Dictators as (ineffective) micromanagers

Göring was meddling, perhaps more than any other Nazi - he was the Tzar of the Nazi economy. In 1936 he undermined Schlacht and persuaded Hittler to addopt the Four Year Plan. Later on, he and Speer managed to convince Hitler to fight for economic objectives in 1942. Just these two interventions cost Germany the War.

 

Quite so, sir. Quite so.
And before anyone accuses me of 'they all look the same' type thinking;, I was sitting on a roof, OK. Does strange things to the mind, roof-sitting.

 

OK, Off the roof now (hateful sodding place).

We've not had one of the prime examples of Adolf and technical interference.

The peculiar game played during the Porsch/Henschel Tiger selection surely ranks as one of the most interfered with design/development/procurement/politics car crashes of the War.
March '42, and Adolf is unequivocal that a Tiger of sorts must be seen at the front in short order.
The man receives a promise of Sixty Porsche & Twenty-Five Henschel patterns by Sept. '42, so assurances are sought on which vehicle is the most worthy of concentrated production.

Dr. Aders (Henschel's chief designer) described one part of the process, reproduced in Spielberger's Tiger book:

And that's just a snapshot of the lengths being taken in an already stressed wartime production environment to keep the Fuhrer smiling. The whole process was politically charged, and while the result was likely eventually the correct one, so many twists & turns were followed essentially unnecessarily.

And then there's the Sturmgewehr.
And the Fallschirmjagergewehr.
And the 'last man last bullet' orders.
Etc.

However... it's not entirely fair to completely criticise Adolf on the technical front.
Though his interference did sometimes appear dilettante, he did genuinely care about the results, and attempted to receive & process the best advice, sometimes pushing things in the right direction, sometimes not.
His innate skills at playing one team against another, while useful in the politics of dictatorship, were not perhaps the ideal way to arrive at engineering solutions - though they did OK, obviously.

For me so many of these 'Fuhrer Issues' boil down to the lack of a cohesive and all-powerful General Staff figure, again perhaps an obvious by-product of the Hitler style. There was never an Alanbrooke or a Marshall there who understood how the thousand different parts of the military picture fitted together, and was able to do what Churchill described:
"When I thump the table and push my face towards him what does he do? Thumps the table harder and glares back at me. I know these Brookes – stiff-necked Ulstermen, and there's no one worse to deal with than that!"
Important skill when dealing with ambitious politicos; but never a terribly good idea in a Dictatorship...

Stalin - slightly different kettle of fish.
Somewhat more 'louche', and even sardonic/laid-back; still sinister 'games' - but played in a rather different and somewhat more hands-off manner when the pressure was really on.

 

Hm:this is the usual "the grapes are sour" history from a bitter Henschel boy .If Henschel had won,we would heard the same whining from the Porsche side .

 

I think you're possibly reading too much into it, mate.
The point of including the passage was to illustrate an example of how a dictatorial 'please the leader' style led to a strangely theatrical process.
Though since the Henschel 'won' in the end, and Adolf usually saw the sun as shining somewhat from Dr. Porsche's posterior, I imagine Dr. Aders was likely entitled to a degree of cynicism.

(He was somewhat bemused by all the fuss about Tiger anyway - a nice quote from him: :

An Engineer first and foremost I feel, not really a glory-seeker.)

 

Indeed, but this begs the question, is the dictatorship vs democracy really much of a factor? Or could it simply be down to the individual's character, effective leadership (of any type) rather than micromanagers, meddlers, uninformed or impulsive?

Was the totality of British tank development better than the Germans because they didn't have a dictator at the top?

Perhaps in some cases the dictator can cut through the beauraucratic inertia by simply ordering something into production, while the democracy can get stalled with endless committee meetings, reports, and inability to make a quick decision?

If the Western powers were better because they didn't have a dictator to foul up the command process, why did the British & Americans have such a major defeats at Pearl Harbour, the Philippines & Malaya? Why was the US unable to make an effective defence against "Operation Drumbeat" despite having independant military command, ample resources & prior warning?


