Hitler did indeed make most of his military decisions based on a resource-holding mentality. That's why he nearly halted the advance into France after the coal fields in the north had been secured.

Later on, he did the same on the Eastern Front. This was also a reason why it was nearly impossible for generals to argue with him about the neccessity of moving the front back. Hitler would always play the resources card.

According to Manstein, however, he (Manstein) went into the resource matter and discovered that the largest part of the "valuable resources" that Germany was holding were either unusable by Germany (bad quality coal for example) or unused due to lack of labour and machinery in the East.

The point I'm trying to make is whether resources in a place such as the Caucasus would make any significant impact on production even after one or two years. How quickly would Germany be able to extract oil from the fields? And in which quantity?

Also, does anybody have some information on the amount of resources gleaned from the occupied Soviet Union in comparison with the rest of the German-controlled world?

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„Solange man nicht mit dem Kopf unterm Arm rumläuft geht es doch noch!" Erwin Rommel