Hello!

When speaking about german tank development, I do think they had plans for tiger tank before they had seen T34. then again panther probably was planned by the T34 structure image.
Also Peenemunde was there, so lots of stuff was coming. the first german jet flew already back in 1938 (correct me if I´m wrong).

It wasn´t until Stalingrad that Hitler etc noticed that everything must be produced in bigger amounts. production levels were less than the front needed before, and people were believing in a short war in the east as well. Hitler was the man behind all the decisions so I cannot tell if Speer could have done a thing if AH wanted to lower production. It was part of the propaganda, troops were sent home, factories made other than war material, lots of dog races were kept to help the image of "normal" life.

I do agree A. Speer was quite a guy, as production levels were higher in 1944 than ever and surely the allied bombings caused some problems.

__________________