Hermann Göring Laughed At US Plan For 50,000 Planes – Then America Built 100,000….

 

 

 

 

May 28th, 1940. Reich Air Ministry, Berlin. Reich Marshal Herman Guring set down the intelligence report with undisguised contempt. The document detailed President Roosevelt’s request to Congress for an unprecedented expansion of American aircraft production, a capacity to manufacture 50,000 planes annually.

The Americans are desperate if they believe such propaganda will frighten us, Guring told his staff. They know nothing of war production. Let them try to convert their automobile factories. They will learn that building warplanes requires more than assembly lines. What Guring failed to grasp was that in Detroit, a Danish immigrant named William Kudson was already proving him wrong.

 The former General Motors president, now working for $1 per year as Roosevelt’s production chief, was orchestrating the most ambitious industrial transformation in human history. Within 4 years, American factories would produce not the impossible 50,000 aircraft during dismissed, but nearly 100,000 planes annually while simultaneously supplying two theaters of war across opposite oceans.

The proclamation that triggered German contempt came on May 16th, 1940 as German panzas raced through France. Standing before Congress, Franklin Roosevelt declared, “I should like to see this nation geared up to the ability to turn out at least 50,000 planes a year.” The reaction was skepticism even among allies.

 In 1939, America had produced just 3,611 military aircraft. The Army Air Corps possessed 1,700 combat planes, many obsolete. Yet Roosevelt demanded a 14-fold increase in production. William Canudson became the architect of this miracle. When asked who could achieve such impossible production, presidential adviser Bernard Baroo responded, “First, Bill Kudson.

Second, Bill Kudson. Third, Bill Kudson.” Canudson had abandoned his $300,000 salary to serve his adopted nation, bringing automotive mass production principles to aircraft manufacturing. The transformation began immediately. By December 1941, American factories were producing 2,000 military aircraft monthly, a 20fold increase from 2 years earlier.

 The Ford Motor Company announced plans for a massive bomber plant at Willow Run, Michigan. Boeing expanded its Seattle facilities. Douglas aircraft hired thousands of workers. The arsenal of democracy was awakening. The Nazi leadership’s dismissal of American capabilities stemmed from both racial prejudice and willful blindness. General Friedrich von Bertika vermach military atache in Washington from 1933 to 1941 sent accurate reports describing American industrial mobilization.

His December 1940 cable warned, “American war production will reach unimaginable heights.” Berlin dismissed these warnings as defeist exaggeration. When Bertika met Hitler in February 1939 to discuss American potential, the Furer ranted about American racial degeneracy rather than listening to intelligence assessments.

 Hitler proclaimed Americans half Judaized, half negrified, and incapable of sustained warfare. This ideological blindness would prove fatal. The prejudice permeated all levels. Luftwaffer intelligence dismissed reports of women entering aircraft factories as signs of American desperation. They couldn’t conceive that democratic mobilization might exceed totalitarian command.

 When reports arrived of factories running three shifts, German analysts assumed exaggeration. The Nazi worldview simply couldn’t accommodate American reality. Ford’s Willowrun plant embodied American ambition. Constructed on farmland beginning April 18th, 1941, it became the world’s largest factory under one roof, 3.

5 million square ft with an assembly line stretching one mile. Charles Sorenson, Ford’s production chief, promised to build one B-24 Liberator bomber per hour when other factories managed one per day. Initial results were catastrophic. The first bomber, completed September 1942, required complete rebuilding. Quality control failures reached 50%.

By February 1943, Willow Run produced just 56 bombers monthly against promises of hundreds. Critics dubbed it, “Will it run?” But Ford engineers persevered, breaking the B-24’s 488, 193 parts into manageable subasssemblies. They developed hydraulic riveting tools, pre-fabricated wiring harnesses, and moving assembly lines.

