Chapter 5: Butter or Guns

The coffee smelled wrong.

Greta Müller stood in the familiar grocery store on Müllerstraße, holding a package of what the label claimed was "German Coffee Blend," and inhaled the aroma that had once been the promise of a perfect Saturday morning. But where there should have been the rich, dark scent of roasted beans, there was something else—earthy, bitter, with an undertone that reminded her of the acorns her children used to collect in the park.

"Is this... real coffee?" she asked Herr Schmidt, the shopkeeper who had served her family for three years.

Schmidt's smile was practiced, almost apologetic. "It's the finest German coffee available, Frau Müller. Made from carefully selected ingredients that meet the highest standards of German purity and quality."

Greta understood the code. German ingredients. German purity. German quality. All words that meant the coffee came from German forests rather than South American plantations, from acorns and chicory rather than coffee beans. The "blend" was ersatz—substitute—and everyone knew it, but no one was supposed to say it.

"How much?" she asked, resigned.

"The same price as always," Schmidt replied. "The Party ensures price stability for German families."

The same price for a product that wasn't the same product. Greta placed the package in her shopping basket alongside the other items she had come to buy, each representing a small compromise with the new reality of German consumption.

At the butter counter, the compromises became more obvious. What had once been a simple transaction—German butter from German farms—now required negotiation and substitution. Real butter was available, but in limited quantities and at times that seemed to change weekly. More common were the various butter substitutes, made from coal derivatives and other chemical processes that German scientists had developed to achieve "economic independence."

"We have margarine today," offered the woman behind the counter, anticipating Greta's question. "Very similar to butter, and some say it's actually healthier. German engineering has created products that surpass what we used to import."

Greta nodded and accepted the margarine, but she also noticed the careful language. What they used to import. As if butter had always come from foreign countries, as if German farms had never produced dairy products that were the pride of European cuisine. The rhetorical shift made the substitutes seem like improvements rather than necessities imposed by economic policy.

Walking through the familiar aisles, Greta encountered other housewives navigating the same subtle transformations. Frau Weber examined cotton fabric that felt somehow different from what she had purchased the previous year. Frau Brenner compared soap that lathered less effectively than the varieties they had grown accustomed to. All of them made their purchases with the careful attention of consumers who had learned to distinguish between products that looked familiar but performed differently.

"The synthetic fabrics wear very well," Frau Weber was explaining to another customer. "German scientists have created materials that are actually superior to natural cotton. More durable, easier to care for."

But Greta had watched Frau Weber's children playing in clothes made from the new synthetic materials. The garments looked presentable for a few months, then began to deteriorate in ways that cotton never had. Seams split, colors faded unevenly, and the fabric developed a stiffness that never softened no matter how many times it was washed.

Still, Frau Weber purchased the synthetic fabric with apparent satisfaction, and Greta understood why. Complaining about product quality had become politically dangerous, while praising German innovation was always safe. More importantly, the synthetic fabric was available when natural materials were not, and availability was becoming the most important consideration.

As Greta completed her shopping, she reflected on how much the simple act of buying groceries had changed since the early days of the recovery. In 1934, the excitement had been about having money to spend and products to buy. By 1937, the challenge was learning to navigate an economy where everything looked familiar but nothing was quite what it appeared to be.

The changes weren't dramatic enough to cause outrage, but they were significant enough to require constant adaptation. Coffee that wasn't coffee, butter that wasn't butter, cotton that wasn't cotton. Each substitution was explained as an improvement, a demonstration of German self-sufficiency and scientific achievement. But the cumulative effect was an economy where German families paid the same prices for products that provided diminishing satisfaction and utility.

Walking home with her shopping basket full of ersatz products, Greta passed a newsstand where headlines proclaimed German economic achievements and industrial breakthroughs. The newspapers reported record production numbers, technological innovations, and international recognition of German success. But the disconnect between the headlines and her shopping experience was becoming impossible to ignore.

At home, Ernst was reading the paper over a cup of the same ersatz coffee that Greta had just purchased. His reaction was the same as hers had been—a slight pause, a barely perceptible frown, then resigned acceptance.

"How was shopping?" he asked, folding the newspaper.

"Fine," Greta replied automatically. "Everything we needed was available."

It was true in the most technical sense. Substitutes for everything they needed were available. But the conversation ended there, as such conversations increasingly did. The gap between official prosperity and daily experience had become something that families acknowledged through silence rather than discussion.

