By mid-1944 the air war had entered a new phase. Its most
important feature, apart from mastery of the air, was the greatly
increased weight of the attack that could be brought to bear; in the
second half of 1944, 481,400 tons of bombs were dropped on
Germany as compared with 150,700 in all 1943 . The RAF and the
United States Army Air Forces during this period were teamed in a
fully coordinated offensive and the RAF was returning to the attack
of specific industrial targets . A target that was attacked with poor
results in 1943 might have yielded major returns in 1944 for the
simple reason that an attack in 1944 was certain to be enormously
heavier . With improved bombing techniques it was also likely to
be considerably more accurate . Increased weight was a major
feature of the raids that reduced the German steel industry .
Germany began the war with approximately 23,000,000 metric
tons per year of steel capacity, about 69 percent of which was in the
Ruhr . The 1940 victories added another 17,000,000 tons
principally in Lorraine, Belgium and Luxembourg . However,
official records and those of the industry for the war years,
supplemented by interrogation, show that the 40,000,000 tons
theoretical capacity was never reached. Production in the occupied
countries was always troublesome and deficient . In spite of the
considerable efforts to develop low-grade ores in Germany proper
and medium grade ores in Germany proper and medium grade ores
in Austria, Germany throughout the war continued to be primarily
dependent on Swedish, Norwegian and French ores .
Unlike the United States, Germany did not have to find steel to
build a large merchant fleet or for a program of heavy naval
construction. Nor did she have to build a complete munitions
industry in the middle of the war. For these reasons the German
steel supply for finished munitions was only slightly less liberal
than that of the United States . Although steel was considered a
bottleneck by the Germans, a detailed examination of the control
machinery together with interrogation of officials in the Speer
ministry and its predecessor organizations, reveals that the trouble
was partly an inefficient allocation system and partly, in the early
years of the war especially, an unwillingness to cut out nonessential
construction and civilian consumption . German industrialists were
also found to have had a marked propensity to hoard steel .
Throughout the war there was considerable debate whether the
German steel industry was a desirable target-and especially
whether steel mills were vulnerable to the type of attack that could
be made . In 1943 the RAF made a modest attack on the steel
industry of the Ruhr but the attack was given up because it was
believed to have been too costly for the results achieved.
Production records taken by the Survey show, in fact, that it had
some effect; production in the Ruhr declined by approximately 10
percent during the attack and did not fully recover during the
remainder of the year. German steel producers were required by the
government to keep records of production losses and their causes.
These records show that air raid alerts in 1943 were a more serious
cause of the lost production than the actual damage from the raids.
The Fuehrer ordered that a news item in the `New York Times'
reporting that production in the Ruhr had been cut 50 percent by
bombing be not contradicted . The Fuehrer said this was percisely the
impression he wished to create.
From secret minutes, taken by the
Survey of meetings between Hitler
and war production officials .
During the last half of 1944 both the cities and the transportation
system of the Ruhr were the targets of extremely heavy attack,
primarily by the RAF. Production of steel in the Ruhr was reduced
by 80 percent between June and the end of the year. Loss of
production of high-grade steel in the Ruhr was greater than the loss
of Bessemer steel and high-grade steel became a bottleneck by the
middle of 1944. German steel production for all the Reich and
occupied countries declined from 2,570,000 metric tons in July to
1,000,000 metric tons in December. Of this loss about 490,000
tons was the result of loss of territory .
Examination of the steel plants showed that, although the attack
damaged some blast furnaces, open hearths and rolling mills, it was
primarily effective through damage to utilities (electricity, gas and
water) and communications within the plants and to utilities and
transport supplying the plants .
Although steel production had been reduced to critical levels by
the end of 1944 and continued to fall until the end of the war,
Survey studies do not indicate that the steel shortage (unlike the oil
shortage or even the ammunition shortage) was decisive . It might
have been decisive if the war had continued, and if this specific
shortage had not been overshadowed by the disintegration of the
whole economy . As it developed at the end of the war, certain
German industries had inventories of steel that ranged from
comfortable to generous .