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But even if she had adequate raw materials Germany could not use the plants she holds to the full. In France for example most factories are practically shut down because of flight of the population before the invader and general economic chaos. R.A.F. bombings have destroyed other factories in Germany and German-held territory and transportation has been disrupted by bombing and war. Although she holds two-thirds or more of Europe's industrial capacity, Germany's usable capacity is probably not much greater for the present than before the war. Her chief gain is in having taken reserves from her enemies.
Another German problem is oil and high-test gasoline for her tanks and warplanes. To her own plentiful stores she has added the undestroyed stocks of the conquered territories. Her own synthetic industry was good for 600,000 tons yearly; Poland added an annual 530,000 tons. But Germany needed at least 12,500,000 tons of oil a year for total war. Even the complete output of the Rumanian oil fields (production: one-tenth of Texas') would supply only about a half of presumed needs. Technology-bound Russia, Europe's largest producer, could do it—if the Nazis supplied the equipment and technical assistance to reorganize her oil industry and transport That would probably be a two-year job.
Although armies now march as much on their gas tanks as on their stomachs, food is still a vital war material. With her conquests Germany now holds two-fifths of the green fields of Europe. France gave up the Paris Basin, which normally grew all the wheat she needed. Denmark, Europe's dairy and No. 1 world exporter of butter, was rifled of her stocks of butter, cheese, eggs, fodder, of her farm animals. Belgium, which just manages to feed herself, had no great surplus on hand, but The Netherlands had 2,750,000 head of cattle, 650,000 sheep, half a million pigs, tons of butter, cheese, meat, milk, margarine and vegetable oils that were added to the Nazi larder. So were Poland's sugar beets.
The food supplies seized were an immediate gain for 70,000,000 Nazi gullets, fine for a short war. But Europe has never been able to feed herself, let alone secure a balanced diet, without importing great quantities of foodstuffs, fodder, fertilizers. France made up most of her deficit with imports from Morocco. The Balkan States have long been selling their small exportable food surplus to Germany. If there is surplus food in Russia with all her great grain fields, it is a State secret. As a whole the territory that Hitler took merely added to his domains more territory that cannot feed itself or can barely do so. In a long war his food problem will be worse than before unless he feeds his people by starving the conquered. In the long run also, it does not pay to starve your slaves.
By his conquests Hitler also destroyed most of the neutrals through whom he obtained a restricted flow of goods in spite of the British blockade. Italy, The Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark and Norway are leaks that have been plugged. Only Portugal, Spain, the Balkans and Russia remain, most of them strictly rationed by the blockade and with poor transportation systems for supplying him. Some copper, tin, a few other supplies can reach Germany by way of Vladivostok, but not in quantity. Germany cannot beat the blockade. She can only try to beat the blockader.