Hans, now nineteen and deep in his technical training program, had no such reservations about the economic transformation. He entered the kitchen as Greta was putting away her purchases, his uniform crisp and his enthusiasm for German achievement undimmed by practical concerns about product quality.

"I see you bought some of the new German coffee," he said, examining the package. "My instructors say that within five years, German ersatz products will be so superior to natural materials that other countries will want to import them from us."

Greta smiled at her son's confidence, but she also noticed that Hans had never tasted real coffee. His generation was growing up with ersatz as the baseline, synthetic as the standard. For Hans, the acorn-and-chicory blend wasn't a substitute for something better—it was simply German coffee, distinct from and superior to whatever foreign countries produced.

"The important thing," Hans continued, "is that Germany doesn't depend on foreign countries for anything essential. When we can make everything we need using German materials and German technology, no one can threaten our prosperity."

Ernst looked up from his newspaper. "And if German materials aren't quite as good as foreign ones?"

"Then German science will make them better," Hans replied with the certainty of someone whose education had been designed to produce exactly that response. "German efficiency and German innovation can overcome any natural disadvantage."

Greta listened to this exchange while preparing their midday meal with ingredients that required techniques she had learned through trial and error. The ersatz coffee needed to be brewed differently from real coffee. The margarine behaved differently from butter in cooking. The synthetic flour produced bread that looked normal but had a texture and shelf-life that demanded new approaches to baking.

She had become expert in these adaptations, as had most German housewives. They shared techniques in informal networks, exchanging information about which ersatz products worked best for which purposes. The accumulated knowledge represented a form of collective adjustment to an economy that required constant compromise.

But Greta also understood that every successful meal she prepared with substitute ingredients was proof that the system worked.

As the family sat down to eat, the conversation turned to topics that had become routine in German households: Ernst's construction work on projects that were obviously military, Hans's training for advanced technical roles in strategic industries, and the general progress of German achievement in all fields. No one mentioned the taste of the coffee or the texture of the bread, though everyone noticed both.

The meal proceeded with the careful normalcy that had become characteristic of German family life. Satisfaction with progress, gratitude for prosperity, and pride in German achievement, all layered over small, daily compromises that added up to a fundamental transformation in what prosperity actually meant.

---

The letter from the Ministry of Food arrived on a Tuesday. "Your kitchen," it declared, "is now a battlefield in the struggle for German self-sufficiency."

With it came the ration books. Coffee: 125 grams per month. Butter: 250 grams. Meat: 600 grams per week. Each allocation, the letter assured her, was "scientifically calculated to meet German nutritional standards."

It was the formalization of a reality they were already living. But now, it was patriotic.

That afternoon, Greta sat with thirty other women in the first meeting of the local "Household Efficiency Circle." The leader, Frau Kellner, radiated an unnerving enthusiasm.

"German women are the secret weapons of economic independence," she announced. "While our men build the factories, we prove German families can prosper without foreign luxuries."

The lesson began. They learned to brew the coffee at a lower temperature to reduce bitterness. They learned to add a little milk to the margarine to help it cream for baking. They learned which chemical cleaners removed stains from the new synthetic fabrics without dissolving the threads.

It was practical. It was useful. It was also indoctrination.

"Every gram of butter you save," Frau Kellner declared, "is a bullet for a German soldier. Every meal you prepare with ersatz ingredients is a victory over the international forces that wish to see us weak."

Greta walked home with Frau Weber, clutching a list of new recipes.

"I actually enjoy the challenge," Frau Weber admitted. "It makes me feel like I'm contributing."

Greta understood. There was a genuine camaraderie in the shared struggle, a pride in their collective resourcefulness. But they were being taught to find satisfaction in managing scarcity, to take pride in their ability to adapt to inferior goods. They were learning to want less and call it victory.

At home, Ernst was reading newspaper reports about Four Year Plan achievements in industrial production, resource substitution, and export reduction. The statistics were impressive: German production of synthetic rubber, artificial textiles, and ersatz foods was increasing at rates that suggested complete economic independence was achievable within the program's timeline.

"It's remarkable what German industry has accomplished," Ernst told Greta as they reviewed their new ration books together. "Complete self-sufficiency in everything from coffee to steel. No more dependence on foreign suppliers who might cut off our supplies during international tensions."

Hans, now fully committed to his advanced technical training, was even more enthusiastic about the program's goals and methods. His generation had been educated to see economic independence as a national security issue, resource substitution as technological achievement, and household rationing as patriotic participation in historical transformation.