 They accommodated 578 design changes in 1943 alone while maintaining production. By September 1943, monthly production reached 148 bombers. By December 365. The breakthrough came in April 1944 when Willow Run produced 428 B-24s, one every 63 minutes, 24 hours daily. This single factory was outproducing the entire German aviation industry.

German pilots first recognized American production superiority during the Tunisia campaign. Major Johannes Steinhoff, commanding JG77, noted in December 1942, “The American pilots are no longer amateurs. Most disturbing, there are more of them every day.” The revelation accelerated through 1943. January 27th marked the first American raid on Germany itself.

 

 

 

 

 64 bombers attacking Wilhelms Harven. By October during Black Thursday at Schweinfoot, the Americans could lose 60 B7s and replace them within 2 weeks. The mathematics had become inescapable. During big week February 20th to 25th 1944 the 8th and 15th air forces mounted 3,500 bomber sorties against German aircraft production.

 The Luftvafa lost between 262 and 355 fighters but more critically approximately 100 irreplaceable veteran pilots. General Adolf Galland reported to Guring that Germany was losing 1,200 fighters monthly while producing 1,000. America was producing 2,500 fighters monthly while losing 400. Major Hines Bear, one of Germany’s top aces with 220 victories, described a January 1944 mission over Brunswick.

The bomber stream stretched from horizon to horizon. at least 700 flying fortresses and liberators. We were eight fighters against hundreds. It was hopeless. By 1944, American aircraft production reached staggering proportions. That year alone, factories produced 96,270 aircraft, 16,048 4engine bombers, 35,743 fighters, and 22,591 multi-engine aircraft.

This single year’s production exceeded Germany’s entire wartime output of approximately 94,677 aircraft. The disparity went beyond numbers. Each American bomber carried 13.50 caliber machine guns with thousands of rounds. German fighters increasingly launched with partial ammunition loads. American bombers featured powered turrets, advanced bomb sites, and sophisticated navigation equipment.

 German fighters often lacked functioning radios. Boeing’s Seattle plant 2 was producing 16 B7s daily by May 1944. Douglas aircraft, which employed just 68 people in 1936, had grown to 167,000 workers across nine facilities. North American Aviation churned out 500 P-51 Mustangs monthly. Loheed achieved production of one P38 Lightning every 90 minutes while implementing 2,127 combat-driven modifications.

Supporting industries matched this pace. General Motors produced 57,658 aircraft engines under license. Packard built 55,523 Rolls-Royce Merlin. Alcoa’s aluminum output increased 600%. Dowo Chemicals magnesium production grew from6 million annually to 333 million. The transformation of America’s workforce shattered Nazi preconceptions.

Women comprising less than 1% of aircraft workers in 1941 represented 65% by 1943. 310,000 women among aircraft industry workers. At Douglas Long Beach, 22,38 of 41,62 employees were women. Rose Wil Monroe, the original Rosie the Riveter, drove 3,000 rivets per shift at Willow Run with 99.5% accuracy. Women inspectors at Douglas reduced defect rates from 3.2 to 0.3%.

Ford redesigned tools for smaller hands, inadvertently improving efficiency. Lighter pneumatic tools reduced fatigue, while better positioned workstations decreased injuries. German intelligence interpreted female employment as desperation. A captured Luftwaffer report dismissed these workers as temporary, predicting quality collapse.

Instead, precision improved. Women excelled at detailed work. Wiring, instruments, inspection. Their integration represented democratic strength, not weakness. As American production soared, Germany retreated into fantasy. Guring authorized the Jagger program in February 1944, dispersing production into 729 underground facilities using slave labor.

 The Middle Complex employed 60,000 prisoners in horrific conditions with 20,000 dying. These underground factories produced more defects than aircraft. Slave laborers sabotaged components. Transportation between dispersed facilities caused delays. Quality control collapsed. The entire Middlework complex produced fewer engines monthly than Ford’s single Chicago plant.

