Swedish iron ore exports to Germany, 1933–44

Abstract

In Vol. XV (1967) of this journal, Alan S. Milward and Jorg-Jöhannes Jäger published criticisms of my article on Swedish iron are exports to Nazi Germany.¹ Turning first to Milward's contribution, this is based on the assumption that the German economy was a ‘blitzkrieg war economy’ in the period preceding the attack upon the Soviet Union. This view, which has been expressed before by B. H. Klein, undoubtedly brings a number of valuable refinements into the hitherto exaggerated estimates of the level of German armaments at the outbreak of the Second World War.² But when he goes on to say that ‘in such a war economy all considerations of potential armaments-producing capacity were rejected in favour of present armaments-producing capacity’,³ Milward palpably oversimplifies a complex problem. In fact, the demand for an armaments programme ‘in depth’, to quote General Thomas, did make itself heard long before the autumn of 1941.