Chris Madel

He wants to encourage production of the militarized Volkswagen, both military and civilian versions known as the Kubelwagen.

as a sort of general utility car for everyone.

He wants to improve maintenance, which leads to the creation of the Home and Motor Pool organisation with more repair shops and garages, which would stay privately owned, but under direct Wehrmacht control.

So basically like a sort of McDonald's, you know, you'd sort of lease them out, you'd lease out the name kind of thing.

And also compulsory requisitioning.

So 50% of all civilian trucks will be taken for military use.

And the aim is to realise his plans by 1942, but not by 1941, and certainly not by 1939 autumn of.

Which is one of the reasons why the Wehrmacht has such heebie-jeebies when...

Hitler suddenly goes, right, we're going to invade Poland in September 1939, because they're just not ready for this.

They're not ready.

No, no, it's even lesser.

Even lesser, of course, as a proportion.

And so, of course, the vast majority of roads in Poland are not tarmac.

You know, tarmacking comes in America in the 1920s, in Britain by the end of the 1920s into the 1930s.

That's when you start to tarmac roads.

Otherwise, they're just dirt roads.

And they're almost entirely dirt roads in Poland, which, of course, means you're putting lots of weights of traffic on it, which to a degree that that road has not been designed to take.

They very quickly become rutted and broken up and all the rest of it.

And that puts much greater strain on the suspension and wheels and tires and blah, blah, blah, which means you need more rubber, which means you need more steel, which means you need more X, Y, Z. We need to factor in more time to repair them because they're broken, blah, blah, blah.

And also you've got a mass of inexperienced drivers who are too rough with the vehicles.