the turnover was consider
In fact, at the 20th Conference of the Zentrale Planung (Cen
Planning) in October 1942 it was revealed that even within the pas
months fully half of the oil industry's 110,000 workers had left
had to be replaced.
The solution reached at the conference was to turn to Ostarbeiters
(workers from the East), workers "who could not run away,"31 and the
program of slave labor was born. By September of 1944, the total
number of slave laborers in the fuel industry reached 34,000, approx-
imately 13 percent of whom were women. The utilization of slave
labor in the fuel industry accounted for at least 30 percent of the total
number of workers in the industry. An entire segment of the econ-
omy relying for nearly one-third of its labor on slaves, Berlin learned,
is extremely vulnerable. All the more so if the war effort hinges on the
product.
Despite the relative inefficiency of slave labor-in that, unlike free
workers, slaves must be fed, clothed, given medical treatment, and
seldom include skilled workers-the petroleum industry at least had a
steady supply of workers.32 Polish "volunteers" were shipped to Ger-
many first, and after the Soviet invasion Russian slave laborers were
brought in by the thousands. The number of foreign workers, volun-
tary and slave, in the oil industry reached its peak in April 1943,
comprising 38,000 workers out of the total 136,800 people required
in crude refining (14,500), synthetic production (89,200), coal distilla-
tion (13,100), and crude oil production (20,000).33 With the
Wehrmacht's continued military reversals on the eastern front after
the summer of 1943, however, the number of Russian workers stead-
ily decreased, and although Berlin turned to the importation of more
laborers from France, Belgium, Holland, and Italy, it was only a tem-
porary solution. The Normandy invasion in June 1944, followed by
the steady Allied advances toward the German heartland, completely
closed off the last source of foreign labor. The fluctuating status of
3"Die von uns nicht weglaufen konnen," quoted in "German Oil Industry," sec. 2.03,
p. 38.
32With maddening objectivity, the managers of the Krupp Locomotive Factory in
Essen, the I. G. Farben Plant at Auschwitz, and the Farben-owned Luranil and Wilhelm
Beck Construction Companies, later enumerated to a Nuremberg courtroom the prob-
lems of maintaining full production with only starved and tubercular foreign workers,
who escaped at every opportunity (see Trials of War Criminals, VIII, pp. 392-93, 400,
405, 419-20, 450, 463 [see n. 9 above]).
33"German Oil Industry," sec. 1.07, p. 23, table 9; Jurgen Kuczynski, Germany: Eco-
nomic and Labour Conditions under Fascism (New York, 1968), p. 192.

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 Fueling the Third Reich 417
labor was, in short, of critical importance to the fuel industry, and its
final collapse was a problem which Berlin could have neither foreseen
nor altered.

The Effects of Bombing

The last of these unforeseeable or unalterable issues upon which

Germany's petroleum situation hinged concerned the Allied bombing
missions.34 The first significant bombing raids affecting Germany's oil
production came in a series of spectacular, low-level attacks on the
Rumanian oil refineries at Ploesti on August 1, 1943. The damage was
temporary and, as a matter of fact, Rumanian deliveries to Germany
actually increased. The following April, however, raids on the
Rumanian refineries and the mining of the Danube River sub-
stantially cut down the flow of oil to Germany and set the stage for the
all-out Allied raids on the synthetic oil plants in Germany proper
which began in May 1944. The first attacks were against the hydro-
genation plants at Leuna, Gelsenberg, and Bohlen on May 12, fol-
lowed by raids at Zeitz, Liitzkendorf, Leuna, Magdeburg, and Politz
on May 28 and 29. Germany was in deep trouble, and knew it. Reichs-
minister Albert Speer initiated a host of countermeasures. By a
special decree of May 30, the successful director of the munitions
industry, Edmund Geilenberg, was appointed Commissioner General
for Emergency Measures (Generalbevollmachtigter fur
Sofortmassnahmen) with almost unlimited powers to requisition labor
or materials from other industries to rebuild the petroleum sector.35
Geilenberg utilized every imaginable means to protect the remaining
oil plants, from the construction of decoy plants, smoke screens,
underground plants, camouflage, air-raid shelters, and balloons, to
fighter planes and antiaircraft guns.
However, it was too late. Bombing missions by the Eighth and Fif-
teenth U.S. Air Forces, as well as the RAF, dropped as much as 35,023
tons of bombs on the oil industry in a single month (in this case,
November 1944), cutting deeply into Germany's ability to continue
fueling the war machine. Ironically, the Allied bombing missions did
not actually destroy Germany's ability to produce fuel-indeed, post-
34Aside from the authoritative Strategic Bombing Survey, the reader interested in the
various aspects of the Allied bombing raids on Germany's industries is directed to the
USSBS, The Effects of Strategic Bombing on the German War Economy (Washington, D.C.,
1945), (hereafter cited as Effects of Strategic Bombing); C. Webster and N. Frankland, The
Strategic Air Offensive against Germany 1939-1945 (London, 1961); Deutsches Institut fur
Wirtschaftstorschungs and Rolf Wagenfiirt, Die deutsche Industrie im Krieg, 1939-45
(Berlin, 1954); Alan S. Milward, "The End of the Blitzkrieg," Economic History Review
16, no. 3 (April 1964): 499-501.
35Albert Speer, Inside the Third Reich (New York, 1970), pp. 350-51.

