In the Second World War, oil was the most important source of power for the operation of the war machine, and its strategic position was very important. The Germans, who suffered from a lack of oil in the First World War, frantically stockpiled crude oil before World War II and sought oil self-sufficiency by importing man-made oil from Eastern European countries.
After the outbreak of World War II, Germany invaded the Soviet Union with rich oil resources on a large scale, targeting the important Baku oil field of the Soviet Union, but if the Germans really captured the Baku oil field, could they alleviate the shortage of crude oil in their own country and eventually change the course of the war?
The German Blitz consumed a lot of oil
An empire hungry for crude oil
The second industrial revolution and the unification of Germany greatly promoted Germany's industrial production capacity, but the inherent resource disadvantage made the Germans only set 90% of the energy source as coal, and high-quality crude oil was always the fatal shortcoming of German industrial production.
Before the war, in addition to the German oil obtained from Western countries through trade, it mainly considered two sources, one was Romanian oil, from 1939, Germany strengthened cooperation with Romania, and forcibly began to incorporate Romania's oil production capacity into its own needs. The second is synthetic oil, before the war, German economic experts proposed the use of rich coal reserves to synthesize oil, by 1944 to achieve the goal of oil production of 11 million tons.
German air defense units deployed in Romanian oil fields
After the outbreak of World War II in September 1939, Germany already had 14 hydrogenation plants operating at full speed, and 6 more under construction, with an annual production capacity of 2.2 million tons, and synthetic oil production peaked at about 5 million tons by 1943, but it could only provide 40-45% of Germany's oil demand.
Before the outbreak of the Soviet-German war, the Soviet Union once played an important role as a source of German oil, according to the Soviet-German trade loan agreement, the Germans began to import oil from the Soviet Union in 1939, until the outbreak of war in 1941, the Soviets had been conscientiously fulfilling the role of suppliers, providing Germany with 283,000 tons of oil in half a year in 1941, but this oil channel was quickly cut off with the outbreak of war.
In general, before the outbreak of World War II, the Germans established about 7 million tons of oil reserves by expanding imports as much as possible, and after blitzing western European countries, they obtained 1.5 million tons of oil through plunder, but with the British maritime embargo and the large increase in the amount of oil needed for production and life in the country and occupied areas, the Germans' oil reserves were rapidly reduced, which was also corroborated with the form of the Soviet-German war.
In 1941, the Germans could attack in three directions with relatively abundant oil reserves, and by 1942, with the oil reserves falling sharply, the Germans had begun to lean towards a key offensive on the southern front and to solve their own oil crisis by capturing the Caucasus through the "Blue Plan".
The Soviets cleared the wilderness
The Baku oil field is one of the earliest oil fields in the world to be discovered and developed, and after the establishment of the Soviet Union, Baku has become a modern city with the huge benefits of oil development. In 1940, Baku's oil production peaked at 71.5 percent of Soviet oil production, and although it declined, it remained the largest oil field in the Soviet Union until 1950.
In addition to oil, the Caucasus region, where Baku is located, was also an important mineral resource and food producing area of the Soviet Union, especially after the disastrous loss of Ukraine's rich granaries and rare mineral areas in 1941, which were also crucial to the vast Soviet Union.
German troops penetrating deep into the Caucasus
After the failure of the hasty counterattack in 1942, the Soviet southern front once again experienced a huge vacuum, especially with the disastrous fall of the Sevastopol fortress, the Germans advanced rapidly on the southern steppe, and in August 1942, the 13th Panzer Division captured the Mekop area, but the Baku oil field was still beyond the reach of the German army.
The Soviets were not the Dutch who could not even destroy the oil fields, they began to clear the field very early, and in early August they took away a large amount of oil, filled in oil wells, destroyed production facilities, and even destroyed transportation equipment. German technicians lacking heavy equipment were unable to repair wells in the Maykop field in a short period of time, and until early 1943, the production of wells here only recovered to an average of 80 barrels per day, a capacity that was completely incomparable to the huge price paid by the Germans.
Baku oil field
To make matters worse, the Soviets, who had been chased all the way down the plains, regained their self-confidence in the mountains of the Caucasus, and a large number of new troops swarmed to carry out raids, these people, although their combat experience was worrying, were familiar with the terrain and were quite determined in defending their homeland.
Fragile and long transport lines
Even if Germany can occupy the Baku oil field, the filling of oil wells and the destruction of equipment are not insoluble for the Germans. However, how can oil in the mountains of the Caucasus be transported back to Germany?
At the same time as the Germans marched to the Caucasus Mountains, in Stalingrad, the German army was also forcing the defenders to gradually retreat, which was an important industrial base for the Soviet Union in the southern region, but more importantly, it was a barrier to cover the Caucasus, and it was also an important transportation node for the resources of the Caucasus region of the Soviet Union, in other words, the Germans had to cut off the Soviet Union's economic blood vessels by occupying Stalingrad, and at the same time, it was also to provide an evacuation channel for their Caucasian raiders.
Soviet forces in the Caucasus
The outcome of the Battle of Stalingrad changed the course of the Soviet-German War and even World War II, but in retrospect, it was Paulus's stubbornness that pinned down a large number of Soviet troops and provided an opportunity for the Germans to retreat too deep in the Caucasus.
The defeat in the Battle of Stalingrad was not only the loss of a heavy army group by the German army, but more importantly, it was completely out of the competition for the transportation of war materials, and the Germans had lost the possibility of solving the oil problem, which meant that in the overall war of World War II, the capital to continue was lost.
If the Germans can occupy the Baku oil field for a long time and steadily, and restore oil production, and even ensure the safety of oil transportation, then germany's oil problem will be solved, the answer is still no. The reason lies in the strategic bombing of the United States and Britain, which is the strategic action that hurts Germany the most from its war potential.
In contrast to the same period, although the Germans lost the possibility of seizing the Baku oil fields in 1942, the Germans were still able to maintain a certain limit of military operations due to the plundering of Romania's oil resources and the rise of synthetic gasoline production capacity, and relying on oil reserves, launched the Battle of Kursk in 1943.
Allied bombers
In 1940, Britain and France planned air raids on the Soviet Baku oil fields in order to weaken Germany's war potential, because as the Soviet Union became an increasingly important oil supplier to Germany, destroying Baku's oil production capacity would help to hit Germany's oil reserves, but before this plan was implemented, Germany launched an invasion of the Western Allies.
British military bases in the Middle East and the Mediterranean offered the possibility of long-range strikes, and if the Germans did occupy the Baku oil field, the United States and Britain could still launch strategic bombing of this oil field. This can be seen from the focus of the United States and Britain on the Romanian oil fields and the German synthetic gasoline plants in the late stage of the war.
Romanian fighters, more involved in oilfield air defense warfare later in the war
Germany's final defeat, in the final analysis, was that after the expansion was stretched to the limit, the resources were stretched and the war potential was unsustainable, and even if it could occupy the Baku oil fields, it would not be able to train enough pilots to guard this resource lifeline in a short period of time, nor would it have enough troops to guard the long transport lines. The Germans launched a war against the Soviet Union in order to obtain oil and other resources, and eventually because of the lack of oil, they fought hard in this war of attrition.