Good points, Friedrich- I figured you'd bring up something like that. The answer to Germany's resources in 1944 vs. 1941 is in my opinion two-part.
For one, by 1944 germany was able to make use of the resources gained from occupied territory. The resources from france, poland, and central europea countries like rumania were not available right away; it would often take many months for the german to actually acquire the resources they had captured- machinery must be put in place, transport for resources must be planned fro, etc. So by 1944, germany was finally beginning to make use of all the new sources of materials that had been captured. Not sure if this is clear- Andreas brought this up earlier. He used the example of oil from the caucasus, which works well. Let's say the germans had held the caucasus and so gained access to the oil there- first, they needed to set up the oil wells and processing facilities. Then, they needed labor to begin extracting and processing the oil. Finally, the oil had to be transported back to germany. A long process like this existed for any sort fo captured resource, so they would not be available immediatley. But by 1944, most of these new resources were available.

OK, so I said two main issues- the second issue would be Speer! By 1944, Speer had taken over the military production. For one thing, he was finally able to convince Hitler that a major shift towards military production was needed- this increased production. Further, we both know Speer was an organizational genius- he restructured and reorganized germany's military production, which resulted in further increases in production.

Your point on the bombing and damage to infrastructure is well taken- that kind of goes back to the "what if?" on the bomber offensive. Also, this shows how impressive Speer was- he was able to make use of the newly available resources and increase production despite the damage germany was recieving...

Germany likely could have secured significant new sources of materials in 1941, as you suggest. But then we get back to the Hitler issue- Hitler did not authorise increased military production until 1942.

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