 Meanwhile, American innovation accelerated. Boeing developed modular B29 construction across four facilities with completely interchangeable parts. The pressurized B29 costing $65,000 each incorporated technology Germany couldn’t match in prototypes. By early 1945, America was producing 100 B-29s monthly. June 6th, 1944 demonstrated the culmination of American production.

 The invasion employed 11,590 Allied aircraft against 319 German sorties, a 36 to1 superiority. This wasn’t tactical advantage, but industrial annihilation. Between January and May 1944, preparatory bombing dropped 145,000 tons on German targets, exceeding all German bombing of Britain throughout the war. Transport aircraft delivered three airborne divisions in one day using more planes than Germany’s entire transport fleet ever possessed.

 By December 1944, single raids involved 1,200 bombers escorted by 900 fighters. P-51 Mustangs possessed range to reach Poland, performance to match any opponent, and existed in quantities making losses irrelevant. German pilots called them Indians, swarming everywhere simultaneously. As defeat approached, even Nazi leadership acknowledged the production catastrophe.

 In December 1944, Gerbles wrote in his diary, “Guring promises about Luftvafa superiority now seem criminal delusions. We fight the world’s greatest industrial power with rhetoric.” RML told his staff before D-Day, “The Americans can lose 10 tanks for every one we destroy and still overwhelm us. When they land, they will come with such material superiority that no position can hold.

” Even Hitler admitted to Shere in January 1945. We should have listened to Bertika’s reports, “Their industrial potential was decisive. While we built hundreds, they built tens of thousands. Albert Shar later testified that American bombing reduced German production by 35% for tanks, 31% for aircraft, and 42% for trucks. He stated unequivocally, the American attacks, which followed a definite system of assault on industrial targets caused the breakdown of German armaments.

Germany’s M262 jet fighter operational mid1944 represented genuine innovation 100 mph faster than any allied fighter. Hitler and Guring believed this wonder weapon could restore air superiority despite numerical inferiority. But Germany produced just 1,430 Mitu 62s total with never more than 200 operational simultaneously.

Engines required overhaul every 10 hours. Critical materials were unavailable, forcing inferior substitutions. America, meanwhile, had begun jet development in 1942. While the Bell P59 proved inferior to German jets, Loheed’s P80 shooting star, superior to any German jet, entered production before wars end.

 American industrial depth allowed simultaneous pursuit of multiple technologies, a luxury Germany couldn’t afford. The contrast epitomized the production wars outcome. Germany’s technological superiority in jets meant nothing against America’s ability to produce thousands of conventional fighters while simultaneously developing next generation aircraft.

Quality without quantity proved worthless in total war. Herman Guring’s arrest on May 8th, 1945 by elements of the US 36th Infantry Division marked the beginning of his confrontation with reality. Initially defiant at the interrogation facility in Agsburg, he maintained German technology had been superior, overcome only by numbers.

 His subsequent transfer to Camp Ashkan in Luxembourg, the dedicated facility for high-ranking Nazi prisoners brought intensive interrogation. In July 1945, Major Kenneth Heckler conducted extensive interviews documenting Guring’s evolving recognition of American industrial superiority. I knew American industrial potential was great, Guring admitted to Heckler.

 But the execution exceeded my worst fears. That single factory at Willow Run produced more aircraft than our entire bomber force at peak. It was incomprehensible. He expressed particular astonishment at American logistics. Your ability to supply forces across two oceans while maintaining domestic production.

 This was beyond our conception. We couldn’t adequately supply forces 500 mi from Germany. You supplied armies 5,000 mi from America. During his trial at Nuremberg, prosecutors presented Guring with overwhelming evidence of American production superiority. Charts showed America producing more aircraft monthly by 1944 than Germany managed annually.

 Films of Willow Runs assembly lines played while prosecutors listed German cities destroyed by bombers from that single factory. Guring’s March 14th, 1946 testimony revealed his struggle to comprehend the scale. I believed the economic and technical potential of the United States to be unusually great, particularly the Air Force.