"Within five years," Hans predicted, "German synthetic products will be so superior to natural materials that other countries will want to import them from us. We're not just achieving independence—we're preparing to lead the world in advanced materials science."

Greta listened to her family's enthusiasm while mentally calculating how the new ration allocations would affect their daily meals, household management, and overall quality of life. The mathematics were manageable—German families would have enough food, adequate clothing, and sufficient household supplies to maintain reasonable standards of living.

But the mathematics also revealed that "reasonable standards" meant accepting less than what German families had expected to achieve through the economic recovery. The prosperity that had seemed within reach during the mid-1930s was being redefined as the ability to function adequately using domestic substitutes rather than the ability to access the best products available in international markets.

As summer progressed, Greta settled into the routines the Four Year Plan imposed. Weekly meetings of the Household Efficiency Circle, careful management of ration allocations, experimentation with ersatz products.

But on a Thursday evening in October 1938, Greta Müller stood in the alley behind Werner's butcher shop at 6:15 PM, trying to convince herself she wasn't committing a crime.

Werner appeared at the back door, glanced left and right, and gestured her inside.

The shop's front windows were dark, closed for the evening. But in the back room, Werner had real butter. Half a kilo, wrapped in plain paper, no ration stamps required.

"Eight Reichsmarks," he said quietly. "Same quality you used to get for two-fifty before the rationing."

Greta had brought ten Reichsmarks—money she'd saved from careful household management, from Ernst's steady wages, from the prosperity that was supposed to make everything easier.

"That's more than triple the official price," she said, though they both knew she'd pay it.

"Official price is for the official ration. Half a kilo every two weeks, if it's available, which it usually isn't." Werner shrugged. "I'm offering abundance at market rates. You're free to decline."

Greta thought about the dinner she was planning. Potatoes fried in real butter instead of the coal-tar margarine that smelled vaguely chemical. Bread with butter spread thick enough to taste. Her children eating food that tasted like food used to taste before "self-sufficiency" had turned every meal into a chemistry experiment.

"Where does it come from?" she asked.

"Does it matter?"

It did, and it didn't. The butter was probably diverted from official distribution—stolen from the ration system, sold for profit while other families made do with ersatz substitutes. Or it came from a farmer who was supposed to deliver everything to the state collection centers but held some back. Either way, it was illegal.

Either way, her family would eat better tonight.

"I'll take it," Greta said, handing over eight Reichsmarks.

Werner wrapped the butter in newspaper and placed it in her shopping bag, under the legitimate purchases she'd made at the official shops. "Careful on your way home. Police have been watching."

Greta nodded and left through the back door.

Walking home, she felt the butter's weight in her bag like evidence. If she were stopped, if police searched her shopping, the penalties were severe: fines that would wipe out Ernst's weekly wages, possible jail time, potential loss of ration cards that would make feeding her family legally impossible.

But she also felt satisfaction. Her family would eat well tonight. Her children would taste real butter, would remember that food could be satisfying rather than just adequate.

At home, Ernst saw the butter and said nothing. Hans—now deep into his ideological training—would have reported her if he'd known. So she hid it, used it sparingly, and never told him where the good meals came from.

That night, frying potatoes in real butter, Greta understood something about the system she'd been trying to ignore: it created prosperity that required breaking its own rules to actually enjoy. It promised abundance while delivering scarcity. It demanded loyalty while making survival depend on circumventing its mandates.

The potatoes tasted perfect. The guilt tasted like survival.

Ernst ate without questions. Greta didn't volunteer answers.

The black market butter sat in their refrigerator—a small crime, a large risk, and proof that the German economic miracle required ordinary people to become criminals just to live normally.

By autumn 1937, she had become an expert in Four Year Plan household management—and in knowing which rules could be broken.

---

On the same morning Greta received her ration book, a directive from Hermann Göring arrived at Klaus Weber's factory. The fiction was over. The signs for "Civilian Construction Machinery" came down. In their place went notices for "Junkers Ju 87 Dive Bomber Fuselage Assembly."

The factory, now officially a strategic production center for the Luftwaffe, felt energized. The men no longer had to speak in code. They were building the new German air force, and they were proud. Production quotas increased by forty percent overnight.

But as Klaus walked the floor, he saw the same compromises he saw in Greta's shopping basket. The steel alloys they received met specifications on paper but felt brittle. The wiring insulation cracked if you bent it too far. The lubricants were synthetic, effective for a hundred hours of operation when the specifications called for five hundred.

"Are these materials adequate?" Klaus asked his foreman, keeping his voice low.

