ABSTRACT
Total war involved a close interrelationship between a nation's economy, its technology, and the mobilization of its civilian population for the purpose of winning the war. The German economy, geared to Hitler's rearmament in breadth approach, did not come close to total mobilization until 1942. While Britain's mobilization for total war was remarkable as well as far more extensive and efficient than that of Nazi Germany, the British clearly did not have the huge economic resources or the vast population of the United States. Of all the belligerent powers, America was to perform the most prodigious feats in producing implements of war. During the prewar period, the government had identified the achievements of the regime with the party and downplayed nationalism. But soon after the outbreak of war, Soviet leaders portrayed the struggle in patriotic rather than ideological terms. They referred to the conflict as the Great Patriotic War and warned of the danger to Holy Mother Russia.
