I have always wondered. Germany began WWII with a very limited oil supply-apart from some small production in Hungary and Poland, Germany had only Rumania as a supplier of petroleum. Knowing this Air Marshal Goering had German industry adopt a program to make possible large scale production of synthetic gasoline. This was a well-known process (Fischer-Tropsh), which had been invented in the 1920s. the problem was: it was highly inefficient, and consumed vast quantities of coal. In addition, the process ran at very high pressure, and so the reactor vessels wore out quickly. I have also read that the fuel produced was not good in the Russian winter conditions (it would separate into two fractions in the cold). So, was the synthetic fuel worth it? It is hard to get data on it, but it seems the Germans were never able to make enough of it-maybe they should have seized the Russian oilfields as a first objective?
Seizing the Russian oilfields WAS a primary objective, so I’m not sure how that constitutes an alternative.
Inefficient it might have been, but you need oil. It’s not an option.
Is that why the Germans were in North Africa? Were they looking for a steady supply of crude oil?
It’s one of the great what-ifs of history. The Axis had a huge oil supply during the war and didn’t know it. The oil fields in North Africa weren’t discovered until the fifties. During the war, Iraq and Iran were the major oil producing nation in the Middle East - and the British and Soviets maintained large garrisons in these countries. Saudi Arabia produced oil but was still seen as a relatively minor source.
The Russian oilfields were beyond their supply reach, which was ~500km from the jump-off point for one year’s campaign. In any case they really needed the oil to fuel the trucks, tanks and planes so they could capture the oil …
I suggest you read Adam Tooze’s The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy, it discusses the German’s attempts to cope with shortfalls in almost every commodity they needed to wage war.
No-one knew that Libya had vast amounts of oil at that time. The Germans were in North Africa to pull the Italian’s feet out of the fire (that they themselves lit!).
The nearest known large sources of oil were Iraq and Persia.
The German economy ran on coal. Subtracting a substantial amount of coal (for synthetic fuel production) left that much less for steel production (which was needed to make tanks and guns). So it could be argued that the failure of the Army Group South (to take the Baku oilfields) was affected by the diversion. Of course, the attempt to take Moscow (Operation Typhoon) probably was also significant-Germany could not afford to have too many objectives.
Perhaps the real problem was trying to take on both the USSR and the USA at the same time, something that they clearly should have seen as a poor choice. Germany had (and has) decent manufacturing and agricultural infrastructures to support an army and a people, but those resources paled in comparison to what they went up against. It was not only the vast oil reserves of Russia, but the bountiful heartlands of Kansas and Iowa, and the protected manufacturing cities that were out of reach of bombers but were producing a hundred bombers a month.
No, I reckon it is obviously a hugely unlikely thing that even if there were rivers of Oil there in africa, they could have got it back…
Shore up Africa at the cost of the war in europe ? seems that would lead to defeat rather quick… so no, no oil from Africa
Germany was receiving massive amounts of oil from the USSR, up to the June 1941 invasion. Stalin (apparently) did not think it odd, that the Germans were stockpiling so much oil.
The Germans were actively fighting the British, so nothing weird about it at all.
Taking Russian oilfields was the main objective behind the German operations towards the Caucasus (Case Blue); this was what, eventually, led to the Battle of Stalingrad. The German command considered it sufficiently important to divert priorities away from Moscow, the capture of which would have had enormous strategic value and to which they had got very, very close in 1941. So they were very much aware of their dependence on oil.
I am not an expert on German economy or war details - my reply is purely on the engineering aspects of synthetic oil.
You present this as a fact - and it is not. Between 1939-1945, Germany produced 3 million metric tons of synthetic fuel by Fisher Tropsch and 18 million metric tons by coal/tar hydrogenation. Fisher Tropsch was only a smal part. Cite : See the conclusion on page 10.
Are you talking about Fisher Tropsch or Coal hydrogenation? Much of the Chinese chemical (and plastics) industry runs on coal even today and economics make sense for them when you factor in global oil price uncertainty and global strategy.
From Cite - Page 4
I think you are mixing up hydrogenation (which is a high pressure process) with FT (Fisher Tropsch) which is a low to medium pressure process. The first FT reactors ran at 1 atm and the later ones ran at medium pressures (5-15atm). Cite Page 4
Cite please. This maybe true since F-T produces a lot of waxes (the waxes are themselves useful) but poor refining may produce inferior diesel. For the record - FT was primarily used for Diesel and not gasoline.
Why is it hard ? SASOL in South Africa produces fuel this way to this day. China has many Methanol to Gasoline Plants. Shell has a gas to liquids plant in QATAR.
Here are the economics (Cite Page 8 ):
Cite please! As per my work on coal for steel as well as for synthetic fuel - the grades of coal are different. Coking coal is what is used for steel production while bituminous, sub-bituminous and lignite are coals used for synthetic fuel.
Cite please !! Data I have seen does not jive with your post
Quote from Cite (Page 8) :
(Highlight mine)
Also see Page 5 of the same document :
1932 was quite a few years before WWII.
I disagree. North Africa was a minor theatre in the war. Germany sent less than five percent of its troops to Africa.
But this was because Germany saw no strategic reason to commit more resources to Africa. That would have changed completely if they had known there were major oil fields in Libya. The Germans knew full well they needed oil.
And it would have been fairly easy to have turned the Mediterranean and North African theatres around if Germany had wanted to. Italy had been the main power in East Africa at the start of the war. Efforts had been made to pressure Franco into allowing German troops to cross through Spain. But in both cases, Germany didn’t see any major need to follow through and let things drop. Oil would have changed that.
Germany could have captured Gibraltar and Aden early in the war. This would have sealed off the Mediterranean from the British Navy. Germany and Italy could have then transported troops to and transported oil from North Africa. The Germans could have sent around twenty divisions into North Africa. They still would have had the vast majority of their troops in Europe but they would have also overwhelmed any forces Britain had in North Africa.
Erm, what? Aden?
How? From where? Why would they have even bothered to try? What other operations would they have had to have foregone to attempt such a lunge into the unknowable?
They had bigger fish to fry elsewhere, and in any case they thought they had Britain beaten up until the end of 1940.
Let’s not forget that Germany’s entire war aim was to defeat, occupy, depopulate and colonise the western Soviet Union. Everything else was seen as a distraction to be got out of the way ASAP. There is no plausible history in which Germany forgoes that in order to occupy various remote British colonial outposts.
Ethiopia and Italian Somaliland. If you look at the map, you can see the Axis had most this land under its control at the start of the war.
As for a reason, that’s what we’re talking about. The Germans and Italians were aware they needed oil to conduct military operations against anyone. If capturing Aden had been important to securing an oil supply, then they would have wanted to capture Aden. Not instead of invading the Soviet Union but in order to invade the Soviet Union.
They could have taken Aden. *Holding * it would have been difficult if not impossible long term. The British could literally flood the place with troops from India, and they had excellent port facilities in Karachi, Mombasa and Columbo to support such an operation.
Italy joined WWII in May 1940, with its attempted invasion of France. The fighting in East Africa started in June 1940 with Italy’s invasion of British Somalia. So the Germans have a window of one month to somehow get troops past the Suez canal or around the Cape, before having to get drawn into the Ethiopian campaign. While they are still in the process of conquering France.
How is that going to happen, again? And what would it gain them?