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418 Arnold Krammer

war estimates by both Allied officials and representatives of Ger

industry indicate a loss of only 13 percent of productive capacity.
bombing raids destroyed the German fuel network not by crippl
production but by causing a complete breakdown of transportati
Ultimately, there was simply no way to get the fuel from the refineri
and storage depots to the front lines. When production was serio
curtailed, however, it was most often in the area of high-octane
tion gasoline.36 Thus, the Luftwaffe, which could not exist with
aviation fuel, found itself operating on one-tenth of the minimu
required gasoline, resulting in a fatal cycle. Without fighter plane
protect the oil plants, Allied raids could penetrate their defenses
greater number, thereby further reducing the production of avia
fuel for the Luftwaffe (see figs. 6-8).
The fuel situation was no more encouraging for Germany's
forces. With the loss of Rumanian crude oil, and the Allied bomb
concentration on Germany's major hydrogenation and Fisch
Tropsch plants, reserve stocks were rapidly depleted, and the los
were quickly felt at the front lines. At the end of October 1944,
example, while viewing the Tenth German Army, Speer recall
shock at encountering "a column of a hundred and fifty trucks,
of which had four oxen hitched to it; others were being pulle
tanks and tractors."37 By the end of October, the deteriorating f
situation led to the publication of a general order by Field-Ma
von Runstedt which banned the use of gasoline-powered vehicles
any reason, save actual combat. By a further order, on November
1944, no gasoline-powered vehicle was to move in the western th
of operations unless it bore a special trip label signed personally b
area commanding general. To emphasize the seriousness of the cr
the November order closed with the ominous warning that "anyo
using fuel for purposes other than the immediate conduct of ope
tions will be considered a saboteur and court-martialled without
mercy."38 It was clearly Germany's eleventh hour. The followin
month, Germany's final, desperate counteroffensive in the west, th
Battle of the Bulge, ended in failure when many of the Panzer units
simply ran out of gasoline. The German military machine had all bu
collapsed.
Germany's nightmare had materialized. It had become an indus-
trial giant-one whose scientists had developed synthetic fuels, whose

36USSBS, "German Oil Industry," "Effectiveness of Various Bombs and Methods of

Attack," sec. 4.05, pp. 65-67 and Effects of Strategic Bombing.
37Speer, p. 406.
38USSBS, Supporting Document No. 10.A1, Record Group 243, Modern Military
Record Division, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

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 MONTHLY AVERAGES
I

ONS PER 1942 194

MONTH 1940 | 1941 | 1942 11943

FIG. 6-Oil production from hydrogenation (plants within gre

tonnage of bombs dropped). (From USSBS, "Oil Division Final R
D.C., August 25, 1945], fig. 97, p. 88.)

419

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 - I
EsCsN1ER- STIENNOHSL

. I I ---Lt~OLI
_' I f

MONTHLY AVERAGES J I F iM A IM J J
1940 1 1941 1942 1 943 194'
* INDICATS PLANTS NOT INIITHIATIOD Y U

FIG. 7-Oil production from Fischer-Tropsch (plants within Germany and tonnage
of bombs dropped). (From USSBS, "Oil Division Final Report" [Washington, D.C.,
August 25, 1945], fig. 96, p. 86.)

420

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E~ACH BONO REPRESENA61WUltE INIDICATES NO. OF RAIDSTTONNAGE 0.
2000 TONS OF BOMBS EST/MATED TO HAVE R.A.F - 10 /7 6 /0 8 /7 5 II /2 lOIS
DROPPED HIT PLANT VU.S.A.A.F /0 5 II/8 21/ /6 28 /9 6 10 20 -

380
TOTAL
SYNTHETIC
360 PRODUCTION

340

320

300

280

2 60

240

220
NTO
200

I80

1 60

120
1 2 0
GAOINE
DUCTION

14 0
80

60-

4 0

2 0

THOUSANDS MONTHLY AVERAGES JI FM A M JASONDJ F MA

OF METRIC I
MONS PER 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945
MONTHI
CcIALVE ThAL4TO
THOUSANDS OF TONS ESTIMATED
NAVE HvI PLANTS r.5Nr

FIG. 8--Total synthetic fuel production by pr

tonnage of bombs dropped on synthetic faci
Report" [Washington, D.C., August 25, 1945]

421

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422 Arnold Krammer

government had encouraged and cajoled private industry to prod

and stockpile it, whose civilian population had conserved it,
whose military forces had utilized it for territorial aggrandizem
but a giant without fuel. Between January 1945 and April, the G
mans crumbled to total defeat. The death blows dealt by the A
bombing raids to Germany's fuel network sealed the fate of its w
machine and forever closed the chapter on the Third Reich.

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