ABSTRACT
There should have been no major German industrial branch which did not attempt to use the military expansion of the Nazi regime for its own economic purposes. This chapter analyses this process using the example of an industry that was of outstanding importance for the armaments industry in the Reich as well as in the annexed or occupied territories since 1938. After some brief notes on the initial conditions arisen in the 'peace years' of the Nazi regime, it examines consecutively the German steel industry's expansion in Western and Eastern Europe. The following sequences will demonstrate, the problems of the over expanded heavy industry were not solvable through occupational expansion. In contrast to Western Europe and due to the competition of the Reichswerke, the expansion into the annexed territories with industrial structures most similar to the Reich remained inaccessible to the private mining industry, while prospects of an enormous territorial expansion seemed to open up temporarily in the 'colonial' regions.