 But I never imagined they could increase aircraft production 100fold in four years. Such growth seemed physically impossible. Prison psychologist GM Gilbert documented Guring’s obsession with production statistics. He repeatedly calculated ratios, comparing single American factories to entire German production.

 He seemed particularly fixated on Willow Run, calling it that damned factory that broke our backs. When shown that America had produced 812,615 aircraft engines versus Germany’s 241,675, Guring simply stared at the figures in silence. The mathematical reality of defeat was undeniable. The transformation’s scope remains staggering even today.

 

 

 

 

 From 3,611 military aircraft in 1940, America produced 295,959 by wars end, 97,810 bombers, 99,465 fighters, 98,684 others. This represented not just quantity, but systemic superiority in every aspect of production. 2 million Americans worked in aircraft production at peak, including unprecedented diversity. Women, African-Americans, Mexican-Americans, Native Americans, disabled workers, teenagers, and elderly citizens.

This democratic mobilization achieved what totalitarian command could not. Voluntary cooperation that exceeded forced labor’s output by every metric. The workforce that entered factories in 1941, knowing nothing about aircraft, emerged in 1945 as the world’s most skilled aviation workers. They didn’t just build planes, they revolutionized manufacturing itself.

 Statistical quality control developed for bomber production became standard industrial practice worldwide. Automation principles pioneered at Willow Run transformed global manufacturing. The engineers who designed bomber assembly lines would design the Saturn 5 rocket. The women who riveted B-24s would raise children who walked on the moon.

 The production miracle didn’t end with victory. It launched the American century. The financial dimensions defied economic orthodoxy. Aircraft production consumed $45 billion in 1940s dollars, equivalent to $800 billion today. The B29 program alone cost more than the Manhattan project. Yet rather than bankrupting America, war production created unprecedented prosperity.

 Unemployment, which had plagued the depression decade, vanished completely. Personal income doubled between 1940 and 1945. War bond sales by workers themselves financed much of the expansion. Willowr run workers alone purchased $45 million in bonds funding their own facto’s operations. Germany, conversely, consumed 40% of its entire industrial capacity for aircraft production by 1944, yet produced less than half American output.

 Slave labor, increasingly relied upon, proved catastrophically counterproductive. Sabotage was endemic. Quality collapsed. Productivity per German worker actually declined after 1943 while American productivity increased 300%. The production infrastructure built for war became the foundation for postwar prosperity.

 Aluminum smelters built for bombers produced materials for suburban housing. Chemical plants that made aviation fuel created plastics for consumer goods. Machine tool factories that equipped aircraft plants toolled up American industry for global dominance. Beyond raw production lay organizational excellence. The war production board coordinated 184,000 companies seamlessly.

 IBM punch card machines tracked millions of components across thousands of suppliers. MIT’s radiation laboratory employing 4,000 scientists developed navigation systems that gave American bombers all weather capability. When combat revealed B17 vulnerability to frontal attacks, Boeing added chin turrets within 60 days.

 When Pacific operations required extended range, consolidated modified B24s without stopping production. German modifications took months or years. American improvements took weeks. This adaptability proved as decisive as production volume. American aircraft evolved continuously based on global combat experience.

 Information flowed from Pacific battles to Atlantic production lines within days. German aircraft produced in isolated underground facilities by slave labor remained static while American designs improved weekly. The feedback loop between combat and production achieved unprecedented efficiency. Pilots observations reached engineers immediately.

 Engineers solutions reached assembly lines within days. Assembly line workers suggestions reached designers directly. This democratic flow of information proved superior to German hierarchical command. On October 15th, 1946, hours before his scheduled execution, Herman Guring wrote his final letter.

 In it, he made his most complete admission of the production wars significance. The Americans won through industrial power, not military prowess. We were not defeated by better soldiers, but by better factories. The nation we dismissed as capable only of building consumer goods buried the vermarked under aluminum and steel. His last recorded statement to Gilbert was equally revealing.

