Hitler's strategy

This was the opinion of the German experts who said that the capture of the Caucasian oil would give Germany in 1943 only some additional 260000 tonnes of oil, due to the destructions and transport problems .Later it would go up,but it would not exceed more than 1 million tonnes :it is obvious that it would be impossible to transport 25 million tonnes of oil to Germany .

Wolfgang Birkenfeld (Der Synthetische Treibstoff 33-45) writes on P 152 that in 1943 Germany could expect at best between 250000/300000 tonnes from the Caucasus .

Source = Scheitern von Blau absehbar ? P 5

And Dietrich Eichholtz writes on P 117 of "Krieg um Öl " that the production of Baku could be restarted only in the second half of 1943:material and technicians would first (= second half of 1942) go to Majkop, then (= first half of 1943 ) to Grozny and Baku would have to wait til the second half of 1943 .

 

:sunglasses-peek: Come on, you are not that stupid. The oilfields would be part of Germany:

 

Haha : oil that remained in Baku would be useless for the German war effort .

 

Wouldn't France be in that 1964 Greater German Reich, or are we assuming the Western Powers didn't intervene and gave Hitler free reign in the East?

 

Other point : there is no proof that the Caucasian oil would help Germany in whatever eventuality at all (=peace, end of the war in the east, end of the war in the west, continuation of the war on both fronts) , as we have for Germany only production and consumption figures for oil and no figures about needs .

In 1943 Germany had 11.3 million tons of oil available (domestic production and imports) :was this enough ? If not how much more did Germany need ? And what would be the help of an additional 1 million ton ? One can ask even the question : DID Germany need more oil ? The SU OTOH arrived in Berlin with only 60 % of the préwar oim production .

Hitler was looking on production figures and wallowed in phantasies how this additional oil would suddenly arrive in Germany where additional tanks,aircraft and U Boats were waiting for this oil to finish the Allies off .

 

One must start from the OTL: war in the east and war with the west and not indulge in phantasies of a great German Empire in 1964 . Probably this empire would have disappeared already in or even before 1953 .

 

Sorry my friend, but that is a simple appeal to authority. I did not ask whose opinion said that a German seizure of the Baku oilfields would result in a 99% loss of production, I asked WHY it would. Are they assuming that the Soviets would destroy 99% of the oilfield infrastructure? The wells, pumps, and pipelines? That is a lot of work and a lot of preparation. Is there evidence of it?

Yes, transporting it to the Reich - more likely the Romanian refineries - would require rolling stock...but given the paucity of oil imports other than from Romania I suspect quite a few tank cars were idle at one time or another in Europe. The paucity of rail space and the Rostov bottleneck was a greater problem. However, the problem was for the Stalingrad axis - the Rostov-Salsk-Stalingrad line was single track, the Rostov-Baku line was double track.

OTOH, a capture of the Baku oilfields rather implies the loss of the Caucasas...which means the Black Sea Fleet is lost, which means the Black Sea is available as a transportation route without interference. It also implies the loss of the Persian Lend-Lease route, which is potentially catastrophic for the Soviets in 1943.

 

Nonsense, we know very well what German requirements were.

 

Why should France be part of the Greater German Reich? Alsace, Lorraine yes, but the rest?

Somewhere i saw plans of a completely new railroad system with the only purpose to rebuild the new "Lebensraum" to german needs and habits. Faster trains, more track width. And off course sending troops and weapons to the border of this Reich.

Does anyone know the amount of oil Germany did get between 1939-41 from the Soviet Union? It was carried from Baku to Western Europe then. After the start of Barbarossa there was always a shortage of fuel, the italian navy for example had to put battleships in reserve.

 

That the Italian navy had to put battleships in reserve does not mean that Germany was short on oil: the principal Italian oil source was Romania .

The shortage of fuel was caused by Barbarossa (no more Soviet oil deliveries and more fuel consumption ) ,but it did not prevent the Ostheer to go to the suburbs of Moscow .

 

870000 tons starting from february 1940, a small amount and not very important .

In 1940 Germany produced 4.8 million tons and imported 2.1 million ,of which 1.3 million from Romania and 0.62 million from the SU

In 1941 Germany produced 5.7 million tons and imported 2.1 million tons of which 2.1 million from Romania and 0.25 million from the SU .

I don't know if it was carried from Baku, as the SU had big depots elsewhere(Ukraine, Bielorussia,...)

 

Requirements and needs are not the same : the requirements were estimations, guesses based on what happened in the past and on what could happen in the future , but what would happen in the future (here 1943) would depend on what would do the allies and -to a lesser extent-what would be the German reaction .

Exemple : if there would be no Italian campaign in 1943, this would affect the requirements/needs on fuel .

We also have no reliable figures on the % of oil that was consumed by the military and by the economy . The same applies for the SU .

 

There is no proof for the claim that the loss of the Caucasian oil would result in the collaps of the SU, as we have no figures about the amount of oil that the SU needed to continue the war,needed to win the war.All we know is that the SU won the war with 60 % of the prewar oil production ( Baku was down by 50 %,but this was partially catched by an increase of the production elsewhere ) . About the impact the capture of the Caucasian oilfields would have on Germany, I will reply later, as I am in a hurry: I have to go to a funeral .

 

Sorry, but please do not attempt to educate me in the English language.
re·quire·ment
rəˈkwī(ə)rmənt/
noun
noun: requirement; plural noun: requirements

a thing that is needed or wanted.



A "need" and a "requirement" are synonymous. We know what they required - what they needed - because we know what they consumed during wartime, and what their prewar consumption was. We also know what they wanted, "want" being another synonym for "need".

And yes, we have very reliable annual figures of fuel consumption as well as the division between military and civilian.

 

Please try - try - try to argue something I HAVE ACTUALLY SAID INSTEAD OF WHAT YOUR FEVERED MIND IMAGINES,

Where did I say ANYTHING about a Soviet collapse? Please, point it out to me!

Your inability to argue honestly and rationally is tiresome. I am officially done with you.

 

I did read the USSR had oil reserves to continue war for 6 months in Siberia. They could destroy the oil fields, Germany would still linger with its own production with its allies requesting their share.

 

I would not be surprised if it was much more, but ,we will never know .

 

Where in Sibiria? It is a little cold there to store especially Diesel. These oil tanks must be huge.
What kind of oil? Already refined for sure.

If the soviets were sure that the Wehrmacht wasn't able to stay in the Caucasus they wouldn't had destroyed the oilfields and prepared to destroy it in Grosny and Baku. That makes no sense.
There was almost no reconnaissance concerning a soviet counterattack and warnings were neglected simply because usually an army is defeated with the losses of 1941, no matter if they still were fighting.

 

The Soviet Army (not including the Navy ) consumed during the war some 13.4 million tons of oil (of which some 10% was imported),while OTOH during the war the SU produced some 90 million tons of oil;it is thus obvious that the SU had big reserves.

 

Here you are: "Has Russia Enough Oil Reserves Without Caucasia?" an article by EH Crauss. This article was published in Tasmania on Thu. 25 August 1942 - in newspaper The Examiner. That was known even then and even in Tasmania but not in Berlin. And yet, Nazis relied on Hitler's gut.