During the Nazi period, a common interpretation in German-written publications and public speeches by leading protagonists of the regime described Germany as a “have-not” with regard to raw materials. 2 This self-perception was used as a justifi cation by the Nazis to carry out the autarky policy right from the beginnings of their seizure of power, especially given the experiences of World War I and Germany’s alleged encirclement by the “plutocratic” Western states. And indeed, Germany was in the case of some essential strategic materials a “have-not.” Perhaps the most important raw material Germany was lacking was crude oil. To overcome the problem of insuffi cient oil production in Germany, which made waging a longer modern war impossible, the Nazi regime heavily invested in plants processing coal to fuel by means of different technologies. 3 German production was far from suffi cient to cover her consumption needs in other raw materials as well, including most of the nonferrous metals such as copper and tin. In contrast to crude oil or rubber, however, these metals are widely neglected by the historiography, in spite of the fact that the US Strategic Bombing Survey emphasized in its fi nal report that “Germany’s needs in this were almost as pressing” as in the case of her fuel supply. 4 Indeed, Germany had to import around 90 percent of her peacetime copper consumption and more than 98 percent of her tin consumption. 5

What made the situation in the case of tin still more uncomfortable for the Nazis was the fact that almost all of these imports came directly or indirectly from overseas, especially from the Dutch colony Indonesia (having a

direct share of 50 percent on German tin imports in 1936, excluding indirect imports via the Netherlands). 6 Given this dependency on sources overseas, one could expect that these imports would essentially be halted in the case of war, in which Britain would be among the enemies, particularly if one assumes that it would carry out a blockade policy such as in World War I. At the same moment, given the mining capacity of the European continent for tin by the time, it was fairly clear that the European output was far too low to substitute for Germany’s overseas imports, even in the event Germany would have received the whole tin mining output of continental Europe. 7 The net imports of Germany and the countries later occupied by Germany amounted to 42,100 metric tons of tin, based on the 1938 supply levels. Almost half can be attributed to Germany alone. In the whole of Europe, only 3,500 tons of tin was mined in 1938. Tin was necessary for several goods directly or indirectly required by the Wehrmacht, such as canned foods, but it was also required for industrial machinery, the car industry and for chemical uses. 8

In spite of this unfavourable supply situation, Nazi Germany’s stocks of these raw materials were surprisingly low when World War II broke out in autumn 1939. At this time German tin stocks only suffi ced to cover roughly six months of their peacetime consumption, or ten months of wartime consumption. 9 Yet, at the end of World War II, Germany’s stocks were far larger than they had been at the beginning of the war, as Table 5.1 shows, in spite of the meager mining capacities of the countries occupied by the Germans. British hopes that their blockade policy would force Germany to run out of nonferrous metals like tin, during the fi rst half of World War II, were unfulfi lled. 10

The existing literature provides only cursory information on how the Germans were able to increase their stocks of tin, emphasizing that substitution measures and different supply sources such as scrap drives and war looting played an important role. 11 Yet, we know nothing about the impact of the measures implemented during the 1930s on Germany’s wartime consumption and supply. And even if it is well known that war looting played an

Table 5.1 Tin stocks in Germany and their coverage of average monthly consumption, 1939 and 1944

Total (in 1000 metric tons)

Coverage of war consumption (in months)

Stocks at September 1st 1939 7.6 10.1

Stocks at December 1st 1944 19.6 26.1

important role in the thinking of leading Nazis such as Hermann Göring, who held a key position in the exploitation of occupied countries as the head of the Four Year Plan authority, its signifi cance for the German war effort as a whole has not been suffi ciently examined. This also applies to the case of tin; information on the share of Germany’s total supplies derived from looting and alternative supply chains are not forthcoming. In an otherwise voluminous literature on German war mobilization, details of the problems of tin supply shortages are limited to fl eeting references. Thus, we do not know what proportion of Germany’s wartime supply relied on external sources or how much came from German sources. How much did Germany’s tin policy cost? And how did the different sources of supply evolve over time?