 We declared war on an industrial giant while it slept. When it awoke, we were doomed. They didn’t just outproduce us. They revolutionized production itself. Every aspect of their system proved superior to ours. Guring committed suicide that night, but his final testimony stands as history’s verdict on the production war.

 The Reich’s marshall, who had dismissed American capabilities, died knowing a single American factory exceeded his entire air force’s lifetime production. Military historians consider the American production achievement the decisive factor in Allied victory. Without the overwhelming material superiority it provided, D-Day would have been impossible.

 the bombing campaign unsustainable and the Pacific War unwinable. Richard Overy, the leading historian of the air war, concluded, “The outcome was determined not by fighting spirit or tactical brilliance, but by the weight of material.” The Allies won because they buried their enemies under an avalanche of production.

 The numbers support this assessment absolutely. By 1944, America alone was producing more military aircraft than the rest of the world combined. Axis and Allied. This wasn’t incremental superiority, but order of magnitude dominance. Germany faced not defeat, but obliteration. Yet, the production miracle’s significance transcended military victory.

 It proved democracy’s superiority to dictatorship, freedom’s advantage over tyranny, voluntary cooperation’s strength over forced obedience. The workers who achieved this transformation weren’t slaves or conscripts, but free citizens united in common purpose. Herman Guring’s dismissal of American production capacity stands as history’s most catastrophic miscalculation.

 His contempt for democratic industrial potential cost Germany the war and millions of lives. His failure to recognize American capabilities sealed the Third Reich’s fate before the first bomber reached German skies. The transformation from 3,000 to 100,000 aircraft annually demonstrated that free societies when facing existential threats could achieve the impossible.

American workers didn’t just meet Roosevelt’s impossible goal, they doubled it. They didn’t just match German production, they exceeded it five-fold while simultaneously fighting in the Pacific. Today’s leaders would do well to remember Gurings mistake. Dismissing democratic nations as weak because they’re peaceful, or underestimating free people’s productive capacity, because they prefer prosperity to conquest, invites catastrophic miscalculation.

America in 1940 appeared unprepared for war. By 1944, it had become an unstoppable industrial colossus. The arsenal of democracy proved that production lines could be as decisive as front lines, that assembly workers could be as crucial as soldiers, that industrial mobilization could determine victory as surely as military strategy.

Guring learned this lesson too late at the cost of his nation’s destruction. From his dismissive reaction to Roosevelt’s announcement in May 1940 to his execution at Nuremberg in October 1946, Herman Guring’s journey traced the arc of Nazi Germany’s destruction. His contempt for American production became the epitar for the Third Reich, a regime that confused ideology with capability, that mistook tyranny for strength, that believed racial mythology could overcome industrial mathematics.

The Reichs Marshall, who dismissed American aircraft production, died knowing that American factories had produced more planes in 1944 alone than Germany managed throughout the entire war. His mockery of democratic industrial capacity became history’s most expensive joke, paid for in the currency of total defeat.

America produced 295,959 military aircraft. Germany produced 94,677. But the real victory lay not in numbers but in method. Proving that free workers could outproduce slaves, that democratic cooperation could exceed totalitarian command, that a nation of immigrants and diverse citizens could unite to achieve the impossible.

 The B-24 bombers rolling off Willow Runs assembly line every 63 minutes weren’t just aircraft. They were democracy’s answer to tyranny. Each rivet driven by a woman who’d been a housewife months earlier. Each engine built by a teenager who’d left high school to serve. Each wing assembled by workers who’d fled poverty and discrimination.

 All proved that free peoples, when united in righteous cause, could bury tyranny under an avalanche of production. Herman Guring laughed at the idea of America producing 50,000 planes annually. America responded by producing twice that many, transforming global history in the process. His laughter echoed through history as the sound of catastrophic miscalculation.

 The fatal dismissal of democracy’s arsenal by a man who understood neither democracy nor production. In the end, both buried him and everything he represented under 300,000 aircraft that turned his contempt into history’s most complete defeat.