The Wages of Destruction The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy

An excellent read and a salutary reminder for people who, like myself, tend to focus on the political and military aspects of WW II, that there were other powerful forces at work as well. Tooze clearly shows that even absolute dictatorships just can't afford to neglect the balance of payments.
He argues, convincingly, that Speer's "armaments miracle" wasn't much of a miracle after all, but to illustrate the point he seems to overstate the achievements of the German arms producers in the first three years of the war somewhat. For instance, it may be, as he states, that the number of "combat-worthy medium tanks" doubled from May 1940 to June 1941 (page 433), but this was an increase from a very small base (not much more than a thousand). Moreover, many of these tanks were Czech, and rather than being 36- and 38-ton tanks as Tooze states, they were in the 10-ton class, and clearly unsuited for the medium tank function they were expected to fulfill. The fact that the Germans were forced to keep the Czech TNHP tank, which did not have one single part in common with German tanks, in production (as the Pzkpfw. 38t) to make up the numbers already says a lot about the relative impotence of the German tank industry at that time. Medium tank production in June 1941, the month the Soviet Union was invaded, was 38 Mark IVs and 133 Mark IIIs (plus 65 Czech 38ts), decidedly unimpressive compared to US tank production, which starting from scratch reached one thousand per month in little over a year, or compared to Soviet tank production which soon reached comparable levels under unimaginably difficult conditions. Even taking into account reduced steel quotas for the army and other constraints, there still seems to be something of an "armaments mystery" for the first half of the war, even if there was no real "miracle" in the second half.