Pre-War German Synthetic Oil Development

by defcon1959

Is there any way the Germans could have expanded their research and development of their synthetic oil industry, converting their vast coal reserves into petrol, that would make them free of oil concerns during WW2?

Holokyn-kolokyn

The short answer is "probably not." Raw materials and manpower were lacking, the timespan was short and Germans lost a lot of time in the 1930s for reasons not completely under Nazi party's control.

Let's start with the German wartime oil requirements. According to Becker (1981), a German High Command study in May 1941 put the monthly military requirements at 7.25 million barrels of oil. Stocks were at about 25.6 million barrels (including Soviet imports of about 5.6 million barrels up until June 1941). And synthetic oil production was at about 10 million barrels per year at the outbreak of the war. In other words, the Germans would have had to expand their production almost ten-fold simply to meet the projected military demand, before allowances were made for losses to enemy action for instance.

What the Germans managed between 1938 and 1943 was an expansion from about 10 million to 36 million barrels; a respectable improvement but one that taxed the system quite heavily, even before Allied air attacks on hydrogenation plants commenced in May 1944.

The Germans were certainly aware of the importance of synthetic fuels. The dependence on imported oil was very much a concern for the Nazi party in the 1930s, and IG Farben's coal hydrogenation process (and other coal to liquid processes) was backed with much enthusiasm. Adam Tooze actually argues that it was IG Farben's commitment to synthetic fuel and synthetic rubber that made them the closest industrial collaborators of the Nazi regime. (The following three paragraphs are largely a summary of discussion in his book, The Wages of Destruction.)

However, the synthetic fuel plants were extremely expensive. IG Farben had began to build its first coal hydrogenation plant at Leuna in 1926 and invested 330 million Reichsmarks into it. Unfortunately for them, the world market for crude oil was glutted from late 1920s after major developments in oil-producing regions and the October 1930 discovery of "Black Giant" in east Texas. These increases in supply, and the economic downturn, made commercial development of synthetic fuels unprofitable.

This state of affairs lasted until Nazi victory in July 1932 elections, after which IG Farben sent representatives to brief Hitler on the importance of synthetic fuel project. At the same time, coal mining interests proposed to Hitler a scheme to produce "several million tons" of synthetic fuel per year. The ongoing political turmoil meant that nothing happened until August 1933, and drafting an agreement with IG Farben took until end of the year. The agreement guaranteed profits for IG Farben's Leuna plant in exchange of a guarantee of 350 000 tons per year of synthetic oil. (Between 2.6 million and 3 million barrels per year depending on the quality of final product; Tooze isn't clear about this matter.)

Hitler began to press for more extensive synthetic oil program in early 1934, but the German state couldn't afford the cost of 250-300 million Reichsmarks at the time. Instead, it appealed to the coal mining interests; these were not interested (as synthetic fuel was not competitive), and were later forced to comply. But now it was late October 1934, and even with crash program, the plants were not expected to be operational until 1936. In 1937, they were producing about 4.8 million barrels of petroleum fuels (Becker 1981).

Expansion plans were initiated in October 1936, envisioning production of 36 million barrels by October 1938 (Becker 1981; apparently refers to total produced between Oct 1936 and Oct 1938). The plans were hampered by two revisions of the projected output mixture (more aviation fuel, less other fuels) in 1937, and the timeframes allotted turned out to be unrealistic: in the worst case, of the twelve Fischer-Tropsch plants (using a more experimental process) that were supposed to be finished by 1 April 1938, only nine were operational by 1945.

Production goals were altered again in 1938 by Göring: he called for a production of nearly 88 million barrels of "various types of fuels and lubricants" (Becker 1981) in 1942-43. Now it was realized that a program of such dimensions would require quantities of steel and manpower that simply were not available, and plans were cut back accordingly. In particular, hydrogenation plants capable of producing high-quality aviation fuel suffered, and only two small test plants were in operation when the war broke out.

At the outbreak of the war, seven hydrogenation plants were operational, three in advanced stages of construction, and two barely begun; only four high octane aviation fuel plants were begun afterwards (Becker 1981). Even the construction of these already started plants was not pushed as hard as it might have been, due to lack of raw materials and early successes in the war. Albert Speer for instance had curtailed the construction program in February 1942 because raw materials were needed for more immediate uses than for plants that weren't going to be operational for years.

According to Becker, the Germans nevertheless managed until 1944 simply by never giving any single user all the fuel they claimed to need. Besides, permits to operate motor vehicles were strictly controlled and much of the transport converted to solid fuels, saving over 8 million barrels per year at best. Added to this were stocks captured in the conquest, limited oil production in Germany, imports from Romania and, for a while, a tiny stream from Russian oil fields at Maikop; nevertheless, once the Allies figured out the importance of hydrogenation plants - which were vulnerable, full of irreplaceable industrial equipment, and hard to defend - it was game over for the Germans.

Sources:

Becker, P. W. (1981). The Role of Synthetic Fuel in World War II Germany: Implications for today? Air University Review, July-August 1981. http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/aureview/1981/jul-aug/becker.htm

Tooze, A. (2006) The Wages of Destruction: The Making & Breaking of the Nazi Economy. Allen Lane: London.