ABSTRACT
The transfer from 'Blitzkrieg' to armament in depth was not a rapid one, for it required a far greater measure of central direction and control than existed up to the autumn of 1941. It also needed the understanding and co-operation of the population and the Party. Moves in the former direction had begun early in 1940 when Fritz Todt was appointed to resolve a crisis over copper supplies. Success in this task led to his appointment as Minister for Armaments and Munitions in March 1940 and to the progressive rationalisation of armaments production, planning and research which was to bear such fruit under the later direction of Albert Speer, the man who took over the Ministry following Todt's untimely death in a plane crash early in 1942.
