To what extent did the peacefully annexed territories (Austria, Czechoslovakia) contribute to Germany's industrial and military strength leading up to the Second World War? Would Germany have been able to achieve as much military success between 1939 and 1945 without those annexations?

by [deleted]

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I cannot comment on the hypotheticals of German military success without them, but it is true that Czechoslovak tanks formed a noticeable portion of the German armored forces in the early years of the war. Czechoslovakia had a relatively strong industrial base, this tradition going back to the days of the Habsburg monarchy, and companies such as Českomoravská-Kolben-Daněk, Škoda or Zbrojovka Brno were chief suppliers of military equipment in the interwar years, as well as manufacturers of thousands of armored vehicles, artillery pieces and small arms for Germany during the war. The Wehrmacht also acquired stores of military equipment following the Munich crisis and the subsequent occupation of the rump Czechoslovak state.

Let's start off with the LT vz. 35 light tanks. 244 of the 298 vehicles completed before the occupation entered service with the Wehrmacht first as the Leichte Tank Muster 35, later renamed as the more known Panzerkampfwagen 35(t). The rest was put into use by Slovakia, Bulgaria and Romania, with the latter two also buying further 26 of the German acquired tanks later on. Speaking of Romania, they had already bought 126 of the LT vz. 35 from Czechoslovakia before the war.

106 standard models and 8 additional command tanks would see service with the 1. leichten Division during the invasion of Poland. After the unit had been rechristened as the 6. Panzer-Division, 118 regular and 14 command tanks took part in the battle of France as a part of the Panzer Korps 41 – incidentally alongside the 8. Panzer-Division equipped with LT vz. 38 tanks – and its drive towards the sea. 155 of its tanks (and 5 command) formed the backbone of the division during Operation Barbarossa, at first assigned to the northern theater before being shifted towards the push to Moscow.

The 6th division would deploy the 35s until early 1942 when a lack of spare parts, as no new models were being produced and replacements and repairs required cannibalizing other vehicles, and their general obsolescence finally caught up with the tanks and they were removed from battlefield service. 26 were sold to Romania (another 26 already being sold in 1940 to Bulgaria) where twenty of those were rebuilt into the TACAM tank destroyer, and some of the remaining vehicles in German service were repurposed as artillery tractors and munition haulers.

The other Czechoslovak tank of note, the LT vz. 38, could not be delivered to the Czechoslovak army before the German occupation. However, as it was a better model all around, far greater numbers were produced and deployed by Germany. Some 1400 of these tanks were built between May 1939 and June 1942 for the German armed forces, with some tanks produced for (or later bought from the Germans by) the Axis minor powers. Similarly to the 35, at first they were labelled Leichte Tank Muster 38 and later as Panzerkampfwagen 38(t).

They first saw combat in Poland with the 3. leichten Division, later renamed the 8. Panzer-Division, fielding 57 tanks. Following the reorganization of the light divisions into tank divisions, the fabled 7. Panzer-Division commanded by Erwin Rommel was also given these tanks for a total of 229 vehicles taking part in the invasion of France. 118 tanks of the 8th division also saw action in the Balkan campaign in 1941. Operation Barbarossa saw the 7th, 8th, 12th, 19th and 20th tank divisions equipped each with over a hundred of these tanks for a total of 625 regular models and 40 command tanks taking part in the initial invasion.

In total, some 785 Czechoslovak built tanks took part in Barbarossa, out of a force of roughly 3500 tanks in total. Both the 35 and 38 models were armed with 37mm guns and two machine guns, and possessed a maximum armor thickness of 35 and 50 mm respectively, better than the machine gun or autocannon armed Panzerkampfwagen I and II, and about on par with the early A to F models of the PzKpfw III produced until 1940 before its gun and armor upgrades.

In early 1942, this number was further augmented by 114 tanks of the 22. Panzer-Division. However, by that time the LT vz. 38 was already suffering the same issues – and indeed the same fate – as its predecessor or its German light tank contemporaries, and was soon phased out of service and sold – 111 tanks went to Hungary, 50 to Romania, 37 to Slovakia, and 10 to Bulgaria – or refurbished.

While comprising about a fourth or a fifth of the German armored force committed to Barbarossa is notable enough, the 38 was also given a new lease of life even following its descent into obsolescence. Production of its chassis continued throughout the war with a variety of vehicles: In addition to a small numbers of recovery vehicles or prime movers, ČKD factories – renamed BMM, the Böhmisch-Mährische Maschinenfabrik, by the Germans – produced 70 Aufklärungspanzer 38(t) recon tanks, 140 Flakpanzer 38(t) self propelled anti aircraft guns, 400 Grille self propelled artillery, 1550 Marder III self propelled anti tank guns with some 180 conversions from existing tanks, and over 2600 Jagdpanzer 38 tank destroyers and variants thereof.

I am afraid I do not have any detailed data regarding wartime production, nor particularly detailed numbers of artillery or small arms put into German service after the occupation of Czechoslovakia. Several hundred artillery pieces were acquired by the Wehrmacht in 1939, largely First World War models and mostly light guns and howitzers. Enough small arms to equip several divisions were apparently confiscated by the Germans, a task made easier by the Czechoslovak service rifle being a variant of the Gewehr 98.

As for Czechoslovak production of military equipment other than tanks, after the German takeover, factories were gradually retasked with producing German models. Millions of small arms were produced during the war, for example 700 000 rifles and 100 000 MG34 machine guns were made in 1944 by Zbrojovka Brno alone. Over the course of the entire war, Škoda works produced some 26 000 guns of all calibers, ranging from tank armaments to howitzers, and, funnily enough, even some naval guns.