The foreman didn't look at him. "They are German materials," he said. "Our engineering will make them work."

The logic was inescapable. It was the same logic Hans used to defend the coffee, the same logic Frau Kellner used to praise the margarine. It was the logic of a nation convincing itself that necessity was superiority. Germany wasn't building an air force for defense. The production schedules, calling for thousands of long-range bombers, made that clear. It was building an air force for conquest, and it was building it out of ersatz.

Meanwhile, three kilometers away, Otto Brenner was facing similar pressures and opportunities in his metalworking shop. Government contracts now explicitly required components for tanks, artillery, and aircraft, with delivery schedules that assumed Otto would expand his operation and hire additional workers to meet military production deadlines.

"We're being asked to triple our output within six months," Otto told his wife Liesel during one of their evening discussions about the business. "The contracts are enormously profitable, but they'll require us to take over the building next door and hire at least twenty more workers."

Liesel understood the implications beyond simple business expansion. "Will you be able to find qualified workers?"

"The government will provide them," Otto replied. "Workers from other industries that are being reduced or eliminated to support strategic production. Some from Austria, since the Anschluss. Some from areas that are being 'reorganized' to increase industrial efficiency."

The careful language concealed Otto's growing awareness that his workshop's expansion would depend partly on workers who were being displaced, relocated, or coerced into industrial employment. The Four Year Plan was mobilizing Germany's entire labor force for military production, and that mobilization wasn't always voluntary.

But the financial incentives were impossible to ignore. Otto's contracts paid prices that were 30% higher than peacetime rates, delivery bonuses provided additional income for meeting production deadlines, and government subsidies covered the costs of facility expansion and equipment purchase. The metalworking shop that had nearly failed during the depression was becoming one of the most successful businesses in Berlin.

"We could be wealthy," Liesel observed, reviewing their financial projections. "More successful than we ever imagined possible."

Otto nodded, but privately he wondered about the sustainability of prosperity that depended entirely on military contracts. His business was thriving, but only because Germany was preparing for war. If peace continued indefinitely, demand for his products would disappear. If war actually came, his prosperity might be interrupted by destruction, occupation, or worse.

But such considerations were becoming dangerous to voice, even in private conversation between husband and wife. The Four Year Plan had made criticism of military production into a form of treason, questioning of government priorities into evidence of disloyalty, and expression of doubt about German policies into grounds for investigation and punishment.

Instead, Otto focused on the practical challenges of meeting his production quotas using materials that were increasingly synthetic, ersatz, and inferior to traditional specifications. Like Klaus's aircraft factory, Otto's workshop was learning to produce military equipment using substitute materials that reduced quality while maintaining the appearance of meeting requirements.

The steel he received was harder to work with than traditional alloys, required different welding techniques, and produced components that were more brittle and less durable than equipment made with imported materials. But German metallurgy was improving rapidly, and Otto found that his workers were developing skills and techniques that compensated for many of the limitations imposed by domestic resource constraints.

"German engineering can overcome any material disadvantages," his lead machinist observed during one of their production meetings. "We're learning to build better equipment with available materials than foreign countries can build with the best materials."

Otto appreciated his workers' confidence and adaptability, but he also recognized the psychological transformation that the Four Year Plan was creating throughout German industry. Workers were learning to take pride in making inferior materials perform adequately rather than expecting access to the best materials available internationally.

---

The memory of the 1936 Olympics ambushed Anna Hoffmann most days, usually when she was serving lunch in the factory canteen. On Monday, she would watch hundreds of workers spooning watery stew thickened with sawdust flour onto their trays.

Then the memory would hit her: a flash of the Olympic village, where for two weeks she had managed the catering for the international press. She remembered the mountains of real butter, the crates of French chocolate, the sides of Danish beef. She remembered pouring rich, dark coffee for American journalists who wrote glowing articles about the new, prosperous Germany. It had been a flawless performance.

The day after the closing ceremonies, the real food vanished. It was a magic trick in reverse. The feast was gone, replaced by the familiar chemistry of the Four Year Plan. Anna had tasted the real coffee, just once, a stolen spoonful when no one was looking. The memory of it made every cup of the barley substitute an insult.

The Olympics had been real, a brief, dazzling glimpse of the prosperity Germany was capable of. It proved the system could deliver abundance. But it also proved that abundance was a performance, reserved for foreigners, while the reality for Germans was stew thickened with sawdust. The potential was there; the will was not. The choice had already been made.

