During WW2 many advance major industrialized powers(Germany,USSR,USA) was devoting up to 40% of its GDP to the war and had %5-%10 of its population under arms at the height of the war.


But does anyone know what was the level of militarization of Germany pre poland invasion in 1939?

What was the percentage of population under arms and how much of the economic production was devoted to military fields?

Hard to tell because the rearmament programme was supposed to be secret before the withdrawal from the League of Nation and other treaies, but a large part of the so called re-vitalization plan of the Nazi relied on the rearmament programme.

I am unable to recall the figures off the top of my head, but there is an excellent book about the economic history of the Third Reich that covers this topic in detail. It is quite a good book and I highly recommend it.

Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy by Adam Tooze

Undoubtedly the best work on this subject is "The Ultimate Enemy - British Intelligence and Nazi Germany 1933-1939" by Wesley Wark. The ISBN is 1 85043 014 4

It looks at the British Intelligence gathering effort against Nazi Germany during this time. There were several agencies collecting at that time, and their assessments varied. It also forms some views about the total amount of industrial capacity dedicated to military production prior to the war.