Or could the problem really be bad command decisions, such as King's refusal to consider convoys, or Churchill's refusal to belive that the Japanese would attack Malaya?

 

Staying on my own favourite subject; Yes.

The considered and more managerial cooperative approach of the allied Democracies created Tanks in vast numbers as required for victory in a substantial war, and more specifically on the British development front: eventually led to Centurion.
The somewhat more 'dictatorial' approach of Germany (with, importantly, several years of lead work due to the particular Dictator's active planning for conquest), eventually led to a plethora of types but an overstretched industrial base and entirely unrealistic appreciation of what was possible with the tools to hand. The dictatorial culture meant too many people said 'yes'. Every leap at a 'micro' suggestion of the dictator means thousands of engineering hours used up, sometimes effectively, but very often down distracting alleys.
The fear/competition cocktail can create remarkable initial impetus regarding a Dictator's demands - but without a more considered base has inherent structural problems.

If Adolf had an Alanbrooke who he listened to and completely trusted, the combination of concentrated power and hard advice may have been lethal, but by his very nature an Alanbrooke was almost an impossibility. Maybe Speer came closest on the Industrial front, but one Speer halfway through the war was not enough.
The more democratic nations collegiate approach had it's own problems, but it did tend to leave space for a multitude of talents to concentrate more carefully and specifically on the various levers of power.

 

I would have to disagree with the conclusion that democratic leadership vs dictatorship was an advantage that played a significant part in the war. By far the greater factor was the Allied industrial production advantage which was something like 4 or 5 to 1 compared to the Axis. Suppose that in Dec 1941, both Axis & Allies had roughly similar industrial capacity. (Though the Axis are short on resources as dictated by geography. Would the Britsh & American have defeated the Axis in the MTO/ETO without huge numbers of Shermans, Mustangs, CVE's etc?
The result is not so clear.
Essentially, if both sides had equal economic & industrial capacity, and the sole difference was dictatorship vs democracy, I don't think that the democracy would have any significant advantage, certainly not enough to decide the outcome

The situation "entirely unrealistic appreciation of what was possible with the tools to hand" I would say is not unique to a dictatorship, but also occurred many times on the Allied side as well.

 

Actually, from what I've read from Japanese documents, there was fierce rivalry between the IJN and the army, with the IJN having little say in policy. This led to some disasterous decisions. Tojo must bare the blame here. He was the prime minister in a totalitarian government. Does anyone know of any instance, except right at the end, where the Ministers disproved of anything Tojo wanted?

 

As a very rough approximation the "dictator" style has shorter decision cycles while the more democratic "comitee" style has less chance of a terribly bad choice. In a combat situation short decision cycles ar critical, that's why very few succesful military organizations used a democratic one, though there were some generally effective compromises like the republican Rome alternate day command when both consular armies worked together (and it failed spectacularly at Cannae) .

For production choices a short decision cycle is less critical, and bad initial choices can be very costly to correct, so "micromanagment" is usually bad. Industrial design is often a trial and error approach, with flaws often being discovered long after production started, a very poweful figure "setting decisions in stone" at an early stage can be a big problem down the line where the need for changes contraddicting "orders from above" becomes necessary.

 

I think what I mean; is that while fully aware of Germany's somewhat old-fashioned industrial base, I just can't see them ever having achieved things like the Lima Tank Plant or the massive concentration of aviation production facilities by companies like Ford & GM, companies without much previous experience of that field. Such vast endeavours have a political basis, they require staff work, cooperation & compromise. Germany gained much industrial power by occupation (France, czechoslovakia, etc.) but the political envionment didn't leave much leeway for anyone to rise up and coordinate industry across occupied territories.
Territory Gauleiters were a step in that direction, but the system was still feudal, and the most powerful individuals were concerned so much with 'ideological projects' that the industrial potential was poorly exploited. Slave labour is also a phenomenom more likely in a dictatorship, and doesn't tend to produce the best production results.