---

By the winter of 1938, Ernst Müller was earning more money than he had ever imagined possible during the desperate years of the depression. His construction crew was working on projects that paid premium wages—military airfields, fortification systems, and strategic infrastructure that commanded top priority from government contractors. His weekly pay envelope contained sums that would have seemed like fantasy during the worst of the economic collapse.

But Ernst was also discovering that high wages meant little when there was nothing meaningful to buy with them.

The stores along his route home from work displayed goods that looked familiar but performed disappointingly. Clothing made from synthetic materials that felt wrong and wore out quickly. Household equipment built with ersatz components that required constant repair and early replacement. Food products that maintained familiar packaging while delivering nutritional value that seemed diminished compared to what his family had consumed during the recovery years.

"We have more money than we've ever had," Ernst told Greta during one of their evening conversations about household finances. "But I'm not sure what we're supposed to do with it."

Greta understood his frustration. Her household budget included larger allocations for various categories of spending, but the products available for purchase within those allocations were increasingly unsatisfying. Higher wages were supposed to provide access to better living standards, but the Four Year Plan seemed to be systematically reducing the quality of goods available for civilian consumption.

"We could save it," Greta suggested. "Put the extra money aside for when better products become available."

Ernst nodded, but privately he wondered when that might happen. The Four Year Plan was directing German productive capacity toward military equipment and strategic materials, and civilian consumption seemed to be considered a temporary inconvenience rather than an important goal. German families were earning more money, but that money was chasing goods that were becoming less satisfying rather than more abundant or higher quality.

The paradox was visible throughout their neighborhood. Families were living in apartments that looked prosperous but were furnished with products that required constant attention and frequent replacement. Children played with toys that broke more easily than traditional playthings. Adults wore clothing that maintained its appearance for shorter periods than the garments they had worn during the recovery years.

Hans, now twenty and earning substantial wages in his advanced technical training program, experienced the same frustrations but interpreted them differently than his parents. His generation had been educated to see resource limitations as challenges for German innovation rather than constraints on German consumption.

"The important thing isn't that products last as long as foreign products," Hans explained to his parents during a family dinner. "The important thing is that German products are made with German materials using German technology. When we perfect our methods, German goods will be superior to anything made with imported materials."

Ernst listened to his son's confidence and recognized the psychological adaptation that the educational system was creating among young Germans. Hans saw ersatz products not as inferior substitutes but as early versions of what would eventually become superior German alternatives to traditional materials and methods.

But Ernst also noticed that Hans was spending his wages on experiences rather than goods—recreational programs, cultural events, and leisure activities that the regime provided for young Germans in strategic industries. Hans was learning to find satisfaction in consumption that didn't depend on the quality of physical products, and his generation was developing spending patterns that supported the Four Year Plan's priority system.

Meanwhile, across Berlin, Anna Hoffmann was managing similar contradictions in her role overseeing food service for German workers. Her budget for feeding industrial employees had increased significantly, but the ingredients she could purchase with that budget were increasingly synthetic, processed, and nutritionally questionable.

"We're providing better meals than most countries can offer their workers," Anna told her staff during one of their planning meetings. "German workers eat regularly, abundantly, and in clean, efficient facilities. But we're doing it with ingredients that require constant innovation in preparation and presentation."

Anna had become expert in creating appetizing meals using substitute ingredients, synthetic additives, and processing methods that compensated for the declining quality of basic food materials. Her staff could prepare nutritious and satisfying lunches using ersatz products that delivered fewer vitamins, less protein, and less flavor than traditional ingredients would have provided.

The technical challenge was genuinely stimulating, and Anna took pride in her ability to maintain worker satisfaction despite material constraints. But she also understood that her expertise was being used to disguise the systematic reduction in German nutritional standards that the Four Year Plan was imposing on civilian consumption.

More troubling was Anna's growing awareness that the food service she managed was better than what German families could access for themselves. Workers in strategic industries received meal allocations that used higher quality ingredients and more generous portions than families could obtain through normal retail channels. The regime was creating a hierarchy of consumption that rewarded participation in military production while systematically disadvantaging civilian economic activity.

"Are we eating better than German families?" Anna asked Frau Werner during one of their supervisory conversations.

Frau Werner considered the question carefully before responding. "We're ensuring that German workers have the nutrition they need to maintain productivity in vital industries. German families understand that strategic workers require support that enables them to contribute to national goals."

The answer was diplomatically phrased, but Anna understood its implications. German society was being organized around military production priorities, and consumption patterns were being adjusted to support those priorities rather than to provide equitable living standards for all German citizens.

