The blue line is modern Germany. It sits below the 1934 column. Nazi Germany passed today’s German defence burden in the second year of rearmament, and then kept going for another five.

Source. Richard Overy, The Origins of the Second World War (Longman, 1987), Table 1, p. 48 — military expenditure as a percentage of national income, fiscal years beginning 1 April. Overy’s own source for the German series is his article in the Economic History Review 32 (1979), p. 113. Modern figure: SIPRI, April 2026.

The German figures are contested because much of Hitler’s rearmament was deliberately kept off the books through Mefo bills. Hans-Erich Volkmann, writing in the official German history Germany and the Second World War, notes that data on Third Reich armament spending “vary considerably”, because the true total includes public and private investment as well as Wehrmacht costs. Published estimates for 1938 range from 14.6% to 20%.