Lend-lease too. Crucial to so many allied nations on the Industrial/production front, and it could fairly easily be asserted that the very nature of Hitler's 'style' failed to place faith in the sort of alliances required for such assistance. However, it obviouslly can't be directly disassociated from 'dictatorship' as Stalin found himself presented with so much materiel through the scheme (though the Soviet/Western alliance was certainly never an easy or simple one).

Nicely summed up, ToS. As ever you've boiled it down to a few lines while I waffle on. .

 

There's certainly some interesting commentary in this thread. Let's not forget that another failing of the dictator is the cronyism associated with absolute power. The cream doesn't rise to the top - by that I mean that merit counts for less than personal association with the strong man.

Fritz Todt was the Minister of Armaments until 1942, not because he was a good manager, but because of his early association with Hitler and the party. After three years of war, German industry was still not on a total war footing. Upon Todt's death, Speer took the position and production rose dramatically even in the face of increased allied bombing. Speer was an excellent manager, but it was too late to change the outcome.

Goering, I think, was another flaw in the machine who kept his position until the end of the war. Goering had zero skills as a manager or strategist, but was just another crony of Hitler from the early days. A better strategist would have made a tremendous difference in luftwaffe abilities by mid war.

One can go right down the line in the Nazi government and find every crucial post filled by a pal of Hitler, and almost all of them wholly unsuited to their position.

 

Todt was a very efficient manager,more than Speer and laid the foundations for the achievements of the German economy during the war .Of course,as usual,after the war,Speer claimed all the benefits for him .

The biggest achievent of Speer was to create after the war his truth (=a lie) = that he nearly saved Germany,but that the stupid Adolf prevented this.

 

One look at the production totals under Todt and Speer shows that Speer was the better manager. Of course, Speer was also a Hitler crony, but just happened to have some talent as well.

 

There is one crucial difference between Hitler and Stalin. Hitler never let any one person have the power to carry out his orders with out squabbling. Stalin did delegate once he made up his mind and yes the person would face his wrath if ineffective, but he did give leeway if results happened. Another difference is Stalin would allow someone to say no until his order was given. Hitler only allowed yes men

 

The interesting thing about the Todt organisation for me, in trying to stay within this thread's context, is that it existed because there was a dictatorship.
It achieved much remarkable work under Todt & Speer, but responded reflexively to Adolf's commands. A macro expression of the Fuhrer's Micro will perhaps.
That interference/command reflected in it's complete failure to meld it's 'civilian' & Militarist arms to one combined force, it's distraction on other Fuhrer-business as it engaged in Anti-Partisan work & slave labour (slave labour was never solely about production), and a certain level of built-in corruption.
That corruption sprang largely from it's semi-official status, as despite it's central role in so many projects it remained yet another Fiefdom - neither for the Party or state to command. One man could be said to have direct command of it's aims, no matter what Todt or Speer may have done - and, surprise surprise, it's the man with the little moustache again.

Theoretically the Western allies and their governments could not create an OT. Such resources as might be seen as comparable were more logically applied, and not distracted into overtly political projects at the twitch of one man's finger.

 

Hitlers Germany could never have created the bomb because it was so inefficient The Manhattan project did far more then Todt ever could have

 

That's comparing apples with lemons;it is saying that the US were inefficient in 1942,because they were producing more tanks,etc,in 1944.
When the war broke out in 1939,the Germans had totransform their peace industry in a war industry ,and,that took time .

 

ONE exemple : the von Schell standardization program which started already before the war :the number of types of trucks
was going down from 131 in 1939 to 23 in 1942 :without this,the increase of truck production from 1942 on,would not be possible .

 

Britain also could not have created the bomb,and,it was not inefficient .The SU created the bomb,and,I should not say that the SU was more efficient than Britain .