---

On August 23, 1939, Ernst Müller sat in his kitchen reading newspaper reports about the German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact while his family discussed their plans for Hans's upcoming twentieth birthday celebration. The contrast between the international headlines and the domestic conversation captured the fundamental duality that had come to define German life under the Four Year Plan: normal family routines proceeding within an economy that was obviously preparing for war.

Ernst had completed his 198th stamp in the Volkswagen savings book three months earlier. After four and a half years of faithful weekly payments, he possessed the documentation that should have entitled his family to ownership of their People's Car. But instead of a delivery schedule, Ernst had received a letter explaining that "current production priorities require temporary delays in civilian vehicle manufacturing" and promising that "Volkswagen ownership will be available as soon as strategic requirements permit expanded production capacity."

The letter included no timeline for actual delivery, no explanation of what strategic requirements took precedence over civilian car production, and no acknowledgment that hundreds of thousands of German families had fully paid for automobiles they might never receive. Instead, it praised the "patriotic patience of German savers" and assured Ernst that his family's investment in the Volkswagen program was "contributing to the industrial strength that guarantees German security and prosperity."

Greta had stopped asking about car delivery months earlier. The weekly ritual of discussing their Volkswagen savings had evolved into weekly discussions about other ways to use money that had accumulated beyond their expectations. The family's standard of living had improved steadily despite the absence of the automobile they had purchased, and they had learned to find satisfaction in prosperity that didn't depend on receiving the specific products they had been promised.

"We could use the savings for Hans's technical education," Greta suggested as they reviewed their financial situation. "Advanced training that would qualify him for leadership positions in strategic industries."

Hans was enthusiastic about the possibility. His work in military aircraft production had convinced him that his future lay in Germany's military-industrial complex, and additional education would prepare him for the engineering and management roles that would be crucial as German industry expanded to meet wartime demands.

"The important thing is that our savings contributed to German industrial development," Hans said. "Whether we receive a car now or later doesn't matter as much as the fact that our money helped build the production capacity that makes Germany strong."

Ernst said nothing. Expressing disappointment about undelivered promises, questioning resource allocation priorities, demanding civilian production over military preparation—all of it had become dangerous.

Klaus Weber, whose factory was now operating around the clock producing aircraft for something called "Case White," understood that his expertise in military production was both more valuable and more dangerous than civilian manufacturing skills had ever been. His technical knowledge made him essential to German strategic planning, but it also made him a security risk who required constant surveillance and control.

"We're building the most advanced military equipment in the world," Klaus told his wife during one of their carefully worded conversations about his work. "German engineering is creating weapons systems that will guarantee German success in any conflict."

But Klaus also knew that the weapons systems he was building were designed for offensive operations rather than defensive purposes, that production schedules assumed conflicts would begin within months rather than years, and that German military planning was based on achieving quick victories using overwhelming technological superiority rather than preparing for extended defensive warfare.

The knowledge was both exciting and terrifying. Klaus took professional pride in contributing to German military capability, but he also understood that his work was preparing Germany for aggressive war rather than defensive readiness. The aircraft he was building would be used to attack other countries, and his technical expertise was serving conquest rather than protection.

Otto Brenner's metalworking shop had been completely converted to military production by the summer of 1939. His contracts specified components for tanks that would be used in the invasion of Poland, artillery that would support German offensive operations, and equipment designed for rapid movement and aggressive deployment rather than defensive positioning.

"We're making equipment for the most powerful military force in the world," Otto told Liesel as they reviewed contracts that would keep his expanded workshop operating at capacity through the end of the year and beyond. "Whatever happens internationally, German military superiority will protect German prosperity."

But Otto's prosperity was now completely dependent on military production, and he understood that German military superiority would only be tested through actual warfare. The success of his business required conflicts that would justify the massive military buildup he was supporting through his production, and peace would threaten his livelihood more than war would threaten his safety.

As September approached and international tensions escalated over Poland, German families found themselves committed to an economic system that required war to justify its existence.

The choice had been made gradually, through thousands of small decisions that had seemed reasonable at the time. Ersatz products because they were available. Military employment because it paid well. Controlled consumption because it was presented as temporary.

By the summer of 1939, Ernst Müller understood that his family's six-year journey from desperate unemployment to controlled prosperity had been preparation for something much larger than economic recovery.

The Volkswagen savings book lay in Ernst's kitchen drawer. The choice between butter and guns had been made.